The peasant looked sharply round.
"He was here even when the High Noble drew up. There is the hatchet and the wood he was chopping. Ivanka! Ivanka! He has hidden himself, the rascal."
The Prince laughed.
"Ivanka Ivanka!" almost shrieked the peasant. "I will teach you to run and hide when the High Nobility come from far and near to see you! By all the saints, if you do not instantly come forth from your hiding-hole and relate the whole occurrence to the Noble Prince, I will break every bone in your body!"
Then it was that a coat of sheep's skin that just cleared the ground emerged from behind the hut and moved slowly over the trodden snow to within a few paces of the Prince. You could only tell by the shining eyes and the tip of a small red nose that peeped between the high stand-up collar that inside of it was a small boy.
Where he stood the blood-red sun bathed him in heroic glory. Yet, in spite of all, Ivanka the Wolf-Slayer had the mien of a fruit-stealing culprit before the Chinovnik. The Prince regarded him with mock severity.
"What is this I hear of you, Ivanka?" he began. "They say that you have slain a wolf!"
Ivanka would have hung his head but that his collar prevented it. So he dropped his eyes in guilty silence. The peasant, behind the Prince's back, rubbed his hands and chuckled.
"Come here," commanded the Prince, his moustached lip twitching with a whimsical smile.
The coat moved to the Prince's feet. Then the small boy inside it felt himself caught up in strong arms and borne into the hut.