Page:Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar.djvu/290

274 been different; we might have taken them. But what is the use of one? You can't walk about with one leg in a boot and the other in a straw shoe."

They thought, and hesitated, and at last walked away, leaving the boot in the road. Senka at once rushed forward, drew on the boot, and then, pulling off the left one, he ran as hard as ever he could behind the bushes until he got some yards in front of the mujiks. He then stopped, and threw the left boot into the road, so that the men could not see what he had done.

"Stop, brothers!" cried one of the mujiks, coming up to the boot. "Here is the other boot! Either the man who lost them was a great idiot, or else he had so many boots that he did not mind losing a pair or so. Now, brothers, for a race! Let us all three run back to the place where we left the other boot, and whoever gets there first shall have them for himself."

They tied the bull up to a tree, and then ran back after the other boot. This was just what Senka the Little had expected; so he rushed out from behind the bushes, put on the boot—which the mujiks had left behind them—and then, untying the bull, drove it on to a marsh, where he cut off its head, and placed it in such a way that any one might have thought that the bull had sunk into the damp ground. This done, he hid the other part of the animal behind the bushes, and waited.

When the mujiks found that their running had all been in vain, and that the first boot had disappeared, they returned to the place where they had left the bull; but what was their surprise to find that the