Billy trotted down the side street, the cyclone still raged and blew loose boards and papers in every direction, but he kept on until he found himself out of the town and on the high road.
"Why, how good it seems to get away from the smelly old circus and be free again. Who cares for the wind and weather when one is free? This rain will wash the black stuff off my coat that circus fellow put on; and now I think of it, I'll just walk up to that board fence and butt off this old horn that they glued to my head: that will be the end of the Wild Goat from Guinea."
Suiting the action to the words, he walked up to the fence and hooked the curved part of the horn over the rail, pulled back, and the horn came off easily without pulling out any hair as the rain had softened the glue. As it fell inside the fence, Billy kicked up his heels, whisked his stubby tail, and started down the road at a fast trot. As he ran, he made up his mind he would find Nanny once more, even if he had to spend the rest of his life looking for her. You know from past experience that if Billy made up his mind to do a thing, that he did it; for Billy's strong points were bravery, perseverance and stick-to-ativeness. These are good qualities for boys and girls to have as well as goats.
It was a good thing that Billy had these qualities, or he never would have found Nanny again. For one whole month he hunted for her, going up one road and down another, being stoned by boys and chased by men as he tried to steal a meal out of their gardens. Some times he wandered into a yard to get something to eat, and they set the dogs on him, but this they always wished they had not done, for he invariably turned and ripped the dogs open with his long horns.
In this way he traveled, sleeping by the wayside in all kinds of weather, until even he was beginning to get discouraged. When one day he happened on a road that looked familiar to him, and the further he traveled, the more familiar it became, until he came to a bridge with a red house beside it. Then he knew where he was for he recognized the house and the scenery around as the place where the bridge had broken down when the elephant had attempted to cross it. His joy knew no bounds for now all he had to do to get to Nanny was to follow this road to the town and then take another to the other side of town which would lead him to his little wife Nanny.
When he thought of dear, patient, little Nanny, a tear rolled down his cheek; but he shook it off in a hurry for the next minute the thought came to him, what if Nanny had given him up as lost and married another? The thought made him mad; and for three or four miles he ran like a steam-engine, snorting with rage as he went, and vowing to himself that if it were so, he would split her new husband open with his long horns, as he had the dogs he had met by the way.