At that moment the twenty thousand archers twanged their bow strings and the arrows came whizzing like so many mosquitoes. Hercules gazed around, for he hardly felt the arrows. At last, looking narrowly at the ground, he espied the Pygmies at his feet. He stooped down and taking up the nearest one between his thumb and finger, set him on the palm of his left hand and looked at him. "Who in the world, my little fellow, are you?" Hercules asked. "I am your enemy," answered the Pygmy. "You have slain the Giant, Antaeus, our brother by our mother's side, and we are determined to put you to death." Hercules was so amused by the Pygmy's big words and warlike gestures that he burst into laughter and almost dropped the poor little mite of a creature off his hand. "Upon my word," he said, "I thought I had seen wonders before to-day, hydras with many heads, three headed dogs, and giants with furnaces in their stomachs, but you outdo them all. Your body, my little friend, is about the size of an ordinary man's finger. Pray, how big may your soul be?" "As big as your own," said the Pygmy. Hercules was amazed at the little man's courage, and so he left the Pygmies, one and all, in their own country, building their little houses, waging their little warfare with the cranes, and doing their little business whatever it might have been. FOOTNOTE: [2] By permission of and special arrangement with the Houghton Mifflin Co. THE HORN OF PLENTY. Dejanira was one of the most beautiful of princesses who lived in the long ago days of the Greek gods and goddesses. It seemed as if all the charm of the world in this, its myth time, was hers. Her hair was bright with the yellow of the first spring sunshine, and her eyes were as blue as the skies of spring. Summer had touched Dejanira's cheeks with the pink of rose petals, and the colors of the autumn fruits shone in her jewels, crimson and purple and gold. Her robes were as white and soft as the snows of winter, and all the music of soft winds and bird songs and rippling brooks was in this princess' voice. Because of her beauty and her goodness, which even surpassed it, princes came from all over the world to ask Dejanira's father, Aeneus, if she might go home to their kingdoms to be their queen. But to all these Aeneus replied that to none but the strongest would he give the princess. So there were many tests of these strangers' skill and strength in games and wrestling, but one by one they failed. At last there were only two left, Hercules who was strong enough to hold the sky on his broad shoulders, and Achelous, the river-god, who twisted and twined through the fields making them fertile with the brooks and the streams. Each thought himself the greater of the two, and it lay between them which by his prowess should gain the princess to be his wife.