“What a joke!” laughed Loup. “Just to show you, I’ll jump out, and then back again.”
He crouched for the spring, the great muscles of his hind legs knotting in big lumps. Then his body shot upward like a stone released from a spring trap. But he didn’t reach the top. Oh, no, not by a couple of yards! He clawed and scratched at the sides of the pit, but the loose sand rolled down the side and carried him with it. Dumbfounded and angered by this mishap, he made another spring, but again he fell short.
Six times Loup tried it, and failed. Then he trotted around and tried it on the opposite side of the pit. But he failed just as the others had. He couldn’t leap out of the pit, try as he would.
“What did I tell you, Loup,” exclaimed Sneaky triumphantly. “We’re all prisoners down here, and instead of fighting each other we should try to think of some way of escape. Three minds are better than one.”
“What can you suggest, Sneaky?” asked Loup, whose defiant spirit was considerably tamed now.
“Why, I don’t know. Perhaps if I could stand on your back, and Mr. Fox on mine, one of us could get out. Mr. Fox surely could, and then he could throw down something to help us out.”
“I wouldn’t trust you,” growled Loup. “Neither would I trust Mr. Fox. He’d run away, and leave us here.”
“Oh, no, I wouldn’t, Loup,” replied Mr. Fox.
Loup considered. No, he wouldn’t trust either of them. Neither would Sneaky or Mr. Fox trust him. Just because each had a bad reputation for deceit, neither dared help the other to get out. It is generally so with those who lie and deceive. There is little honor among thieves.
Meanwhile, Bumper had scurried through the hole, and found his way out under the river’s embankment. The water from the pit drained through to the river, and this accounted for the long tunnel.