The Unlikely Best Friends: the ending

This is how 'The Unlikely Best Friends' ends, told in short.

When the farmer pulled the rope, Buntee understood that he was being taken away from his friend. He yelped, and Gajaraj winced with pain. But neither the farmer nor the mahout noticed that the two friends had tears in their eyes.

The next day the mahout gave Gajaraj his favourite food, but Gajaraj did not touch it. The mahout thought he might have a slightly upset stomach. But that night, and the next day too, Gajaraj ate nothing. The worried mahout felt the elephant's tummy and found nothing wrong. Then he wondered: was Gajaraj missing his friend, the dog?

At the farmer's house, Buntee had not eaten anything either. An animal cannot say 'I miss my friend', but it can show it. The farmer remembered how happy Buntee had looked riding on the elephant's back. He could not bear to see him go hungry, so he took off the rope and told Buntee to go to his friend. Weak as he was, Buntee jumped up, licked the farmer's hand once and ran all the way to the stable.

Gajaraj picked Buntee up with his trunk and swung him joyfully. The relieved mahout brought food, and both friends ate at last. The farmer, who had followed, watched them happily.

The mahout hugged the farmer and said that Gajaraj was not the only one who had found a friend: he had found one too. The two men cared about the same thing, the happiness of their animals, and that brought them together.

The story is about friendship and loyalty: Buntee went back to his friend the moment he could. An elephant and a dog are not the friends anyone would expect, and that is why the story calls them 'unlikely' best friends.