The calf resting at the end of his pegged rope arose, looked about him and lay down again as if he would not be a party to poor Peter's absurd nocturnal enterprise.
The darkness and the vastness of the wooded country seemed to chill Peter's hopes.

Now that the gripping spell was over he hardly knew what to think....
With his jack-knife he cut a piece from the rope which held the calf and moved the peg nearer to the animal which looked curiously on at this unexpected abridgment of its sphere of freedom.

It almost seemed to Peter that the calf was laughing at him.
This piece of rope he stretched across the road, fastening one end to the rotten gate-post, long deserted by its gate, the other to a tree.
Then he hung the lantern midway of this line.

This seemed as much as his waning hope justified, but on second thought he stole into the house, took a black tomato crate marker from the kitchen shelf and on a paper flour-bag printed the words DANGER ROAD CLOSED.

This he hung upon the rope near the lantern.