The Boy Trapper Part 15

Don, who had received explicit instructions from his father the night before, superintended this work, and by the middle of the afternoon the trap was completed and set, ready for the bear's reception.

It looked, as we have said, like a little log cabin with a flat roof.

One end of the roof rested on the rear wall of the trap, while the other was raised in the air, leaving an opening sufficiently large to admit of the entrance of any bear that was likely to come that way.

The roof was held in this position by a stout lever, which rested across the limb of a convenient tree. A rope led from the other end of the lever, down through a hole in the roof, to the trigger, to which the bait--an ear of corn--was attached. The bear was expected to crawl through the opening and seize the ear of corn; and in so doing, he would spring the trigger, release the lever and the roof would fall down and fasten him in the pen. When all the finishing touches had been put on, the boys leaned on their axes and admired their work.

CHAPTER XI.

TRAPPING QUAILS.

"Now, I call that a pretty good job for a first attempt," said Don; "and considering the work we have had to do, it hasn't taken us a great while either. I wish I dare crawl in there and set it off, just to be sure that it will work all right."

"But that wouldn't be a very bright proceeding," replied Bert. "We could never get you out. You would be as securely confined as you were when you were tied up in the potato-cellar."

Don was well aware of that fact. The roof was made of logs as heavy as they could manage with their united strength, and there were other logs placed upon it in such a position that when the roof fell, their weight would a.s.sist in holding it down. All these precautions were necessary, for a bear can exert tremendous strength if he once makes up his mind to do it; and David had repeatedly declared that if they should chance to capture an animal as large as the one that had been killed on that very island years before, the pen would not prove half strong enough to hold him. But it was quite strong enough to hold Don if he got into it, and the only way his companions could have released him would have been by cutting the roof in pieces with their axes.

The work was all done now, and the boys were ready to start for home.

While Bert and David were gathering up the tools and stowing them away in the canoe, Don scattered a few ears of corn around, so that the bear would be sure to find them the next time he visited the island, and threw a dozen or so more into the trap close about the trigger. The rest of the corn he hung up out of reach on a sapling which he knew was too small for the bear to climb.

a.s.sisted by the current the canoe made good time down the bayou. Bert and David lay back in the stern-sheets and said they were tired, while Don, who was seated at the oars, declared that his day's work had relieved his stiff joints, and that he began to feel like himself again. He was fresh enough to a.s.sist in building another trap without an hour's rest; and in order to work off a little of his surplus energy, he thought when he reached home he would take a turn through the fields in company with his pointer, and see if he could bag quails enough for his next morning's breakfast. Bert said he would go with him, for he wanted to see the pointer work.

In about three quarters of an hour the canoe entered the lake and drew up to the bank in front of G.o.dfrey's cabin. David sprang out, and after placing his gun upon the bench in front of the door, went behind the building to unchain the pointer. He was gone a long time--so long that Don and Bert, who were sitting in the canoe waiting for him, began to grow impatient--and when he came back he did not bring the pointer with him. He brought instead a chain and a collar. His face told the brothers that he had made a most unwelcome discovery.

"Where's the dog?" asked Bert.

"I don't know," answered David, looking up and down the road. "He must have slipped the collar over his head and gone off; but I never knew him to do it before."

"Well, you needn't look so sober about it," said Don. "He isn't far away. I'll warrant I can bring him back."

Don set up a whistle that could have been heard for half a mile.

Indeed it was heard and recognised at a greater distance than that.

An answering yelp came from the direction of his father's house, but it was not given by the dog Don wanted to see just then. It was uttered by one of the hounds which had been shut up in the barn when Don went away that morning, and afterward released by the hostler.

The others answered in chorus, and half a dozen fleet animals were seen coming down the road at the top of their speed. But the pointer was not with them.

"It's likely we shall find him at the house," said Bert, who wanted to say something encouraging for David's benefit.

"I don't doubt it," returned Don. "If he's there, Dave, we'll take a short hunt with him and bring him down in the morning."

