Page:Czech Folk Tales.pdf/151

Rh more ado. The two officers and the drummer left that inn for another, and so they went on spending their money recklessly in one drinking-house after another. The drummer went with the other two, but he was more careful than they were. He was not such a spendthrift as the two officers.

They asked him where he meant to go.

"Wherever you go, I will go too," he replied.

"Then why don't you join us and lead a gay life?"

"That I can't do until I know where to find the princesses."

They invited him to join them, but he refused to do it.

At last they bought some bread and other food, and they all set out together on their journey. They came to a dark forest, and for a fortnight they searched it through and through, but they could find nothing. They couldn't find their way out of the forest either, so they agreed that one of them should climb to the top of the highest tree to see which way they ought to go. The drummer, being the youngest, climbed up a pine-tree. He called out: