idea, and, gripping Martin more firmly than ever, with one hand forced and held his mouth open, and with the other drew a stream of milk into it.  After choking and spluttering and crying more than ever for a while, Martin began to grow quiet, and to swallow the milk with some satisfaction, for he was very hungry and thirsty, and it tasted very good.  By-and-by, when no more milk could be drawn from the teats, he was taken to a second mare, from which the foal was kicked away with as little ceremony as the first one, and then he had as much more milk as he wanted, and began to like being fed in this amusing way.

Of what happened after that Martin did not know much, except that the man seemed very happy after feeding him.  He set Martin on the back of a horse, then jumped and danced round him, making funny chuckling noises, after which he rolled horse-like on the grass, his arms and legs up in the air, and finally, pulling Martin down, he made him roll too.

But the little fellow was too tired to keep his eyes any longer open, and when he next opened them it was morning, and he found himself lying wedged in between a mare and her young foal lying side by side close together.  There too was the wild man, coiled up like a sleeping dog, his head pillowed on the foal’s neck, and the hair of his great shaggy beard thrown like a blanket over Martin.

He very soon grew accustomed to the new strange manner of life, and even liked it.  Those big, noble-looking wild horses, with their shining coats, brown and bay and black and sorrel and chestnut, and their black manes and tails that swept the grass when they moved, were so friendly to him that he could not help loving them.  As he went about among them when they grazed, every horse he approached would raise his head and touch his face and arms with his nose.  “O you dear horse!” Martin would exclaim, rubbing the warm, velvet-soft, sensitive nose with his hand.

He soon discovered that they were just as fond of play as he was, and that he too was to take part in their games.  Having fed as long as they wanted that morning, they all at once began to gather together, coming at a gallop, neighing shrilly; then the wild man, catching Martin up, leaped upon the back of one of the horses, and away went the whole troop at a furious pace to the great open dry plain, where Martin had met with them on the previous day.  Now it was very terrifying for him at first to be in the midst of that flying crowd, as the animals went tearing over the plain, which seemed to shake beneath their thundering hoofs, while their human leader cheered them on with his shrill, repeated cries.  But in a little while he too caught the excitement, and, losing all his fear, was as wildly happy as the others, crying out at the top of his voice in imitation of the wild man.