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soundlessly down to perch on the partition dividing the stable. Though the clapping of her beak sounded threatening, her melancholy eyes were very soft. She took the little piece of meat cautiously.
    â€œIs it good?” Peter asked. He waited until the owl swallowed the morsel, then picked her up and held her like a baby. Gently he scratched the delicate breast feathers. She seemed to enjoy the caress.
    Peter thought how long it had been before the owl began to trust him and grew so tame that they could become friends. “A cat and an owl—” he said to himself; “they are both mysterious and both have dangerous enemies.” He patted the bird in his arms again. Then he released her and she flew back to her hidden corner. When he went out of the barn with the milk pail, the Persian cat followed him, found a place in the sun and stretched out to sleep.

Chapter 5
    T AMBO HAD RUBBED THE VELVET off his antlers, as the wise stags did every year.
    He could not see how richly pearled they were, nor how their twelve points glistened like ivory. But he knew his crown was beautiful, and the knowledge filled him with pride and strength.
    Ever since his birth he had acted in obedience to his inner urge. He did not understand this whispering of instinct, but he obeyed it faithfully. It had guided himwhile he had still been with his mother, and also after he had left her and had ranged around alone, a young stag with only the beginnings of horns. During the mating seasons of several years, too, these inner whisperings had told him that he must hide humbly from the Kings, and not arouse their jealousy by wooing does who belonged to the great stags’ harems.
    Finally had come his courageous struggle for self-assertion. At first he had been defeated by other stags, though by no means shamefully. He had never lost his confidence in himself and had known that some day soon he would conquer, once and for all. No longer timid, he continued to put forth his claim to rule.
    In the next year, after a short but furious struggle, Tambo had wounded his opponent and put him to flight. And so the mighty warrior became the ruling stag. His boldly won position was not contested.
    Now Tambo walked alone.
    He came into the open only when darkness was complete and then only in out-of-the-way places. He grazed here and there, but never twice in succession in the sameclearing or meadow. And he always sought the thicket before the first sign of dawn. It was a life he loved. He was not bored, for animals of the forest are never bored.
    Like all other stags, but more luxuriously, Tambo lived chiefly to take good care of himself, to gather choice food and build up his fine strength. In doing these things, he obeyed his whispering instinct. His gift of keen scent became more sensitive than ever, his hearing sharper, his caution a highly perfected sense.
    Now the frightened cries of the roe deer who sometimes crossed his path did not bother him at all. He ignored them and simply passed by, a true king of the forest. His slender legs firmly supported his full, taut torso with its sleek covering of red. From his neck hung a black mane, thickly matted with burrs and leaves picked up as he carelessly roamed through bush and thicket. Above towered the noble, high-crowned head with its bearing of reserved and majestic dignity. The calm dark eyes shone magnificently.
    His chief companions were the birds and the squirrel who came to him sometimes for a chat, for Tambo wasoften awake even during the day. In midnight darkness the hoot owl would frequently visit him.
    â€œTambo! Tambo!” called the hoot owl one night. “Do I disturb you?”
    â€œNo, my little friend, I’m awake.”
    â€œDid I frighten you?”
    â€œNo. I heard you fly in.”
    Touched on a point of pride, the hoot owl plunged his crooked beak into the feathers of his breast. “Impossible! I fly without a sound.”
    â€œI can hear you just the same.