“I wish I could be the lucky one,” said another. “I’ve been looking in every boat to-day for him.” It seemed to the frightened Cave Man they must hear his heart beating, so near he was, and perhaps they would had they not been so busy talking. When at last they went away he did not dare to move for a long time, and that night he rowed harder and faster than ever.
When the morning of the sixth day dawned he cried aloud for joy, for in the dim light he saw the familiar shadows of Napatantutu. When he had come nearer, even within the shade of the great trees and the overhanging vines, he leaped out of the boat, and as soon as his feet had touched the ground, started toward the home of the dragon. He had thrown away his cloak, his food, his gold, for he no longer had need of them. Once more he was to be free.
In the wood all was silent and lone. Not even a bird was stirring as he sped over the cool, wet grass. The daylight had not yet crept through the thick leaves, and once he stumbled over a dead log and rolled headlong into a muddy hole. The only light he saw came from a frog who had filled himself with fireflies, and they now shone through his round stomach like a shaded lamp as he slept under a sheltering bush.
The darkness was just stealing away when he came to the big hollow tree and knocked twice.
“Alas, Most Powerful One, I am here again,” he cried, as the dragon writhed slowly out. “It is quite as bad to be a wise man as a pretty woman—one is stupid, the other useless. A fox is a far finer creature than either of them, so make me a fox again, O mightiest of living things, and this time will I be content for the thousand years to pass.”
“Will you never be satisfied?” snorted the dragon. “You are not willing to be what nature made you and you don’t like anything I do for you. Still, as you have not yet been chased by a dog, I must grant your wish. But the next time you get into trouble you needn’t come to me—remember that!” And a moment later a gray fox ran past the hollow tree and with mighty leaps and bounds went crashing through the thicket.
CHAPTER V
AGAIN the fox went back to his old sly ways, and for a time was quite pleased to be only a fox and live in beautiful Napantatutu. Of men and men’s ways he had quite enough, he was often heard to say, and he would cock his head to one side and wink and grin every time he thought of the poor old lady who was still waiting for her pearl.