“Surely I can,” Lightfoot said. “I could climb up the rocky, rocky path back of the cabin, and surely I can climb up the coal hill.”
All that day men with wheelbarrows dumped coal into the hold of the canal boat. It made a black dust, and Lightfoot kept as far away from it as he could.
“It is a good thing I am going to get out,” he said. “For the coal will soon cover up all my hay and grain and I would starve.”
Lightfoot waited until after dark, so no one would see him. Then he scrambled up the sloping sides of the pile of coal in the middle of the canal boat until he could jump to the edge and so to the roof of the stable cabin.
“Good-by, kind horses,” he called to Cruncher and the others. “I am sorry I can’t stop to see you, but I had better go ashore.”
“Yes, while you have the chance,” said Nibbler.
Then, with a nimble leap, Lightfoot jumped from the canal boat to the towpath. He had gone ashore.
“I wonder what adventures I’ll have next,” he said to himself as he wiggled his way into the bushes at the edge of the path.