The idea was to force them to remain where they were until
they starved to death.
The people worked with the forest until far into the spring. They were
hopeful, and could hardly wait for the caterpillars to come out from
their eggs, feeling certain that they had shut them in so effectually
that most of them would die of starvation.
But in the early summer the caterpillars came out, more numerous than
ever.
They were everywhere! They crawled on the country roads, on fences, on
the walls of the cabins. They wandered outside the confines of Liberty
Forest to other parts of Kolmarden.
"They won't stop till all our forests are destroyed!" sighed the people,
who were in great despair, and could not enter the forest without
weeping.
Karr was so sick of the sight of all these creeping, gnawing things that
he could hardly bear to step outside the door. But one day he felt that
he must go and find out how Grayskin was getting on. He took the
shortest cut to the elk's haunts, and hurried along--his nose close to
the earth. When he came to the tree stump where he had met Helpless the
year before, the snake was still there, and called to him:
"Have you told Grayskin what I said to you when last we met?" asked the
water-snake.
Karr only growled and tried to get at him.
"If you haven't told him, by all means do so!" insisted the snake.
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