At night, Justin (one of the rats) comes to save Mrs. Frisby and manages to get her out of the cage. Mrs. Frisby warns Justin of what she learned while captured; they assume that the rats at the hardware store were all from Jenner's group and that the group of men were from NIMH and are looking for them specifically.
The successful house move allows the mouse family to remain while Timothy recovers before moving to their summer home. Although the rats have not yet had time to move everything they needed for The Plan, they manage to destroy their underground rooms, and create the illusion that they are just regular rats by placing rubbish in the remaining rooms. As the others move, ten rats stay behind so the exterminators would not think the rat hole has been abandoned. When the exterminators fill the rat hole with poisonous gas, eight of the ten rats manage to escape, while two rats die in the hole. It is not revealed exactly who these two are.