Buster had not given much thought to this. He looked up, and the window was so high above his head he knew that he could never jump half the way.
“I don’t know,” he stammered. “But maybe I can climb back. I’ve got good claws, and I can climb a tree.”
“That may be, Buster, but you can’t climb the side of a house,” replied Groundy. “If you can I’ll watch you.”
Groundy squatted down, and Buster anxious to show how well he could climb started to go up the side of the house; but a bear hugs a tree when climbing it, and Buster couldn’t get his paws around the cabin any more than he could fly to the moon. He made several attempts to dig his claws in the logs to pull himself up, but each time he tumbled back to the ground before he could reach half way. But he wasn’t going to give up trying right away, and again and again he made the attempt until completely exhausted.
“You can’t do it, Buster,” remarked Groundy finally, rising to his feet. “I knew you couldn’t. It’s easier to roll down a hill than roll up it.”
Buster was greatly disappointed, and he looked around to find something that he could roll under the window and climb up that way; but a noise in the woods suddenly startled Groundy.
“Someone’s coming,” he whispered. “I must be going. Better come with me, Buster.”
“No,” was the reply. “I live here now, and I won’t run away just because I disobeyed and got in trouble.”
Perhaps it would have been better for him had he accepted Groundy’s invitation; but he didn’t know that, and it was to his credit that he stayed. He knew that he had done wrong in climbing out of the window, but two wrongs don’t make a right, and Buster decided that he would face his masters and let them punish him if they wanted to.
But he received a severe shock the next minute. A stranger appeared around the side of the cabin, and another on the other side. They were not pleasant looking. They were very unlike the two men who had rescued him from the river.