But he had no time to bother with a fox when his loved one was lost in this queer and dangerous place, and he rushed frantically about the forest calling, “Wild Flower! Wild Flower! Dear Wild Flower!” But though he sought her for many days, and all the rowers joined in the hunt, he never saw her again. So he went back to the Bamboo Castle very sad and lonely, but every one there, tired of her airs and her temper, said she was a witch and he was well rid of her. When he thought over how peevish she had become he was inclined to agree with them, and finally he married a pretty and amiable little Princess and Wild Flower was forgotten. And out in the shadowy depths of a certain wood a cunning gray fox smiled until he showed his shining teeth when a saucy bird, mocking the Prince’s call, repeated, “Wild Flower! Wild Flower! Dear Wild Flower!” in its merry song. Then he lay down and rolled over in the wet leaves and licked his fur contentedly. “I’m glad I’m out of that,” he said. “Now I’ll wait until the thousand years are up. Nothing will satisfy me except to be a fox with nine golden tails.” With never a regret he went back to the old life, and hunted mice and creeping things when he got hungry, and when there was neither moon nor stars, ran through the black night to the farm house far beyond the edge of the forest, and came back in the gray of the morning with his lips all bloody and his paws as well--the signs of his midnight feast in the chicken yard. The wonderful wood, so dark, so still, so cool, put on patches of color with the passing month, and in the few spots where the sunshine sometimes crept, the trees grew vivid with the burning glory of autumn or pale and cold with the first blue blossoms of spring, then softly pink with azalea blooms or bright as a glowing sunset with the flowers of peach and cherry. And in the Period of Greatest Light the leaves would cover the ground and make soft beds where all the wild things could sleep snug and warm during the Period of Greatest Cold. As for the fox, though he was a bit quarrelsome, the years passed pleasantly and peacefully. No one ever again came there to hunt, and such queer things had been whispered abroad about what happened in this pathless country, where lived such strange creatures as never man had seen, that travelers went far out of their way rather than pass through it.