After a while some men came and lifted up the cage of the silver fox, from where it had been placed when taken off the wagon, and carried it to a large building. Along the walls were many other cages, and in one end was a very large one.
The bars of the big cage were set very far apart, and when the fox saw them he said to himself:
“Ha! if they put me in that cage, with such wide-apart bars in front, I can easily slip out between them and go back to where my father and mother live in the hollow log. I must try to run away.”
Sharp Eyes looked a little closer, and noticed that there was a big pool of water—about a hundred bath tubs full I guess—at one end of the big cage.
“Ha! I’d like to get a drink there,” thought the silver fox. “I am very thirsty!”
Just then, all of a sudden, one of the men carrying the cage in which the fox was still locked, let his end of the box fall. Then the other man dropped his end, and down the fox cage crashed to the stone floor in the animal house.
“Look out!” cried one of the men. “The cage will break and that silver fox will get out!”
And that is just what happened. The cage crashed to the floor, one end burst open, and [the next minute Sharp Eyes found himself free].
“Oh, at last I can run away!” he thought to himself. “But first I’ll go and get a drink of water in that pool inside the big-barred cage. Then I’ll run away.”