"Oh no," answered the Good Wolf. "Certainly not. Let us walk slowly all round the cave and look very carefully. This cave is a queer shape and it may have corners we can't see just at first."
So they walked round side by side and looked very carefully indeed. Once they walked round, twice they walked round, three times they walked round, and then they stopped and looked at each other. The Good Wolf sat down and scratched his ear with his hind foot in a very careful manner, and Barty put his hands in his pockets and whistled a little, quite thoughtfully. But almost the very next minute he cheered up and his face beamed all over.
"Why," he exclaimed, "you see, if he is my Man Saturday, he has things to do for me! I've not lived on a desert island long enough to know what they are, but I daresay they are very important. I believe he has gone to do something for me which he knows is his duty."
The Good Wolf stopped scratching his ear with his hind foot and became as cheerful as Barty.
"Of course!" he exclaimed emphatically. "You are a very clever boy to think of that. You always think of the right things at the right time, instead of thinking of the right things at the wrong time or the wrong things at the right time, which is very confusing."
"Shall we go outside and see if he is anywhere about?" said Barty.
"That is a good idea, too," responded the Good Wolf. "You are full of good ideas, and they are the most useful things a person can have on a desert island."
They walked down the cave—it was rather a long cave—towards the narrow passage which led from the hole outside to which Saturday had led Barty. As they came to the entrance to it they both drew back to look at something very queer which was coming towards them through the passage itself. It certainly was the queerest thing Barty had ever beheld since he had been a boy, and the Good Wolf himself looked as if it seemed a queer thing even to him. It would have seemed queer to you, too. What it really was Barty could not possibly have told, but what it looked like was a bundle of dried leaves bound together by long grass and walking over the ground by itself as if it were alive.
"It is walking, isn't it?" asked Barty, too much astonished to be sure his eyes did not deceive him.
"It certainly is," the Good Wolf replied, "there is no mistake about that, and though I am Noah's Ark Wolf and have lived for ages and ages, I have never seen a bundle of dry leaves walk before. It is very interesting, indeed." He actually sat down to watch it and Barty leaned forward with his hands on his knees and gazed with all his might. On it came. It did not walk fast at all, but rather slowly as if it found it rather hard to get along—which seemed very natural, because no bundle of dried leaves could have had much practice in walking.