A lady and little girl were in the carriage and they might have been hurt had the horses gone far. But Tom, who was getting ready to blow a marching tune on the brass horn, for Dido to do his trick, dropped the horn and sprang for the horses.
He caught them by the bridles and held them so they could not run, and the lady and little girl were not hurt.
“You are a good man to stop the runaway horses,” said a man in the crowd.
“Well, it was the fault of our bear that the team started to run,” said Tom, “so I knew it was my place to stop them.”
And when the horses saw that Dido was not going to chase after them, or do them any harm, they were not frightened any more, but stood still, so the lady and little girl in the carriage could watch the tricks which Dido did.
That night Dido and his masters slept under a warm stack of hay in a field, and a farmer gave them some good things to eat, because he liked animals. Dido did some tricks that evening in front of the farmhouse, before a crowd of boys and girls.
Early the next morning Dido awoke in his warm nest in the hay. He was not tied to any tree now, for there was none in the field, and he could wander about as he pleased. But by this time Dido was so tame that his masters knew he would not run away.
“I think I will take a walk before breakfast,” said Dido to himself, “and see if I cannot find a brook with fish in. I should like a fish very much.”