be asleep, but they moved a little when the two girls came up.

There was also, near by, a reindeer which the robber-girl teased
by tickling it with her long sharp knife.

Gerda lay awake for some time.

'Coo, coo!' said the wood-pigeons. 'We have seen little Kay. A
white bird carried his sledge; he was sitting in the Snow-queen's
carriage which drove over the forest when our little ones were in
the nest. She breathed on them, and all except we two died.
Coo, coo!'

'What are you saying over there?' cried Gerda. 'Where was the
Snow-queen going to? Do you know at all?'

'She was probably travelling to Lapland, where there is always
ice and snow. Ask the reindeer.'

'There is capital ice and snow there!' said the reindeer. 'One
can jump about there in the great sparkling valleys. There the
Snow-queen has her summer palace, but her best palace is up by
the North Pole, on the island called Spitzbergen.'

'O Kay, my little Kay!' sobbed Gerda.

'You must lie still,' said the little robber-girl, 'or else I
shall stick my knife into you!'

In the morning Gerda told her all that the wood-pigeons had said.