Page:Russian Wonder Tales.djvu/141

Rh day he desired to ride him. He gave orders, therefore, to saddle him, and mounting, rode to the open steppe. But as he was riding, it chanced that Tzarevich Ivan, far away with Helen the Beautiful, all at once remembered his promise and cried: "Gray Wolf, Gray Wolf, I am thinking of thee!" And at that instant the horse Tzar Dolmat rode threw the Tzar from his back and turned into the Gray Wolf, which ran off more swiftly than a hundred horses.

Tzar Dolmat hastened to the Palace and sent many soldiers in pursuit, but they could not catch the Gray Wolf, and soon he overtook the Horse with the Golden Mane that bore Tzarevich Ivan and the Tzarevna.

"Get down, Tzarevich Ivan," said the Wolf; "mount my back and let Helen the Beautiful ride on the Horse with the Golden Mane."

So Tzarevich Ivan mounted the Gray Wolf and the Tzarevna rode on the Horse with the Golden Mane, and at length they came to the forest where the Wolf had devoured Tzarevich Ivan's horse.

There the Gray Wolf stopped. "Well, Tzarevich Ivan," he said, "I have paid for thy horse, and have served thee in faith and truth. Get down now; I am no longer thy servant."