Buster obeyed, but he might just as well have tried to crawl through the key-hole of the lock on the door. He couldn’t possibly squeeze under the bed without upsetting it.
“Dear me,” added Nell, biting her lips, “where can I hide you?”
She looked at the closet filled with her pretty clothes. She ran to it and looked in. It was such a small closet that Buster couldn’t possibly crowd in it.
“I don’t know, Buster,” she added, “what I can do.” She looked at her trunk. No, of course, not; she couldn’t get Buster in that. The bureau next, and then the wash-stand. Not one of them was big enough to hold one of Buster’s hind legs.
They could hear the men climbing to the roof of the shed now. In a few moments they would appear at the open window with their shot-guns and pitchforks. The little girl was more excited than Buster. Suddenly an idea came to her, and she gasped with delight.
“Here, Buster,” she called sharply, seizing him by a paw. “You must lie down on the floor at the foot of the bed. Get way down! No, no, not that way! This way! Pull your legs up like a cat cuddling up before the fire. There, that’s right. Now don’t you move or make a sound. You hear me?”
She shook a finger warningly at him. She had made Buster curl up on the floor at the foot of the bed in the smallest space he had ever before occupied. It was not a comfortable position for him, but for the little girl’s sake he was satisfied to stay there.
Then Nell pulled the clothes down, and threw them over the foot-board of the bed and spread them out on the floor until Buster was completely covered. She laid the pillows on top just as if they had been put there to air. She had been taught to do this every morning after rising, and then open the window for the fresh air to blow in.
The men appeared at the window just as she had finished. Without waiting for an invitation they climbed in.
“Where is he?” they asked. “Where’s the bear? We thought he was in here eating you up, Nell.”