78 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
His achievement had given him such a good 
opinion of himself, in fact, that he didn’t even 
whimper when he couldn’t seem to catch the 
others, but only redoubled his efforts, ducking his 
head craftily under low branches and dashing on 
with astonishing speed. At last he did catch 
sight of them, ahead in an open glade in the 
woods, and with a final prance and kick of delight 
he ran panting up to his mother. His father was 
evidently satisfied that they were at least tem- 
porarily safe here, for he was nibbling some hem- 
lock shoots: Not long after, however, they 
moved on, going down a rough, wooded slope of 
the mountain. 
At the bottom of this slope they came suddenly 
upon a strange thing, with a yet stranger odor—a 
kind of roadway (they were familiar with road- 
ways), but with eight shining steel strips nailed 
to it, upon wooden crossbars. With a snort, the 
bull turned tail and began to climb the slope 
again, the rest after him. They had gone but a 
few feet, however, when a tremendous noise 
smote their ears, and turning to see the cause, 
they beheld a terrible monster coming down this 
