“I will, I will!” came the answering cry, and with a neigh from the Horse, a ringing laugh from the Lady and a last paw-wave from Little Black Bear, the three travelers passed through a rift in the wall and were swallowed by the gathering dusk.
“And now,” called out Dan, “it is high time that we, too, were fast disappearing. So away every one of you and, until we gather once more, there’s a treat in the thought of what a story’s in store.”
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH LITTLE BLACK BEAR SPENDS A NIGHT IN THE FOREST
Now when the White-White Horse disappeared through the dusk with the Pretty Lady and Little Black Bear on his back, his feet seemed suddenly shod with wings. Indeed, he traveled so very swiftly that, in telling of it afterward, Little Black Bear was never quite certain that they had not actually skimmed through the air. But—as he always added in conclusion—whether they did or did not made no very great difference. The important point was that even the wind could not have moved faster, so that, in most no time at all, the three of them found themselves at the edge of a very black, and very deep, and very great forest.
“What a wonderful place!” cried Little Black Bear. “Do let us go on into the depths of it!”
“No,” answered the Lady, as she brought the White-White Horse to a halt. “At least I may not go, for I have much else to do. But it is here that you are to alight and set out in quest of your story.”
“Oh, that will be fine,” said Little Black Bear, as he prepared to climb to the ground. And then, hesitating for a moment, he added, “But how am I to get back to the menagerie tent?”
“Trust me for that,” the Lady replied, “for in due time I shall come to you again and then the three of us will once more return to Spangleland.”
And as her wiggley-nosed passenger scrambled down, the golden-haired one bade him a merry farewell and was gone.
For a moment Little Black Bear stood looking after the fleeting forms and then, turning his face toward the forest and tucking his lunch bag more securely under one arm, he waddled into the deepening gloom as quickly as his rather short legs would carry him.