Chief tried to climb up the rungs to get the cat that was now above Ted’s head, but the weight of the Curlytop boy and the dog was too much. The ladder began to slip.
“Look out!” cried Ted.
“Oh! Oh!” gasped Janet.
CHAPTER V
DOWN TO THE SEA
The cat, as she felt the ladder slipping, made a flying leap, and jumped out of the way. She happened to jump toward Chief, and, as she did so, she stretched out her claws and scratched the dog on his nose.
Chief howled in pain, as any other dog would have done, and then he sat down on a pile of partly dried grass near the ladder, and howled more loudly.
Janet and Trouble saw all this happen in a quick flash. As for Ted, he was so frightened when he felt the ladder slipping that he did not see much of what happened, though he heard Chief howl.
And down fell Teddy and the ladder! But because Patrick had cut the grass that day and had raked a big heap of it near the shed, leaving it just where Teddy had put up his ladder, the little boy fell on this soft stuff instead of on the hard ground.
And so it happened, very luckily, that Teddy wasn’t hurt at all. The ladder, in slipping down, bumped him slightly on the head, but not enough to make him cry. He sat there, on top of the pile of grass, looking very much surprised, gazing at Chief, who was rubbing his scratched nose with one paw. The cat had vanished.
“Oh, wasn’t it funny!” laughed Trouble. “Wasn’t it funny! Oh, ho!”