As Lightfoot leaned over to get a drink from the spring he started back in surprise.
“Why!” he exclaimed to himself. “Why! There’s another goat down there under the water. He’s a black goat. I’m white.”
Lightfoot thought for a moment as he drew back from the edge of the spring. Then he said to himself:
“Well, if it’s only another goat I needn’t be afraid, for we will be friends.”
He went to the spring again and looked down into the clear water. Again he saw the black goat, and he was just going to speak, asking him how he felt, what his name was, where he came from and so on, when Lightfoot happened to notice that the black goat moved in exactly the same way, and did the same things that he, himself, did. Then he understood.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Lightfoot to himself. “How silly I am! That is only my reflection in the spring, just as if it were a looking glass. But what makes me so black on my face, I wonder?”
“It’s the black coal dust, of course!” he cried. “It must have stuck to me all over, but I brushed some of it off when I went to sleep in the grass. Now I must wash my face.”
He glanced once more into the spring looking glass, and saw that indeed he was quite dirty from the coal dust. Taking a long drink of the cool water he went below the spring to the brook, and there he waded in and splashed around in the water until he was quite clean. This made him feel hungry again, and he ate more leaves and grass.
“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.