As Rip and his companion came out from the cleft, the little men suddenly stopped their game, which they had played in dead silence and without seeming in the least to enjoy it. They turned and looked at the stranger, and Rip felt his blood run cold and his knees knock together. _Why_ he could not have told, except that their faces had a queer, fixed expression such as he had never seen on the face of any living being. But no time was allowed him to indulge in these thoughts, for his companion signed to him to fill some big flagons which stood on one side, from the keg they had carried. When the players had emptied the flagons, they went back to their game, seeming as melancholy as before. After a while Rip began to grow a little less frightened, and he even ventured, when no one was observing him, to take a good draught out of the keg himself. As soon as he had done so, his eyes and head became very heavy, and he fell down where he stood, sunk in a deep sleep. * * * * * It was bright and sunny when Rip woke, lying curled up comfortably on the green knoll from which he had first beheld the old man climbing up the path. The birds were twittering in the bushes and hopping round him, and high up over the tops of the mountains an eagle was soaring. 'Have I really slept here all night?' he said to himself. 'Oh, dear, how angry my wife will be!' Then he sat up, and there rushed into his mind the cleft in the rocks and the little men playing ninepins. 'It was the flagon which was my undoing,' said he. Scrambling to his feet, he looked about for his gun, but in place of the well-kept weapon, with its shining barrel (the only thing on which Rip ever bestowed any care), he saw an old, rusty firelock, with the wooden stock eaten by worms and falling away. 'Why they have been playing tricks on me and changed my gun!' he exclaimed, 'though they _did_ look so solemn; but what has become of Wolf? Gone after a squirrel, I suppose,' and he whistled loudly to call him back. But whistle as Rip might, for the first time he heard no bark in answer. 'Oh, well! he will come home when he is tired. I'll go back to that curious place, and tell them I must have my own gun.' But as Rip moved to climb the path he felt his legs stiff, and was obliged to go slowly.