For a long time the creature stood without moving. Then it stretched out a leg from high up near its face. Bambi had not even noticed that there was one there. But as that terrible leg was reaching out into the air Bambi was swept away by the mere gesture. In a flash he was back into the thicket he came from, and was running away. In a twinkling his mother was with him again, too. She bounded beside him over shrubs and bushes. They ran side by side as fast as they could. His mother was in the lead. She knew the way and Bambi followed. They ran till they came to their glade. “Did you see Him?” asked the mother softly. Bambi could not answer, he had no breath left. He only nodded. “That was He,” said the mother. And they both shuddered. CHAPTER VI Bambi was often alone now. But he was not so troubled about it as he had been the first time. His mother would disappear, and no matter how much he called her she wouldn’t come back. Later she would appear unexpectedly and stay with him as before. One night he was roaming around quite forlorn again. He could not even find Gobo and Faline. The sky had become pale gray and it began to darken so that the tree-tops seemed like a vault over the bushy undergrowth. There was a swishing in the bushes, a loud rustling came through the leaves and Bambi’s mother dashed out. Someone else raced close behind her. Bambi did not know whether it was Aunt Ena or his father or someone else. But he recognized his mother at once. Though she rushed past him so quickly, he had recognized her voice. She screamed, and it seemed to Bambi as if it were in play, though he thought it sounded a little frightened too. One day Bambi wandered for hours through the thicket. At last he began to call. He simply couldn’t bear to be so utterly lonely any more. He felt that pretty soon he’d be perfectly miserable. So he began to call for his mother. Suddenly one of the fathers was standing in front of him looking sternly down at him. Bambi hadn’t heard him coming and was terrified. This stag looked more powerful than the others, taller and prouder. His coat shone with a deeper richer red, but his face shimmered, silvery gray. And tall, black, beaded antlers rose high above his nervous ears. “What are you crying about?” the old stag asked severely. Bambi trembled in awe and did not dare answer. “Your mother has no time for you now,” the old stag went on. Bambi was completely dominated by his masterful voice and at the same time, he admired it. “Can’t you stay by yourself? Shame on you!”