Then something happened. Oh, my, what a scuffle there was for the next few minutes! Goodness me! The air was full of funny squawky noises and feathers were flying here and there and everywhere! For no sooner had Hungry Hawk flown around the big rock to catch the little Mountain Goat than the Circus Elephant reached out his long trunk, catching by the neck that wicked bird before he could turn away.
Goodness me! again. How Hungry Hawk flapped his wings and wiggled his tail and clawed with his long hooked toes! But that didn’t do a bit of good. Dear me, no! It only made matters worse, for the harder he struggled the more the Elephant swung him around until, goodness knows, he would have lost every feather if he hadn’t begged in a squeaky, stifled voice to be allowed to sit down and talk matters over.
“Talk matters over?” grunted the Elephant, holding on to the tip of the old hawk’s tail, “what’s the use? I’m going to take Little Jack Rabbit home with me. As for you, I’ve a good notion to whack your head against the rock till you see stars and comets.”
“Oh, please don’t,” begged Hungry Hawk, “I’ve had enough banging for a year. I’ll give you Little Jack Rabbit and a cigar coupon if you’ll let me go.”
“Come along with me till I see if the little bunny is safe and well,” answered the big circus animal, and he and the little Mountain Goat walked over to the old hawk’s nest. There stood poor little Jack Rabbit tied fast to a ring in the big rock. He was so glad to see his dear friend the Elephant that he almost cried—maybe he did shed a tear or three and perhaps four.
Well, sir. Troubles weren’t over, just the same. For now they all had to climb down the high, steep and straight mountain side.
“Get on my back, little bunny,” said the kind Circus Elephant. “I’ll go down backwards the same as I came up frontwards, only different.”
Then the little Mountain Goat braced his forefeet against the rock and the big elephant took hold of the lasso, the loop end of which was over the little goat’s horns, you know, and down the side of the steep mountain slid the big animal, first one foot, then two, then three and finally four, and when he reached the end of the rope he waited for the little Mountain Goat to come down, and then they started all over again. The little Mountain Goat braced his feet against the rock and the big elephant took hold of the rope and slid and slid and scrambled and scrambled, or jiggled and rumbled, down and down, until he came to the end of the long lasso.
“My goodness meebus, that was a high mountain,” gasped the Circus Elephant, when at last his hind feet touched the level meadow. “Really, I thought I’d never get down.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” laughed the little Mountain Goat, shaking his head till the lasso fell off his horns. “I run up and down sometimes three times a day.”