Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/131

 gypsies do to this day. The soldiers of Sertorius could not climb up the steep paths and capture the robbers, who retired like rabbits to their harrows. The general noticed that the clay in that district as light and crumbling and dusty. He also observed that, at certain times, the north wind blew. So he bade his men heap up clay, and stamp on it, and let the horses trample up and down it, until great clouds of dust arose, which was blown by the north wind into the robbers' caves. The hill-folk could scarcely breathe for the dust, and had to surrender.

Once the white hind was lost (for the fawn was now grown into a hind), and Sertorius was in much trouble. Some of his soldiers found her, and brought her to the general. He told these men to say nothing about it, and for a few days he kept the animal in hiding.

He called the Spaniards together for a public meeting about the business of the country. He seemed all smiles.

“I feel sure,” he said to the Spanish chiefs, “that a great good-fortune will happen to me to-day. I have been told so in a dream.”

Just then a servant let the hind loose. It ran out to its master, and licked his right hand. The Spaniards shouted themselves hoarse in their surprise and pleasure!

These tricks do not show Sertorius in the best