In a moment they appeared again, a little farther away.
Then a second time they were gone, and a third time they flashed back at him--so distant they appeared like needle-points in the darkness.
Something stupendous rose up in Peter.

It was the soul of his Airedale father, telling him the other thing was running away! And in the joy of triumph Peter let out a yelp.

In that night-infested place, alive with hiding things, the yelp set loose weird rustlings in the tangled treetops, strange murmurings of chortling voices, and the nasty snapping of beaks that held in them the power to rend Peter's skinny body into a hundred bits.

From deeper in the thicket came the sudden crash of a heavy body, and with it the chuckling notes of a porcupine, and a HOO-HOO-HOO-EE of startled inquiry that at first Peter took for a human voice.

And again he lay shivering close to the foot-deep carpet of needles under him, while his heart thumped against his ribs, and his whiskers stood out in mortal fear.