Page:The Wonderful Adventures of Nils.djvu/82

56 moved about, until one corner of it touched the shore. Now it happened that Mr. Smirre Fox, who lived at this time in Övid Cloister Park—on the east side of the lake—caught a glimpse of that one corner, while he was out on his night chase. Smirre had seen the wild geese early in the evening, and hadn't dared to hope that he might get at one of them, but now he walked right out on the ice.

When Smirre was very near to the geese, his claws scraped the ice, and the geese awoke, flapped their wings, and prepared for flight. But Smirre was too quick for them. He darted forward as though he'd been shot; grabbed a goose by the wing, and ran toward land again.

But this night the wild geese were not alone on the ice, for they had a human being among them—little as he was. The boy had awakened when the goosey-gander spread his wings. He had tumbled down on the ice and was sitting there, dazed. He hadn't grasped the whys and wherefores of all this confusion, until he caught sight of a little long-legged dog who ran over the ice with a goose in his mouth.