But it presently appeared that the noble rat had arranged the whole matter for her; for as Dorothy ran along she began to find lumps of sugar set up at intervals like little mile-stones, so that she shouldn't miss the road.
"It's precisely like Hop-o'-my-thumb and his little crumbs of bread," she said, laughing to herself when she saw these, "only better, because, you see, the birds can't carry them off."
The rat, however, seemed to have had a very roundabout idea of a road, for the lumps of sugar were scattered zigzag in every direction, and, at one place, led directly through a knot-hole in a fence as if nobody could possibly have any trouble in getting through that; but, as the little mile-stones appeared again on the other side of the fence, Dorothy scrambled over and ran on. Then she found herself climbing over rocks and wading through little puddles of water where the sugar was set up on stones in the most thoughtful way, so that it shouldn't melt; and in another place the lumps were stuck up in a line on the trunk of a large tree, and, after leading the way through a number of branches, suddenly descended on the opposite side of the tree into a little bog, where Dorothy stuck fast for several minutes and got her shoes very much soiled. All this was very provoking, and she was beginning to get a little out of patience, when the lumps of sugar suddenly came to an end at a small stone wall; and, looking over it, she spied the Caravan in their cage.
The cage proved to be an enormous rat-trap, and the Caravan, with remarkable presence of mind, had put their legs through between the wires at the bottom of it, and were walking briskly along, holding up the cage with their hands. The news of this extraordinary performance had evidently been spread abroad, as the Ferryman and a number of serious-looking storks were escorting the Caravan with an air of great interest, and occasionally taking to their heels when the Admiral chanced to look at them through the wires with his spy-glass. There was a door, to be sure, in the side of the trap, quite big enough for the Admiral, and Sir Walter, and the Highlander to come out of, all in a row if they liked, but they evidently hadn't noticed this—"and I'm not going to tell 'em about it, just yet," said Dorothy to herself, "because they deserve to be punished for their capers. But it's really quite clever of 'em to put their little legs through in that way," she went on, "and extremely convenient—that is, you know," she added thoughtfully, "so long as they all want to go the same way"; and, with this wise reflection, she scrambled over the wall and ran after the procession.
The Admiral and Sir Walter seemed greatly mortified when Dorothy appeared, and she saw that Sir Walter was making a desperate attempt to pull up his legs into the cage as if he hadn't anything whatever to do with the affair. The Highlander, however, who always seemed to have peculiar ideas of his own, shouted out "Philopene!" as he caught sight of her, and then laughed uproariously as if this were the finest joke in the world; but Dorothy, very properly, took not the slightest notice of his remark.
"How did you ever get into this scrape?" said she, addressing the Admiral as the head of the family.
"It was easy enough to get into," said the Admiral, peevishly; "we just fell into it through the hole in the top. But there wasn't any scrape about it until we tried to get out again. Then we got scraped like anything."
"Needles was nothing to it," added Sir Walter, solemnly.
"Nor cats," put in the Highlander.
"I'm very sorry," said Dorothy, compassionately; "and are you really going to be made into a pie?"