"If you don't care I'll go up with you," said David, "It would be a great relief to me to know that he is safe."

"All right. Jump aboard."

David got into the canoe again and Don pulled up the lake toward the wharf. When they reached it the boat was made fast to the tree again, and the three boys started for the house. Don at once began making inquiries concerning his pointer, but no one had seen him, and his loud and continued whistling brought only the hounds, which snuffed at the guns and yelped and jumped about as if trying to make their master understand that they were there, and ready for anything he might want them to do.

"Never mind," said Don, who did not seem to feel half as bad as David did; "dogs of his breed never stray far away, and he'll be at your house or ours before morning, you may depend upon it. Good-by now, and don't forget to be on hand at an early hour. We must set to work upon those traps without any more delay."

David reluctantly turned his face toward home, and Don and Bert went into the house. "I didn't tell him just what I think about the matter, for he feels badly enough already," said Don, when he and his brother were in their room, dressing for supper. "There's an awful thief about here, and it wouldn't surprise me at all to know that the pointer has gone where our canoe went."

"Do you know that that thought has been in my mind all the while?"

returned Bert. "Who is the thief?"

"I give it up. If he lives about here he's foolish to steal my dog, for he never can use him in hunting. There isn't a man or boy in the settlement but would recognise him the moment he saw him."

"Perhaps he was stolen in the hope that a reward would be offered for his return," suggested Bert.

"Well, there's something in that. But after all," added Don, a few minutes later, "there isn't so much in it, for how could the thief return the dog without making himself known? Still I hope it is so--that is, if the dog was stolen--for rather than lose him, I'll give ten dollars to anybody who will bring him back to me, and ask no questions. If I have to do that it will ruin me, for it will take my last cent."

The ringing of the supper bell put a stop to their conversation for the time being, but it was resumed as soon as the family were gathered about the table. Various explanations were offered for the pointer's absence, and when that matter had been talked over, the events of the day were brought up for discussion. Bert acted as spokesman, and when he told how the hounds had driven the bear from his den and forced him to swim the bayou, Don was surprised to see that his father smiled as if he did not quite believe it. "It's the truth, every word of it," said Don, almost indignantly.

"O, I don't doubt that you found something on the island and drove it off," replied the General, "but I don't think it was a bear."

"What was it?" asked Don.

"It was something you will not be likely to catch in your trap. It was G.o.dfrey Evans."

Don dropped his knife and fork, and settled back in his chair. "We saw tracks in the mud that did not look to me like bear tracks, that's a fact," said he. "If that was G.o.dfrey, he's the one who stole our canoe."

"Then we have had all our trouble for nothing," said Bert.

"Perhaps not," replied his father. "The island has been much frequented by bears ever since I can remember, and it may be that your labor will be rewarded in a day or two. It might be well for you to watch your trap at any rate. If you should happen to catch a young bear, that you could bring home alive, Silas Jones would give you twenty dollars for it. That would be a big addition to David's little capital, for of course you wouldn't want any of the money."

"Of course not. All we want is the fun of catching the bear."

Don and Bert were up the next morning before the sun, as they always were, and as soon as they were dressed, they went out to the shop and found David there busy with his traps. He knew where the key was kept, under the door-step, and at the first peep of day he had let himself in and gone to work. Of course the first questions that were asked and answered were in regard to the missing pointer, but no one had seen or heard anything of him. David seemed to take the loss very much to heart. The animal was a valuable one, and he felt that he was in some degree responsible for his safe-keeping.

Three pairs of willing hands made light work, and by two o'clock in the afternoon a dozen traps were completed and ready for setting. The boys then stopped long enough to take a hasty lunch, which they ate in the shop, in order to save time, and after that one of the mules was. .h.i.tched to a wagon and brought before the door. The traps, a basket containing the "figure fours," with which they were to be set, a bag of corn for bait, an axe, with which to clear away the underbrush, and a spade to dig the trenches, having been packed away in the vehicle, the boys got in and drove off. They directed their course along the fence, which ran around the plantation, and wherever they found a clump of bushes or a little thicket of briers and cane, there they stopped long enough to set one of their traps.

