about an hour, during which in spite of the cold the sweat fell
from our foreheads in all directions, the Doctor said,

"Be ready to jump from under, clear out of the way, if she shows signs
of moving. If this slab falls on anybody, it will squash him flatter
than a pancake."

Presently there was a grating, grinding sound.

"Look out!" yelled John Dolittle, "here she comes!--Scatter!"

We ran for our lives, outwards, toward the sides. The big rock slid
gently down, about a foot, into the trough which we had made beneath it.
For a moment I was disappointed, for like that, it was as hopeless
as before--no signs of a cave-mouth showing above it. But as I looked
upward, I saw the top coming very slowly away from the mountainside.
We had unbalanced it below. As it moved apart from the face of the
mountain, sounds of human voices, crying gladly in a strange tongue,
issued from behind. Faster and faster the top swung forward, downward.
Then, with a roaring crash which shook the whole mountain-range beneath
our feet, it struck the earth and cracked in halves.

How can I describe to any one that first meeting between the two
greatest naturalists the world ever knew, Long Arrow, the son of Golden
Arrow and John Dolittle, M.D., of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh? The scene rises
before me now, plain and clear in every detail, though it took place so
many, many years ago. But when I come to write of it, words seem such
poor things with which to tell you of that great occasion.

I know that the Doctor, whose life was surely full enough of big
happenings, always counted the setting free of the Indian scientist
as the greatest thing he ever did. For my part, knowing how much this
meeting must mean to him, I was on pins and needles of expectation and
curiosity as the great stone finally thundered down at our feet and we
gazed across it to see what lay behind.

The gloomy black mouth of a tunnel, full twenty feet high, was revealed.
In the centre of this opening stood an enormous red Indian, seven feet
tall, handsome, muscular, slim and naked--but for a beaded cloth about
his middle and an eagle's feather in his hair. He held one hand across
his face to shield his eyes from the blinding sun which he had not seen
in many days.

"It is he!" I heard the Doctor whisper at my elbow. "I know him by his
great height and the scar upon his chin."

And he stepped forward slowly across the fallen stone with his hand
outstretched to the red man.