"Do the mountain ash berries belong to my father, too, I wonder?" said Joseph aloud. The trees could not answer him, and there was no human being near to give him any information. A fox appeared on the path in the thicket, and stared at the boy. No doubt he was puzzled to make out what such a singular apparition could be: he stood for some moments immoveable, watching the boy, till the latter cried out, "Get along!" And off trotted the fox, but in no hurry, and little Joseph again exclaimed, "Yes, grandfather, it is just as you said, for now I saw it myself,--the fox drags his tail after him on the ground, to brush away the marks of his paws, that no one may know which way he is gone. How clever of him!" Magpies chattered from the tops of the trees, and a crossbill was perched on a projecting bit of rock, just above the valley; and the boy nodded to it, and the bird nodded too: he did not say a word, but he only opened and shut his beak, as if he wished to say, "I am hungry." "There's something for you!" cried little Joseph, flinging down the ravine the only bit of bread he had left. The bird, no doubt, supposed that it was a stone thrown at him, for he flew away timidly, and the piece of bread was buried in the snow, so no one got a share of it. Joseph went on quietly, resting sometimes under a tree, and sometimes under a projecting rock, amusing himself by watching how the snow fell in such thick showers, and yet so softly, covering everything more and more. "My father must take me a drive in a sledge tomorrow," thought Joseph; and, thinking of his father, he wandered further and further. Twilight was beginning to fall, and the boy felt rather frightened, but he still went straight on; and it was lucky for him that Schilder-David had guarded him from all the prevalent superstitions of the country. Still Haespele had told him that the souls of the dead danced in churchyards at night, in the shape of lights, and often in the wood besides; and the rider on the gallant grey, who rides through the air, can crack his whip famously, for he has a fir tree as tall as the church steeple for a whip. There is the stone cross at the side of the road, where once a peasant with his cart and horse fell down the hill; and there sits a raven on the cross. "You are nothing but a raven," said Joseph, throwing a snowball at the bird, who flew away with a croak.