Carefully and warily Jazbury crept along a gutter to the foot of the tree. "Hurry, Fluffy!" he mewed. "Come down. We must get away before the dog comes back."
"Oh, I'm afraid!" wailed Fluffy. "I want to go home. Mew! Mew!"
"Don't stop to cry," called Jazbury impatiently. "You can't get home now, and if you don't hurry the dog will be back again."
So urged, Fluffy managed to half scramble, half fall down the tree, and he and Jazbury made off down the street as fast as they could go.
They had come almost to the end of the village now, and Yowler was waiting for them.
"What kept you so long?" he mewed crossly. "I've been waiting and waiting for you."
"A dog almost caught Fluffy," said Jazbury; and he told Yowler the story of Fluffy's adventures. "Wasn't that terrible?" asked Jazbury.
"Oh, I don't know. He didn't get him, anyway," said Yowler impatiently. "We'll get to the fields in a minute now, and then we can all keep together. There won't be any one to see us."
A little later they were out of the village altogether. Before them lay the sunny breadth of the country, a meadow and a stream, a field, and far away the dark edge of a shady wood.
The kittens slipped through a fence and into the deep grass of the meadow. Insects whined about them. A butterfly fluttered by, so close above them that when Jazbury leaped for it he almost caught it. He would have liked to chase some of the insects that flitted about, but Yowler told him to wait. "There are plenty of other things to catch," he said. "Bigger things that we can really eat."