The bushes were thick, but with his strong head and horns Lightfoot soon poked a way for himself into the very middle of them, and there he lay down upon the ground to rest. For he had run fast and was tired. His heart was beating very hard.
Though he did not know it, Lightfoot had done just as a wild goat would have done—one that lived in a far-off country who had never seen a wagon, a harness or a squatter’s shanty. He had hidden himself away from danger.
And, with beating heart, as he crouched under the bush, Lightfoot wondered what he would do next.
“I can’t go back to the park and help Mike with the wagon, giving the children rides,” thought Lightfoot. “If I do that boy with the stick will be waiting for me. He’ll be angry at me for knocking him down. That little girl wasn’t mad at me for knocking her off the trolley tracks; but then that was different, I guess. And maybe Mike will be angry with me too. I’ll be sorry for that.
“He won’t give me any more lumps of salt, nor sweet carrots. I won’t see Blackie again, nor Grandpa Bumper. I’ll never jump around on the rocks any more and see the Sharp-horns. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. I must do the best I can. I’ll stay here for a while and see what happens.”
So Lightfoot remained in hiding, and when Mike had finished getting his little lunch in the restaurant he came back to reharness his goat to the wagon, ready to give the children rides in the afternoon.
“Why, where’s Lightfoot?” asked Mike in surprise, as he came back and saw the broken rope where he had tied his pet. “Where’s my goat?”
“How should I know?” asked Henry in a cross sort of voice. “He butted me over on my back a little while ago.”
“You must have done something to make him do that,” quickly cried Mike. He looked at the end of the broken rope. At first he thought Henry might have cut it on purpose to let Lightfoot get away, but the ends of the rope, frayed and rough, showed that it had not been cut, but broken.