Grayskin had lived for five summers on the game-keeper’s place, when his owner received a letter from a zooelogical garden abroad asking if the elk might be purchased.

The master was pleased with the proposal, the game-keeper was distressed, but had not the power to say no; so it was decided that the elk should be sold.  Karr soon discovered what was in the air and ran over to the elk to have a chat with him.  The dog was very much distressed at the thought of losing his friend, but the elk took the matter calmly, and seemed neither glad nor sorry.

“Do you think of letting them send you away without offering resistance?” asked Karr.

“What good would it do to resist?” asked Grayskin.  “I should prefer to remain where I am, naturally, but if I’ve been sold, I shall have to go, of course.”

Karr looked at Grayskin and measured him with his eyes.  It was apparent that the elk was not yet full grown.  He did not have the broad antlers, high hump, and long mane of the mature elk; but he certainly had strength enough to fight for his freedom.

“One can see that he has been in captivity all his life,” thought Karr, but said nothing.

Karr left and did not return to the grove till long past midnight.  By that time he knew Grayskin would be awake and eating his breakfast.

“Of course you are doing right, Grayskin, in letting them take you away,” remarked Karr, who appeared now to be calm and satisfied.  “You will be a prisoner in a large park and will have no responsibilities.  It seems a pity that you must leave here without having seen the forest.  You know your ancestors have a saying that ’the elk are one with the forest.’  But you haven’t even been in a forest!”

Grayskin glanced up from the clover which he stood munching.

“Indeed, I should love to see the forest, but how am I to get over the fence?” he said with his usual apathy.

“Oh, that is difficult for one who has such short legs!” said Karr.

The elk glanced slyly at the dog, who jumped the fence many times a day—­little as he was.

He walked over to the fence, and with one spring he was on the other side, without knowing how it happened.

Then Karr and Grayskin went into the forest.  It was a beautiful moonlight night in late summer; but in among the trees it was dark, and the elk walked along slowly.

“Perhaps we had better turn back,” said Karr.  “You, who have never before tramped the wild forest, might easily break your legs.”  Grayskin moved more rapidly and with more courage.

Karr conducted the elk to a part of the forest where the pines grew so thickly that no wind could penetrate them.

“It is here that your kind are in the habit of seeking shelter from cold and storm,” said Karr.  “Here they stand under the open skies all winter.  But you will fare much better where you are going, for you will stand in a shed, with a roof over your head, like an ox.”