Presently there was a grating, grinding sound.

“Look out!” yelled John Dolittle, “here she comes!—­Scatter!”

We ran for our lives, outwards, toward the sides.  The big rock slid gently down, about a foot, into the trough which we had made beneath it.  For a moment I was disappointed, for like that, it was as hopeless as before—­ no signs of a cave-mouth showing above it.  But as I looked upward, I saw the top coming very slowly away from the mountainside.  We had unbalanced it below.  As it moved apart from the face of the mountain, sounds of human voices, crying gladly in a strange tongue, issued from behind.  Faster and faster the top swung forward, downward.  Then, with a roaring crash which shook the whole mountain-range beneath our feet, it struck the earth and cracked in halves.

How can I describe to any one that first meeting between the two greatest naturalists the world ever knew, Long Arrow, the son of Golden Arrow and John Dolittle, M.D., of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh?  The scene rises before me now, plain and clear in every detail, though it took place so many, many years ago.  But when I come to write of it, words seem such poor things with which to tell you of that great occasion.

I know that the Doctor, whose life was surely full enough of big happenings, always counted the setting free of the Indian scientist as the greatest thing he ever did.  For my part, knowing how much this meeting must mean to him, I was on pins and needles of expectation and curiosity as the great stone finally thundered down at our feet and we gazed across it to see what lay behind.

The gloomy black mouth of a tunnel, full twenty feet high, was revealed.  In the centre of this opening stood an enormous red Indian, seven feet tall, handsome, muscular, slim and naked—­but for a beaded cloth about his middle and an eagle’s feather in his hair.  He held one hand across his face to shield his eyes from the blinding sun which he had not seen in many days.

“It is he!” I heard the Doctor whisper at my elbow.  “I know him by his great height and the scar upon his chin.”

And he stepped forward slowly across the fallen stone with his hand outstretched to the red man.

Presently the Indian uncovered his eyes.  And I saw that they had a curious piercing gleam in them—­like the eyes of an eagle, but kinder and more gentle.  He slowly raised his right arm, the rest of him still and motionless like a statue, and took the Doctor’s hand in his.  It was a great moment.  Polynesia nodded to me in a knowing, satisfied kind of way.  And I heard old Bumpo sniffle sentimentally.  Then the Doctor tried to speak to Long Arrow.  But the Indian knew no English of course, and the Doctor knew no Indian.  Presently, to my surprise, I heard the Doctor trying him in different animal languages.

“How do you do?” he said in dog-talk; “I am glad to see you,” in horse-signs; “How long have you been buried?” in deer-language.  Still the Indian made no move but stood there, straight and stiff, understanding not a word.