Stooping, she picked up some hard red bits of shell from the floor. "Crabs' claws! Yes, now I know it's the same. Don't you know the story says, 'the best of food was cooked for poor Hänsel, but Gretel received nothing to eat but crabs' claws.'"
The gander walked into the cage and looked it over carefully. "Mistress, I believe I can get rid of the wolf," he said.
"In this way," and the gander began to tell his scheme, while the little girl listened eagerly. "Yes, yes," she cried; "that might do. And I'm to hide in the cupboard while you open the door. Yes, and then to slip out and fasten the lock. Yes, I'll do it."
After they had their plan all arranged Ellen did as she said. She tiptoed across the floor and hid herself in the closet.
The gander waited until she was safely settled and all was quiet, and then he waddled over to the house door and peeped out through the keyhole. There at the foot of the steps sat the wolf, his red tongue hanging out over his long white teeth, his fierce eyes fixed on the house.
Suddenly with a rattle and noise the gander unbolted the door and flung it open. Like a flash the wolf bounded up and into the house. He gave a glance about him. Ellen was not to be seen, because she was hiding in the cupboard, but there was the plump white gander. It had flown away from the door as if in a great fright and into the cage. "Just where it is easy to catch you!" cried the wolf, as he bounded into the cage in pursuit of it, every tooth in his head showing.
The gander, however, was not to be so easily caught as the wolf had thought. In a moment it spread its wings and flew up over his head, while at the same time Ellen slipped out of the cupboard and shut the cage door, turning the key, tick-a-lock.
There was the wolf safely fastened behind the iron bars, but the gander flew out over the top of the cage and alighted on the floor at Ellen's side. "Come, Mistress," he said, "the way is clear now, and we can journey on as soon as we choose."
How the wicked old wolf did howl and threaten! But it was no good. Ellen and the gander let him make all the noise he chose, but they left him there. All they would do was to promise to send the first woodsman they met in the woods to take charge of the cruel old Gray-coat.