crashing through the great limbs of the trees beyond Umpl and Sptz
with a huge rushing roar, and when it struck the earth the ground
trembled for half a mile around, especially as it glanced from a ledge
after diving deep in the soil, and came leaping out of the soil again
only to fall with a thud a rod or two away.

It is hard to say whether Umpl or Sptz was the more frightened. Umpl
thought of nothing but dragons, and was scared white. Sptz was whiter
to begin with, as she lived more in the cave underground, and now that
she thought the sky was falling she could think of nothing else. But
she was the first to find out that they were not dead after all. Then
she gave a start, and sniffed eagerly. She smelt something.

Jumping up on the log she looked around, and--no, it couldn't be! but
it was, though--fire. Real fire! Smoking away merrily among the dead
leaves where a bit of molten star had been scraped off by a tree trunk
and had fallen. Sptz flew to it like a bird. In no time, more dead
leaves were heaped around the light flame; with a shout of joy Umpl
rushed to a windfall and brought an armful of wood, and soon a royal
fire was sending out light and heat, beautifully nickering upward
among the trees. Umpl knew what to do now as well as any one. He
hunted up two pitchy sticks and set them both alight. Then he held
them before him, crossed like a pair of scissors, with the flame where
the joint was; and in that way he kept them both alight, burning each
other up, until they reached home. And then--what a royal supper they
had!

I might tell you many more things about Umpl and Sptz. For instance,
how they went to the place again in after days and found the piece of
the fallen star, broken into several pieces. And how Sptz found that