“An Equine Ox,” said the other, “can go anywhere he pleases, on the world or off of it. I hadn’t seen the Big Dipper for some time, so I went up there, took a drink and came down here. I know of nothing easier to do than that, do you?”
Billy knew of a great many things that would have been easier for him to do; so many, in fact, that it would be too great a task to enumerate them, so he kept silent.
“I do hope you can help them find the Evening Star,” he said at length.
“Certainly I can,” said the Equine Ox. “There she is now.”
“Where?” cried Billy.
“Over across the lake on the other side of the mountain”—and the Equine Ox pointed with his tail to the southward. “Just now she is frozen in a glacier.”
“Mercy!” said Billy; “and there is no one to help us to get her out.”
“Unless you count us,” said the conductor. “But I suppose, of course, you don’t.”
He was standing right at Billy’s elbow, and directly behind him was the motorman.
“The Equine Ox ran away on us again,” explained the conductor, noticing Billy’s astonishment.