It only served to irritate her afresh, causing her to growl fiercely; and she paused for some moments, as if considering whether she would descend and punish the "enemy in the rear," or keep on after Basil.

The rattling of the latter among the branches above decided her, and on she crawled upward.
Basil was almost as active among the branches of a tree as a squirrel or a monkey.

When about sixty feet from the ground, he crawled out upon a long limb that grew horizontally.

He chose this one, because he saw another growing above it, which he thought he might reach as soon as the bear followed him out upon the first; and by this means get back to the main trunk before the bear, and down to the ground again.

After getting out upon the limb, however, he saw that he had miscalculated.