“‘Not a word out of you,’ warned the mouth.
“‘Swish, swish,’ from side to side went the nose.
“Tighter and tighter squeezed the two ponderous posts!
“And, meanwhile, the voices of those who had left me behind grew fainter and fainter and fainter, until, finally, I could hear them no more.
“‘Now, then,’ said the mouth, as the posts, which were really two legs, drew apart; and the nose, more correctly a trunk, reached back and lifted me to a place in the light, ‘now you may make as much noise as you please.’
“And, looking up, I found myself gazing into the good-humored face of an elephant of marvelous size.”
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH DAN LEARNS OF PEANUTS AND THINGS
“At first my captor merely appealed to me as the merriest-eyed elephant I had ever seen—and surely the largest. But I soon discovered that he had a way of going about matters in a most business-like manner. Thus he immediately began to plan for the two of us.
“‘Now, then,’ said he, ‘we will leave this rather public place and go to my private apartment. So if you will just hop to the top of my third toe—yes, the right foot will do—and place your arm about my knee—ah! that is the way—we will proceed.’
“And so, I clinging tightly to the big fellow’s leg—a great deal as children sometimes do when they are very small and father’s foot is to be persuaded to give them a ride—we started on our way, the whole of me moving quite like a walking stick when it accompanies its master on a leisurely stroll through the park. On through thicket, grove and tangled foliage we went, and then, quite of a moment, passed between two giant trees which formed the natural doorway leading into a half-inclosed room of the woods. I call it a room because it possessed the entrance just mentioned, a floor entirely free from undergrowth, a raggedy west window outlined with boughs, and a wide-spreading roof fashioned by a gigantic vine.