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