Sly was lucky that there turned out to be ledges that he could use to get down the cliff, as he would have ended up being caught by Carmelita if that hadn't been the case. "With the way Carmelita's been shooting, using my Paraglider is not an option... unless I want to make myself an easy target for her." Sly jumped down to the first ledge he saw, and started jumping from ledge to ledge in an attempt to make it down to the ground. However, Inspector Carmelita wasn't far behind.
"Give up, Cooper! You can't keep this up forever!" "I don't need to keep it up forever... just long enough to get you off my tail, Inspector!" Carmelita replied with several shots from her shock pistol, which Sly easily dodged... not to mention that they ended up destroying the ledge they hit. "Nice shooting Inspector... you're going to get a bit more exercise today than I thought!" "Just you wait Cooper... just you wait!" "Wait? What should I be waiting for? An invitation to dinner? You keep that up and it'll be time for dinner by the time you make it to the bottom of the cliff!"

Someone listening to the comments Sly was making would have been completely confused as to why he was making them... except for the fact that the ledges that Carmelita was destroying were leaving her with fewer ledges to use to descend down the side of the cliff! A few minutes later, the Inspector stopped firing her shock pistol, and she started to berate herself for her stupidity. "Great work, Carmelita Montoya... you miss Cooper and instead you end up destroying most of the ledges that are the only way down! You're going to need a miracle to catch Cooper now!"

Of course miracles are always in short supply, and Carmelita didn't receive one. Sly made it to the bottom of the cliff long before Carmelita did. "This forest looks real beautiful right now... I think I'll take a little stroll through it." After calling this up to the Inspector, Sly waved at her and ran into the forest. "NO! HE GOT AWAY AGAIN! I'LL FIND YOU COOPER IF IT'S THE LAST THING I..." Carmelita's yelling was all it took to set off a rockslide consisting of the parts of the cliff she'd ended up weakening when she destroyed the ledges. Fortunately, Carmelita was close enough to the bottom that she could jump off the ledge she was on safely... by landing in some bushes below. "Ouch ow ow ow ow ow ow! YEOWWW!" Yes, that's right... unfortunately they were bushes which defend themselves from predators (and foxes who tried to use them to break their fall) with lots and lots of THORNS. Needless to say, nobody (not even the captain) tried to talk to her when she got back to HQ. Despite the laws against such an act of violence, the Inspector looked like she'd strangle the first creature foolish enough to ask her how things had gone. The only good that came out of it was that the captain decided that he should extend the "day off" he'd promised to a "week off."

Sly didn't know anything about what happened to Carmelita after he'd entered the forest. He was more interested in finding the treasure... and of course there was the fact that if he retraced his steps, he'd probably get caught. "Alright... time to get back to business." It took several hours for him to find his way to where the treasure was supposed to be. "Oh no... you have got to be kidding me!" The problem now wasn't finding his way to where the treasure was buried... Sly had already found his way there. The problem was that the map stated that the treasure was buried under a rock... and there were a LOT of rocks around. To make matters worse, the map wasn't any more specific about the rock that the treasure was buried under other than the fact it was a rock.

It was getting pretty close to nightfall, so Sly decided to eat some of his food and get some rest. The former act was easy to accomplish... but the latter proved to be nearly impossible courtesy of a rainstorm, and the fact that Sly had neglected to bring a sleeping bag with him. Of course a sleeping bag would have slowed Sly down too much... but the combination of the rainstorm and the ground (which was hard at first and then became a lot of mud after several hours) made things very uncomfortable. As a result, Sly was in a very bad mood when he finally got up in the middle of the day.

"If anybody saw me right now, I'd be a laughingstock. I'd like nothing better than to head home right now and get some sleep... but I've come all this way already, so I guess it's time to start searching under every rock for that treasure. "Several hours later, Sly had found lots of worms, centipedes (from which he received several bites), and dirt... but no treasure. "This bites... oh no! (SLAP!) OW OW OW OW OW! ... Note to self: never slap yourself in the face for making an annoying pun after being bitten on your hands by centipedes." Trying to ignore the pain in his hands(not to mention their inflamed appearance), Sly started to turn over the next rock... which wouldn't budge for some reason. A weary sigh came from Sly's lips and he slowly walked over to the other side of the rock, and attempted once again to turn the rock over... and when it did, Sly could have jumped for joy. However, he didn't... not surprising considering how tired he was.

"Finally! I've found the treasure! Now let's see what's in it... OW OW OW OW OW OW!" Sly had momentarily forgotten about the centipede bites. "THAT was a bad idea... I guess I'll just pack it away with the rest of my things for the time being. It's kind of small... maybe there's a lot of jewels or rings inside it." Sly packed the treasure box away, and started to head into the forest and for home. "I really want to see what's inside that box... but first I'm going to need to take care of these bites." Sly had no idea of the surprise in store for him when he finally opened the box...