“Good boy!” whispered Cheese-eater. “Now sit still until the Wolf runs past this place. He will never find us here.”
“What if he will?” asked Vovka with his lips only. He heard the branches were crackling somewhere up under the Wolf’s paws. The Wolf didn’t look beneath and jumped over the hole without noticing Vovka and Cheese-eater. He ran further, where the forest was even thicker.
“Every mouse knows all the ways in and out of the hole. We can find another way out of here if we have to. But I have a feeling that the Wolf will be caught without anybody’s help, and we won’t have to hide long. They say, ‘However cunning the Wolf was, he had to pay off old scores.’ He won’t get away with it. The time will come indeed, when the Wolf finds his pit. While we’re here, he is coming closer to the trap.”
“Do you have traps in your forest?” asked Vovka, horrified.
“Why, no! We have never had them. I mean that then someone can catch himself; he that mischief hatches, mischief catches. A glutton will burst like a soap-bubble; a greedy man will lose everything. The one, who chases, becomes hunted at. And we’ll see who finally overcomes.”
As if proving Cheese-eater’s words, there came a loud howling of the Wolf from somewhere far ahead.
“Even if you are good at playing tricks, you can’t play with the truth. Its road is straight and you won’t avoid it. We don’t like the truth, of course, but without it our life is lost. Let’s go, Vova, and get even with the grey robber. He’ll get his punishment for all the sheep’s tears.”
Cheese-eater quickly ran up the pit wall. As for Vovka, he was slowly getting out, holding the roots that were protruding from all sides of the hole. To get through the thicket, following the Wolf’s way was much easier – the grass was flattened, the branches broken. The Wolf left a tunnel-like path behind him. Cheese-eater was again on Vovka’s shoulder, advising how to get through without stomping on nests and ant-hills, or falling down. The Wolf’s howling was closer and more pitiful now. Then it became very close and similar to a whining of a child, who had been punished and felt pity for himself. When Vovka saw the Wolf, he understood Cheese-eater’s words. The Wolf had caught himself. He hadn’t paid any attention, when they disappeared, and kept going, thinking that he was still chasing his prey. The forest grew thicker, and the Wolf could hardly squeeze through the bushes that were scratching his skin. But he wasn’t able to stop. He was greedy and didn’t want to quit his chase. He was pushing his way through the thicket until he got stuck. Young oaks and birch-trees firmly held the Wolf with their thin, but strong trunks. If he had stopped or jumped away, he would have been saved. But, pushing through, the Wolf got into a place, where the young trees were growing very close to each other, and was completely stuck. Seeing him in a live tree-trap amused Vovka at first, because he realized that the Wolf couldn’t do them any harm. But then he started to think seriously how to get him out without instruments. As for Cheese-eater, she was having a lot of fun.
