‘There was none aforetime,’ said the old man. ‘A dragon was what your folk needed.’ ‘They need him not. But tell me, O you that have so much wandered, and have seen many dragons, tell me how a dragon may be slain!’ ‘Mind your sheep, young shepherd. Let the dragon be. Let not your sheep mourn you.’ ‘They shall not. I shall slay the dragon. Only tell me how! Surely there is a way?’ ‘It is a way that would lead you into his jaws, O fool, and not hurt him. Only through the roof of his mouth can a dragon be pierced and wounded. He opens not his jaws save when they are falling upon his prey. Do they not fall swiftly, O fool?’ ‘O wanderer, yea. But’---- ‘Could you deftly spear the roof of that great mouth, O prey, in that little time?’ ‘Yea, surely, if so the dragon would perish.’ The old man laughed. ‘So would the dragon perish, truly; but so only. So would be heard what few ears have heard--the cry that a dragon utters as he is slain. But so only.’ And he went his way northward. From that day on, Thol did not watch his sheep very much. They, on the other hand, spent most of their time in watching him. They rather thought he was mad, standing in that odd attitude and ever lunging his crook up at one of the nodding boughs of that ash tree. Twice in the course of the autumn the dragon came down the hill; but when the watchman sounded the alarm Thol did not go forth to meet him. He was not what his flock thought him. He had now exchanged his crook for a spear--a straight well-seasoned sapling of oak, with a long sharp head of flint. With this, day by day, hour after hour, he lunged up at the boughs of fruit-trees. His flock, deploring what seemed to them mania, could not but admire his progressive skill. Rarely did he fail now in piercing whatever plum or apple he aimed at. When winter made bare the branches, it was at the branches that Thol aimed his thrusts. His accuracy was unerring now. But he had yet to acquire the trick of combining the act of transfixion with the act of leaping aside. Else would he perish even in victory. Spring came. As usual, her first care was to put blossoms along the branches of such almond trees as were nearest to the marshes. The ever side-leaping Thol pricked off any little single blossom that he chose. * * * * * Spring was still active in the homeland when, one day, a little while before sunset, the watchers of the hill blew their horns. There came from all quarters the usual concourse of young and old, to watch the direction of the dragon and to keep out of it. Down came the familiar great beast, the never-ageing dragon, picking his way into the green valley. And he saw an unwonted sight there. He saw somebody standing quite still on the nearer bank of the stream; a red-haired young person, holding a spear. About this young person he formed a theory which had long been held by certain sheep.