When Crookhorn reached the beginning of the hill, where the ground was more uneven, she thought it wiser to get up and trot along on her four feet; but although she yielded thus far for the sake of her own comfort, she still continued to struggle against being forced to go at all.
The animals took the customary path leading farther over the mountain. Little by little Crookhorn seemed to conclude that she must submit to the inevitable. During the first part of the morning she was sullen and contrary, merely allowing herself to be dragged along; but as the day wore on and her stomach felt empty and slack, she grew more subdued and began to walk quietly forward, eating as she went like any other goat,—only looking up once in a while when she heard the heavy cow bell in the distance.
The fun was gone when Crookhorn took to behaving well, so the boys began as usual to wrestle and turn somersaults; and this they kept up until it was nearly time to go home for their nooning. Then Ole said: "Now let us slip her loose on trial. I think she must be cured by this time."
Yes, the others agreed to that.
So they called to the billy goat coaxingly. He came jogging along with his big horns straight up and Crookhorn trailing after him. Ole first set the billy goat free, and then, kneeling down before Crookhorn, he took hold of her beard. Crookhorn pawed with her feet as goats do when they want to get rid of this hold, but Ole would not let go. He wished to give her a few admonitions first.
Now that she had found her master, he told her, she need no longer imagine that she was a cow. Hereafter she was to behave like other goats or she would have him to deal with; and at this he gave her beard a wag, as if to add force to his words. That hurt Crookhorn, and she made a bound straight at him and sent him rolling backward. Then, passing directly over him, with the willow band trailing behind her, she set out on a trot across the marsh in the direction from which the sound of the cow bell had come.
Ole scrambled up again, stamped the ground with rage, and started after her.
Lisbeth and Peter were already on the way. They shouted and screamed as they ran, and threatened Crookhorn with all sorts of punishments if she did not stop; but Crookhorn acted as if she did not understand. She ran, and they after her. The boys became more and more angry. It had never happened before that they had been unable to capture a goat; and besides, each boy was eager to get ahead of the other. So they ran faster and faster. Although Lisbeth Longfrock was light-footed, especially with her birch-bark shoes[13 ] on, she lagged behind. It was like wading in deep water to try to run in that long frock of hers, which, in the hasty start of the morning, she had forgotten to tuck up in her belt as usual.
Soon she caught a last glimpse of the boys as they disappeared over a hill on the other side of the marsh. Peter was ahead (she believed he really was the faster runner of the two). But she herself was only in the middle of the marsh.
So she stopped. Certainly the best thing that she could do was to go back and get the animals together; otherwise all three flocks were likely to stray away.