Instead, from year to year it entranced him ever more.

*  *  *

Old Peter was in the barn milking the cow.

“Yes, Lisa. It won’t be long before you’re calving.”

The brown cow turned her wide-browed head to him, a question in her large eyes.

Peter said again, “Yes, Lisa, soon. Very soon now.”

The cow lowed softly.

“Now you can go out in the sun,” Peter said. “It’ll do you good.”

Lisa moved off with her slow lumbering gait, stopping for a moment in the doorway. She managed a little leap over the doorsill and ambled off laboriously.

The Persian tomcat looked with interest at Peter who was pouring some milk out of the pail into a saucer on the floor. “There you are, Shah,” Peter told him. “Your share.”

The cat stepped up to the saucer with dignity. He sat down close to it and lapped daintily, with affectation but without greed.

“It takes people who can admire spirit to appreciate a cat,” Peter thought. “That Shah is a free, wild creature. He doesn’t allow himself to be ordered around. He defends himself, and he gives his friendship only to those who deserve it.”

Out of the wall trough Peter fetched a small piece of raw meat which he had prepared beforehand. In a low inviting tone he called, “Gentle guest, where are you?”

From a dark corner up under the roof a great gray owl flew soundlessly down to perch on the partition dividing the stable. Though the clapping of her beak sounded threatening, her melancholy eyes were very soft. She took the little piece of meat cautiously.

“Is it good?” Peter asked. He waited until the owl swallowed the morsel, then picked her up and held her like a baby. Gently he scratched the delicate breast feathers. She seemed to enjoy the caress.

Peter thought how long it had been before the owl began to trust him and grew so tame that they could become friends. “A cat and an owl—” he said to himself; “they are both mysterious and both have dangerous enemies.” He patted the bird in his arms again. Then he released her and she flew back to her hidden corner. When he went out of the barn with the milk pail, the Persian cat followed him, found a place in the sun and stretched out to sleep.

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Chapter 5

TAMBO HAD RUBBED THE VELVET off his antlers, as the wise stags did every year.

He could not see how richly pearled they were, nor how their twelve points glistened like ivory. But he knew his crown was beautiful, and the knowledge filled him with pride and strength.

Ever since his birth he had acted in obedience to his inner urge. He did not understand this whispering of instinct, but he obeyed it faithfully. It had guided him while he had still been with his mother, and also after he had left her and had ranged around alone, a young stag with only the beginnings of horns. During the mating seasons of several years, too, these inner whisperings had told him that he must hide humbly from the Kings, and not arouse their jealousy by wooing does who belonged to the great stags’ harems.

Finally had come his courageous struggle for self-assertion. At first he had been defeated by other stags, though by no means shamefully. He had never lost his confidence in himself and had known that some day soon he would conquer, once and for all. No longer timid, he continued to put forth his claim to rule.

In the next year, after a short but furious struggle, Tambo had wounded his opponent and put him to flight. And so the mighty warrior became the ruling stag. His boldly won position was not contested.

Now Tambo walked alone.

He came into the open only when darkness was complete and then only in out-of-the-way places. He grazed here and there, but never twice in succession in the same clearing or meadow.