The traps were made of slats split from oak boards, and were a little less than four feet square and a little more than a foot in height.

In the top was a slide covering a hole large enough to admit one's arm, and it was through this hole that the captured birds were to be taken out. The undergrowth was first cut away with the axe and the trap put down in the clear s.p.a.ce, a narrow board being placed under two sides of it, to give it a solid foundation. A trench just large enough to admit a single quail was dug under each of these boards, one end of the trench being on the outside of the trap and the other on the inside. A small ear of corn was tied firmly to the trigger, the trap set with the "figure four," a few kernels were scattered about in the immediate neighborhood, and the trap was ready for the first flock of quails that might come that way. When they came, they would, of course, find the corn, and while they were eating it they would be sure to find the trap. One or more of them would go in and spring it by pecking at the ear that was tied to the trigger, and the others, no matter if there were a hundred in the flock, would all go in to him through the trenches before spoken of. After they had eaten the corn, they would look _up_ instead of down for a way of escape, and, although the trenches at which they came in were still open to them, they would not know enough to make use of them. If the trap was once sprung, the capture of the entire flock was certain, provided those outside were not frightened away before they had time to go in to their imprisoned companions.

In two hours' time the traps had all been set and the boys were at home again. They had done a good day's work, but they wanted to do a better; so as soon as the mule was unharnessed and the wagon put under the shed where it belonged, they set to work in the shop again, and before dark a large coop, which would just fit into the wagon box, was completed. This was to be used to bring home the captured quails. After that one of the unoccupied negro cabins was selected to confine the birds in until the required number had been trapped. It received a thorough sweeping, the floor was covered with clean sand, and the broken window was boarded up so that the captives could not escape. When this was done David started for home, and Don and Bert went into the house to get ready for supper.

The next day was spent much as the preceding one had been spent. At eleven o'clock seven more traps were ready for the field. Then the mule and wagon were brought into use again, and the new traps were distributed along the fence. When the boys came back they took time to eat lunch, after which the coop was put into the wagon, and they set out to visit the traps they had set the day before.

"There's nothing here," said Bert, as he drew rein in front of the thicket in which the first trap was located. He could not see the trap, but his ears told him all he wanted to know. If there had been any quails in it they would have uttered their notes of alarm as soon as they heard the wagon coming.

"No, there's nothing here!" said Don, after listening a moment. "I'll scatter a little more corn about and make sure that the trap is all right."

He got out of the wagon as he spoke, and while he was working his way into the thicket he flushed a blue-jay, which flew into a tree close by and scolded him with all its might. Don shied a stick at it and kept on to the trap. It was down, and there was something in it which fluttered its wings against the bars and made the most frantic efforts to escape. Don knew it was not a quail, so he did not stop to see what it was. He threw back the slide, thrust his hand into the opening and when he clutched the bird received a severe bite from it.

"I have half a mind to wring your little neck for you," thought Don, as he brought the fluttering captive, a beautiful red-bird, into view. "Not because you have bitten me, but because you will make it your business to come here and spring this trap every day. Red-birds and blue-jays are perfect nuisances when a fellow is trapping, and I wouldn't blame Dave for shooting every one he sees."

But Don did not injure the bird. He was a sportsman, and never made war on game of this sort. He tossed the captive into the air and it flew away out of sight.

Having set the trap again and scattered a little more corn about to replace that which had been picked up by the birds, Don went back to the wagon and Bert drove on down the field. They found the second trap thrown, and the marks of little teeth on the ear of corn that was tied to the trigger showed that a ground squirrel had been at work. The third trap was also sprung, and the shrill, piping notes of alarm which came to their ears when Bert stopped the wagon, told them that they had made their first capture. Jumping quickly out of the wagon the boys made their way into the bushes, and when they came within sight of the trap they found that it was so full that the little prisoners had scarcely room to turn about.

"Here's the first instalment of your hundred and fifty dollars, Dave," cried Don. "We've got more than a dozen, I know!"