“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.
“Have any of you seen Lightfoot?” asked Mike of the other boys. But they had all been to dinner themselves and had not seen what had happened. The other goats, too, had been taken to the stable for the noon meal.
Only Henry had seen Lightfoot run away, and he felt so unkindly toward the goat and Mike that he would not tell. Mike ran here and there, asking the park policemen and other helpers if they had seen his goat, but none had. Lightfoot had taken just the best possible time to run away――noon, when every one was at dinner. And now the goat was safely hidden in the bushes.
“Well, I’ve just got to find him,” said Mike to himself, as he looked at the goat’s harness hanging on a tree, and at the wagon with its strip of bright red carpet. “I’ve just got to find Lightfoot!”
Telling Mr. Marshall what had happened, and promising to come back with Lightfoot as soon as he could find him, and take up again the work of giving children rides in the park, Mike set off to find his pet.
Along the paths, cutting across the grassy lawns, looking under clumps of bushes, asking those he met, Mike went on and on looking for Lightfoot. Now and then he stopped, to call the goat’s name. But though once Lightfoot, from where he was hiding, heard his master’s voice he did not bleat in answer, as he had always done before.