the twin balls
of green fire were gone. In a moment they appeared again, a little
farther away. Then a second time they were gone, and a third time they
flashed back at him--so distant they appeared like needle-points in the
darkness. Something stupendous rose up in Peter. It was the soul of his
Airedale father, telling him the other thing was running away! And in
the joy of triumph Peter let out a yelp. In that night-infested place,
alive with hiding things, the yelp set loose weird rustlings in the
tangled treetops, strange murmurings of chortling voices, and the nasty
snapping of beaks that held in them the power to rend Peter's skinny
body into a hundred bits. From deeper in the thicket came the sudden
crash of a heavy body, and with it the chuckling notes of a porcupine,
and a _hoo-hoo-hoo-ee_ of startled inquiry that at first Peter took for a
human voice. And again he lay shivering close to the foot-deep carpet
of needles under him, while his heart thumped against his ribs, and his
whiskers stood out in mortal fear. There followed a weird and appalling
silence, and in that stillness Peter quested vainly for the sunlight he
had lost. And then, indistinctly, but bringing with it a new thrill, he
heard another sound. It was a soft and distant rippling of running
water. He knew that sound. It was friendly. He had played among the
rocks and pebbles and sand where it was made. His courage came back,
and he rose up on his legs, and made his way toward it. Something
inside him told him to go quietly, but his feet were big and clumsy,
and half a dozen times in the next two minutes he stumbled on his nose.
At last he came to the stream, scarcely wider than a man might have
reached across, rippling and plashing its way through the naked roots
of trees. And ahead of him Peter saw light. He quickened his pace,
until at the last he was running when he came out into the edge of the
meadowy plain, with its sweetness of flowers and green grass and song
of birds, and its glory of blue sky and sun.

If he had ever been afraid, Peter forgot it now. The choking went out
of his throat, his heart fell back in its place, and the fierce
conviction that he had vanquished everything in the world possessed
him. He peered back into the dark cavern of evergreen out of which the
streamlet gurgled, and then trotted straight away from it, growling
back his defiance as he ran. At a safe distance he stopped, and faced
about. Nothing was following