ee what
had frightened away the pretty brown bird.

At first he could see nothing. But to his sensitive little nerves came
a feeling that something was there. Gradually his eyes, accustoming
themselves to the gloom, began to disentangle substance and shadow.
Then suddenly he detected the form of a gray crouching animal. He saw
its tufted ears, its big round face, with mouth half open grinningly.
Its great, round, pale, yellow green eyes were staring straight at
him.

In his fright the Kid dropped his toadstool and stared back at the
gray animal. His first impulse was to turn and run; but, somehow, he
was afraid to do that--afraid to turn his back on the pale-eyed,
crouching shape. As he gazed, trembling, he saw that the animal looked
like a huge gray cat.

[Illustration: "IN HIS FRIGHT THE KID DROPPED HIS TOADSTOOL AND STARED
BACK AT THE GRAY ANIMAL."]

At this thought he felt a trifle reassured. Cats were kind, and nice
to play with. A big cat wouldn't hurt him, he felt quite sure of that.
But when, after a minute or two of moveless glaring, the big cat,
never taking its round eyes from his face, began to creep straight
toward him, stealthily, without a sound, then his terror all came
back. In the extremity of his fear he burst out crying, not very loud,
but softly and pitifully, as if he hardly knew what he was doing. His
little hands hanging straight down at his sides, his head bent
slightly forward, he stood helplessly staring at this strange,
terrible cat creeping toward him through the thicket.

* * * * *

Sonny, meanwhile, had grown uneasy the moment the Kid climbed through
the bars into the pasture. The Kid had never gone into the pasture
before. Sonny got up, turned round, and lay down in such a position
that he could see just what the child was doing. He knew the little
one belonged to Joe Barnes; and he could not let anything belonging to
Joe Barnes get lost or run away. When the Kid reached the edge of the
woods and stood looking through the fence, then Sonny roused himself,
and started up the pasture in a leisurely, indifferent way, as if it
was purely his own whim that took him in that direction. He pretended
not to see the Kid at all. But in reality he was watching, with an
anxious intentness, every move the little one made. He was determined
to do his duty by Joe Barnes.

But when at last the Kid wriggled through the fence and darted into
the gloom of t