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260 teeth and smiling. "Fool!" she said. "Why dost thou not offer me something to eat and drink? Canst thou not see that I am famished?"

"The food that I have cooked," he replied, "is for my comrades, not for thee!"

The old witch snatched up her pestle and sprang upon him, thinking to treat him as she had the others, but he seized her by her gray locks, grasped his iron club, and began to beat her till even her witch's body suffered tortures and she howled for mercy. He stayed not his hand, however, till she was half dead. Then he threw her into a cupboard and locked the door.

Presently the three giants returned, expecting, each one of them, to find Little Bear's-Son well beaten and their supper gone. But he welcomed them, bade them sit down and brought from the oven foods of all sorts, deliciously cooked and in plenty. The giants ate and drank their fill, each one saying to himself: "Surely the Baba-Yaga did not come to our brother to-day!"

When the supper was ended, Little Bear's-Son heated the bath for his comrades and all went to bathe. Now, because the witch had cut the strips of flesh from their backs, each of the three giants tried to stand always with his face toward Little