ondle the pretty leopard, thus terminating his
natural history researches before they were fairly begun.

It can be understood, then, that a moment ensued when the little boy
wavered under the steady questioning scrutiny of eight large and powerful
cows, all chewing at him in unison. Yet, even so, and knowing, moreover,
that strange cows are ever untrustworthy, only for a moment did he waver.
Then his new straw hat was off to be shaken at them and he heaved a fierce
"_H-a-y--y-u-p!_"

At this they started, rather indignantly, seeming to meditate his swift
destruction; but another shout turned and routed them, and he even chased
them a little way, helped now by the inconsiderable dog who came up from
pretending to hunt gophers.

After this there seemed nothing to do but eat the other half of the
provisions and retire again for the night. Long after the sun went down
behind the magic wood he lay uneasily on his lumpy bed, trying again and
again to shut his eyes and open them to find it morning--which was the way
it always happened in the west bedroom of the big house he had left
forever.

But it was different here. And presently, when it seemed nearly dark
except for the stars, a disgraceful thing happened. He had pictured the
dog as faithful always to him, refusing in the end even to be taken from
over his dead body. But the treacherous Penny grew first restive, then
plainly desirous of returning to his home. At last, after many efforts to
corrupt the adventurer, he started off briskly alone--cornerwise, as
little dogs seem always to run--fleeing shamelessly toward that east
where shone the tame lights of Virtue.

Left alone, the little boy began strangely to remember certain phrases
from a tract that Clytie had tried to teach him--"the moment that will
close thy life on earth and begin thy song in heaven or thy wail in
hell"--"impossible to go from the haunts of sin and vice to the presence
of the Lamb"--"the torments of an eternal hell are awaiting thee"--

"To-night may be thy latest breath,
Thy little moment here be done.
Eternal woe, the second death,
Awaits the Christ-rejecting one."

This was more than he had ever before been able to recall of such matters.
He wished that he might have forgotten them wholly. Yet so was he turned
again to better things. Gradually he began to have an inkling of a
possibility that made his blood icy--a possibility that not even the
spectacle of Milo Barrus having