He might bully as he pleased, and be arrogant beyond decency, and there was no one to say him nay.

Even had Bashti's word gone forth that if Jerry were attacked by the full-grown bush dogs, it was the duty of the Somo folk to take his part and kick and stone and beat the bush dogs.

And thus his own four-legged cousins came painfully to know that he was taboo.
And Jerry prospered.

Fat to stupidity he might well have become, had it not been for his high-strung nerves and his insatiable, eager curiosity.
With the freedom of all Somo his, he was ever a-foot over it, learning its metes and bounds and the ways of the wild creatures that inhabited its swamps and forests and that did not acknowledge his taboo.
Many were his adventures.

He fought two battles with the wood-rats that were almost of his size, and that, being mature and wild and cornered, fought him as he had never been fought before.