"If you can pass the test, we will admit you," they said at last. "Notice our eyes—we must be ever watchful; our ears—they are constantly on guard! Can you smell an enemy even against the wind? Can you detect his footfall before he is near?"
Unktomee passed the test and was finally admitted to the company of the Elks; in fact, he was made the chief of them all, for such he wanted to be.
"Now," said they, "we have made you our leader. You must guide us so that we shall be safe from the hunters!"
Proud of his long limbs and of his stately antlers, he led them all down the hill, running back now and then to urge the hindermost ones into line. When they stopped to rest, he lay down a little apart from the others, under a spreading oak.
Suddenly they all sprang up and fled, for Unktomee had cried out to them:
"Fly! fly! I am struck by an arrow!"
But when no hunter appeared, they were provoked, and grumbled among themselves:
"Unktomee is deceiving us; it was only a stick that fell from the tree!"
Then they all lay down a second time, and a second time the Elks were aroused in vain. They were still more displeased, and said to one another:
"It was only an acorn that fell upon him while he slept!"