fter leaving the boys the two goats trotted on and soon came out on the other side of the wood and saw before them a beautiful valley. Grazing peacefully beside a little brook that ran through it, they saw a herd of goats. And at the upper end of the valley beyond them they saw a large old-fashioned farmhouse with its stables and outhouses.
"Nan, let us go down and introduce ourselves to the head goat of the flock and see if they won't let us stay with them for awhile. There are so many of them that the farmer won't notice us among them when he drives them into the stable to-night, and it will be a good place for us to stay until Mike stops hunting for us, for I know he won't give us up in a hurry and is probably looking for us now, and I don't propose to live with such a common family as Mike belongs to, for until now I have only lived with first-class families."
Nanny agreed to join the goats so the two trotted down the hill bleating as they ran to attract the attention of the other goats. The goats soon heard them, stopped eating and looked up, and when Billy and Nanny were within speaking distance the leader of the goats, a large black fellow, walked out to meet them.
Billy introduced himself and then Nanny to the old goat who in return told them his name was Satan and that he would be glad to have them join his flock, adding that he was always glad to get ahead of boys, as he had received some rough usage at their hands when younger.
"If we see Mike coming after you, we will all form in a circle around you and Miss Nanny so he can't see you."
All that day Billy and Nanny stayed with the other goats who never tired of hearing the new-comers tell of the adventures they had had, some of which seemed impossible to those country goats who had never been off their own farm.
That evening when the farmer drove the goats home he did not notice Billy and Nan until he had got them into the little enclosure where he always drove them to be fed; but when he stood by the fence with his arm on the upper rail counting them, his eye detected Billy immediately as he was so much taller than any of the other goats, even old Satan, the leader.