So just as the lad had done throwing the ox-hides, with the spikes, over Dapplegrim, and had cast down the tar-barrel on the plain, and had got well up into the spruce-fir, up galloped a horse, with fire flashing out of its nostrils, and the flame caught the tar-barrel at once. Then Dapplegrim and the strange horse began to fight till the stones flew heaven-high. They fought and bit and kicked, both with fore feet and hind feet, and sometimes the lad could see them, and sometimes he couldn't; but at last the flame began to rise; for wherever the strange horse kicked or bit, he met the spiked hides, and at last he had to yield. When the lad saw that, he wasn't long getting down from the tree and in throwing the bridle over its head, and then it was so tame you could hold it with a pack-thread. And what do you think--that horse was dappled, too, and so like Dapplegrim, you couldn't tell which was which. Then the lad bestrode the new Dapple he had won, and rode home to the palace, and old Dapplegrim ran loose by his side. So when he got home, there stood the king out in the yard. "Can you tell me, now," said the lad, "which is the horse I have caught and broken, and which is the one I had before? If you can't, I think your daughter is fairly mine." Then the king went and looked at both Dapples, high and low, before and behind, but there wasn't a hair on one which wasn't on the other as well. "No," said the king, "that I can't; and since you've got my daughter such a grand horse for her wedding, you shall have her with all my heart. But still we'll have one trial more, just to see whether you're fated to have her. First, she shall hide herself twice, and then you shall hide yourself twice. If you can find out her hiding-place, and she can't find out yours, why, then, you're fated to have her, and so you shall have her." "That's not in the bargain, either," said the lad; "but we must try, since it must be so;" and so the Princess went off to hide herself first. So she turned herself into a duck, and lay swimming on a pond that was close to the palace. But the lad only ran down to the stable, and asked Dapplegrim what she had done with herself. "Oh, you only need take your gun," said Dapplegrim, "and go down to the brink of the pond, and aim at the duck which lies swimming about there, and she'll soon show herself." So the lad snatched his gun and ran off to the pond. "I'll just take a pop at this duck," he said, and began to aim at it. "Nay, nay, dear friend, don't shoot. It's I," said the Princess. So he found her once. The second time the Princess turned herself into a loaf of bread, and laid herself on the table amongst four other loaves; and so like was she to the others, no one could say which was which. But the lad went again down to the stable to Dapplegrim, and said how the Princess had hidden herself again, and he couldn't tell at all what had become of her.