ckground a family of three bears danced so awkwardly that Bo was
inclined to laugh.

"We will teach them to do better than that when we get our colony," he
said.

Horatio nodded without pausing. The dancers separated, each group to
itself, the gray panther in the foreground. Spellbound, the boy watched
the beautiful swaying creature. He had been taught to fear the
"painter," as it was called in Arkansaw, but he had no fear now. He
almost felt that he must himself step out into that enchanted circle and
join in the weird dance.

New arrivals stole constantly out of the darkness to mingle in the
merrymaking. A little way apart a group of rabbits skipped wildly
together, while near them a party of capering wolves had forgotten their
taste for blood. Two plump 'coons and a heavy bodied 'possum, after
trying in vain to keep up with the others, were content to sit side by
side and look on. Other friends, some of whom the boy did not know,
slipped out into the magic circle, and, after watching the others for a
moment, leaped madly into the revel. The instinct of the old days had
claimed them when the wild beasts of the forest and the wood nymphs trod
measures to the pipes of Pan. The boy leaned close to the player.

"The rest of it!" he whispered. "Play the rest of it!"

"I am afraid. They have never heard it before."

"Play it! Play it!" commanded Bo, excitedly.

There was a short, sharp pause at the end of the next bar, then a sudden
wild dash into the second half of the tune. The prancing animals stopped
as if by magic. For an instant they stood motionless, staring with eyes
like coals. Then came a great rush forward, the gray panther at the
head. The boy saw them coming, but could not move.

"Sing!" shouted Horatio; "sing!"

For a second the words refused to come. Then they flooded forth in the
moonlight. Bo could sing, and he had never sung as he did now.

[Illustration: Music]

"Oh, our singing, yes our singing, all our friends to us 'tis bringing,
For it sets the woods to ringing, and the forest people know

[Illustration: Music]

That we do not mean to harm them in their dancing, nor alarm them--
We are seeking but to charm them with the sounds of long ago."

[Illustration: THE INSTINCT OF THE OLD DAYS HAD CLAIMED THEM.]

At the first notes of the boy's clear voice the animals hesitated; then
they crept up slowly and gathered about to listen. They did not resume
dancing to this new str