Quatta hare pointed out to him where still the
Sulemn[=a]gar gleamed faint and silver above the glistening trees.

So Nod thanked her, went forward a few paces, and stepped back to thank
her again; then set out truly and for good.

He walked very cautiously, spying about him as he went. The red sun
glinted on his cudgel. Once he saw a last night's leopard's track in the
snow. So he roved his eyes aloft as well as to left and right of him,
lest she should be lying in wait, crouched in the branches. A troop of
Skeetoes pelted him with Ukka-nuts. But these, as fast as they threw
them down, he gathered up and put into his bulging pockets, and waved
his cap at them for thanks. They gibbered and mocked at him, and flung
more nuts. "So long as it isn't stones, my long-tailed friends," he said
to himself, "I will not throw back."

After a while he came to where Cullum and Samarak grew so dense amid the
tree-trunks that he could scarcely walk upright. But he determined, as
his mother had bidden him, to keep from stooping on to his fours as long
as ever he could. Tumbling Numnuddies startled him, calling in the air.
And once a clouded vulture with wings at least six cudgels wide dropped
like a stone upon a leafless B[=o][=o]bab-branch, and watched him
gloatingly go limping by.

He sat down in his loneliness and rested, and nibbled one of Mishcha's
nuts. But try as he might, he could not swallow much. When once more he
set out, for a long way some skulking beast which he could not plainly
see stalked through the nodding grasses a few paces distant from him,
but side by side. He flourished his cudgel, and sang softly the
Mulla-mulgars' Journey-Song which Seelem had taught him long ago:

"That one
Alone
Who's dared, and gone
To seek the Magic Wonderstone,
No fear,
Or care,
Or black despair,
Shall heed until his journey's done.

"Who knows
Where blows
The Mulgars' rose,
In valleys 'neath unmelting snows--
All secrets
He
Shall pierce and see,
And walk unharmed where'er he goes."

Whether it was the Wonderstone under his breast-bone, on the sight of
his cudgel, or a distaste for his shrill voice and skinniness, Nod could
not tell, but in a little while, when he stopped a moment to peer
between the thick streamers of Samarak, the secret beast was gone. Day
drew on. He saw no tracks in the snow, except of wild pig and
long-snouted Brackanolls.