“And now,” said Lightfoot, as he noticed the sun going down in the west, and knew that it would soon be night, “it’s time for me to think of what I’m going to do.”
Lightfoot was not afraid to stay out alone in the woods all night. He had spent many a night on the rocks, though of course the other goats had been with him then. But he was a bigger and older goat now, and he was not afraid of being alone. Of course a little kid might have been, but Lightfoot was a kid no longer.
“I’ll stay here to-night, I think,” said the goat after a while. “It is good to be near water so you can drink when thirsty. I’ll stay here to-night and in the morning I’ll try to find my way back to Mike.”
Lightfoot slept well that night, for it was not cold, and in the morning, after he had eaten some leaves and grass and had drunk some water he started out to find the Malony shanty near the rocks.
But a goat is not like a dog or a cat, some of which can find their way home after having been taken many miles from it. So, after wandering about in the woods, and finding no place that looked like his former home, Lightfoot gave up.
“It’s of no use,” he said. “I guess I am lost. I must have come farther in that canal boat than I knew. Well, the woods are a good place to stay. I shall not be hungry here.”
Lightfoot wandered on and on for several days. Once some boys, who were in the woods gathering flowers, saw the goat behind some bushes.
“Oh, let’s chase after him!” called one, and they ran toward Lightfoot.
But the goat leaped away and soon left the boys far behind. If one of them had been Mike, Lightfoot would have gone to him, but Mike was not there.
One day as Lightfoot was wandering through the woods, wishing he were back in his home again, for he was lonesome, having no one to talk to but the birds, he heard a noise in the bushes.