, he picked himself up, passed a heavy hand across his
scratched, smarting face, and turned to see the ram disappearing among
the thickets above the road. His disappointment so overcame his wrath
that he forgot to exercise his vigorous backwoods vocabulary, and
resumed his homeward way with his head full of plans for the
recapture of his prize.

The ram, meanwhile, trailing the length of rope behind him, was
galloping madly through the woods. He was intoxicated with his
freedom. These rough, wild, lonely places seemed to him his home. With
all his love for the wilderness, the instinct which had led him to it
was altogether faulty and incomplete. It supplied him with none of the
needful forest lore. He had no idea of caution. He had no inkling of
fear. He had no conception of the enemies that might lurk in thicket
or hollow. He went crashing ahead as if the green world belonged to
him, and cared not who might hear the brave sound of his going. Now
and then he stepped on the rope, and stumbled; but that was a small
matter.

Through dark strips of forest, over rocky, tangled spaces, across
slopes of burnt barren, his progress was always upward, until, having
traversed several swampy vales and shadowy ravines, toward evening he
came out upon the empty summit of Ringwaak. On the topmost hillock he
took his stand proudly, his massive head and broad, curled horns in
splendid relief against the amber sky.

As he stood, surveying his new realm, a low bleat came to him from a
sheltered hollow close by, and, looking down, he saw a small white ewe
with a new-born lamb nursing under her flank. Here was his new realm
peopled at once. Here were followers of his own kind. He stepped
briskly down from his hillock and graciously accepted the homage of
the ewe, who snuggled up against him as if afraid at the loneliness
and the coming on of night. All night he slept beside the mother and
her young, in the sheltered hollow, and kept no watch because he
feared no foe. But the ewe kept watch, knowing well what perils might
steal upon them in the dark.

As it chanced, however, no midnight prowler visited the summit of
Ringwaak Hill, and the first of dawn found the great ram again at his
post of observation. It is possible that he had another motive besides
his interest in his new, wonderful world. He may have expected the
woodsman to follow and attempt his recapture, and resolved not to be
taken unawares. Whatever his motive, he kept his