Whereupon a noise like thunder shook it from top to bottom , fire broke out , and in a few minutes a little heap of ashes lay in the place where it had stood . Not knowing quite what to make of it all , the boy continued on the trail , and went down the right-hand fork till he came to the clump of bushes where the bears used to hide . Now , as was plain by his being able to change the shape of the two brothers , the bear chief knew a good deal of magic , and he was quite aware that the little boy was following the trail , and he sent a very small but clever bear servant to wait for him in the bushes and to try to tempt him into the mountain . But somehow his spells could not have worked properly that day , as the bear chief did not know that Redmouth had gone with his master , or he would have been more careful . For the moment the dog ran round the bushes barking loudly , the little bear servant rushed out in a fright , and set out for the mountains as fast as he could . The dog followed the bear , and the boy followed the dog , until the mountain , the house of the great bear chief , came in sight . But along the road the snow was so wet and heavy that the boy could hardly get along , and then the thong of his snow-shoes broke , and he had to stop and mend it , so that the bear and the dog got so far ahead that he could scarcely hear the barking . When the strap was firm again the boy spoke to his snow-shoes and said : ` Now you must go as fast as you can , or , if not , I shall lose the dog as well as the bear . ' And the snow-shoes sang in answer that they would run like the wind . As he came along , the bear chief 's sister was looking out of the window , and took pity on this little brother , as she had on the two elder ones , and waited to see what the boy would do , when he found that the bear servant and the dog had already entered the mountain . The little brother was certainly very much puzzled at not seeing anything of either of the animals , which had vanished suddenly out of his sight . He paused for an instant to think what he should do next , and while he did so he fancied he heard Redmouth 's voice on the opposite side of the mountain . With great difficulty he scrambled over steep rocks , and forced a path through tangled thickets ; but when he reached the other side the sound appeared to start from the place from which he had come . Then he had to go all the way back again , and at the very top , where he stopped to rest , the barking was directly beneath him , and he knew in an instant where he was and what had happened . ` Let my dog out at once , bear chief ! ' cried he . ` If you do not , I shall destroy your palace . ' But the bear chief only laughed , and said nothing . The boy was very angry at his silence , and aiming one of his arrows at the bottom of the mountain , shot straight through it . As the arrow touched the ground a rumbling was heard , and with a roar a fire broke out which seemed to split the whole mountain into pieces .
The bear chief and all his servants were burnt up XXXXX the flames , but his sister and all that belonged to her were spared because she had tried to save the two elder boys from punishment .
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