Page:The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.djvu/64

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"The white one is ready to collapse/'

"Tell him that he who has not the strength to fly with the flock, can go back home!" cried the leader. She certainly had no idea of decreasing her speed—but raced on as before.

"Oh! is that the way the wind blows," thought the goosey-gander. He understood at once that the wild geese had never intended to take him along up to Lappland. They had only lured him away from home in sport.

He felt thoroughly exasperated. To think that his strength should fail him now, so he wouldn't be able to show these tramps that even a tame goose was good for something! But the most provoking thing of all was that he had fallen in with Akka from Kebnekaise. Tame goose that he was, he had heard about a leader goose, named Akka, who was more than a hundred years old. She had such a big name that the best wild geese in the world followed her. But no one had such a contempt for tame geese as Akka and her flock, and gladly would he have shown them that he was their equal.

He flew slowly behind the rest, while he