Here Jack Frost shook his paint-brush so impatiently that Fleetfoot skipped along at his side faster than ever before.
‘Don’t I hear Buttons calling?’ asked Fleetfoot presently, as they stopped a moment for breath. ‘I hear some one calling, “Boots! Boots! Boots!”’
‘Yes, that is Buttons’ voice,’ answered Jack Frost; ‘I hear him too. Now I will keep out of the way, for I am afraid of giving Buttons a chill, and you lead him up the hill to Boots as fast as you can go.’
All this seemed great fun to Fleetfoot. He watched the little figure in white creeping round and round the barn calling, ‘Boots! Boots! Come home, Boots!’ Then he pulled from his pocket the silver bell he had taken from the neck of the drowsy white fur cat.
Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!
Fleetfoot crouched close to the ground and rang the bell at Buttons’ feet.
‘Boots!’ called Buttons with a little jump. ‘Where are you? I hear your bell.’
‘Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!’ called the bell a little farther away, and as Buttons started toward it, Fleetfoot cried, ‘Me-ow!’ in such a natural way that it is no wonder Buttons felt sure it was the voice of the missing Boots.
Round the barn and round the house they went, the bell calling, ‘Tinkle! Tinkle! Tinkle!’ and Buttons following close behind. Up Butternut Hill they climbed, Buttons quite forgetting his tender toes in his eagerness to catch his little friend. Up and up they went. Every time that Fleetfoot cried, ‘Me-ow!’ Buttons would run faster than before.
At last the top of the hill was reached and Fleetfoot and Buttons both spied Boots sitting on the branch of a tree, his eyes gleaming in the darkness like green lamps and every hair standing straight out with excitement and fright.