The Boy Trapper Part 21

"What's the pay, father?" asked Bob.

"Thirty dollars a month was Gardner's bid, and he rode the route only twice each week. But he had to go rain or shine. How would you like it, Bob?"

"The best in the world!" exclaimed the boy, eagerly. "Three hundred and sixty dollars a year! Couldn't I sport just as fine a hunting and fishing rig as anybody? Can't you get it for me, father?"

"I was thinking about it on the way home, and I made up my mind that I could try. Gordon thinks he holds the whole state of Mississippi under his thumb, but he hasn't got me there."

"Nor my father, either," said Lester. "He'll help you, Mr. Owens."

"I was counting on him. When I send in the application, I'll have to send a bond for a few hundred dollars with it."

"Father will go on it, if I ask him, and I will, for I'll do anything to help Bob and beat that beggar, Dave Evans."

The conversation continued for an hour or more in this strain, and when the boys had heard David and all his friends soundly abused, and Bob had provided for the spending of every cent of the money he would earn during the first year he rode the route, if his father succeeded in obtaining the appointment for him, he and Lester went out to attend to their horses and talk the matter over by themselves. Bob was in ecstacies; and while he was counting off on his fingers the various articles he intended to purchase with his wages, Lester suddenly laid his hand on his arm.

"What's that?" said he, in a suppressed whisper.

Bob looked in the direction indicated by his companion, and saw a dark figure creeping stealthily along the fence. His actions plainly showed that he had no business there, and, as if moved by a common impulse, the two boys dropped to the ground and waited to see what he was going to do.

"It's some thieving n.i.g.g.e.r," whispered Bob. "If he lays a hand on anything we'll jump up and catch him."

"Hadn't I better go into the house and call your father?" asked Lester.

"O, no; you and I can manage him. Do you see those fence pickets over there? Well, we'll sneak up and get one apiece, and then if he attempts any resistance, we shall be ready for him."

The pickets, of which Bob spoke, were piled about twenty yards nearer to the barn than the boys then were, and they succeeded in creeping up to them and arming themselves without attracting the notice of the prowler. The latter followed the fence until he reached a point opposite the spot where the barn, corn-cribs and other out-buildings were located, and there he stopped to survey the ground before him.

Having made sure that there was no one in sight, he moved quickly toward the smokehouse and tried the door.

"I don't think you'll make much there, my friend," whispered Bob.

"That door is locked."

The prowler found it so, and after a few ineffectual attempts to force it open by pushing with his shoulder against it, he faced about and disappeared in the barn. While the boys were trying to make up their minds whether or not they ought to run up and corner him there, he came out again, and he did not come empty-handed either. He carried a bag of meal on his shoulder--the one Mr. Owens had put in the barn that morning for the use of his horses--and in his hand something that looked like a stick of stove-wood; but it was in reality a strong iron strap, which he had found in the barn and which he intended to use to force an entrance into the smokehouse. He deposited his bag of meal upon the ground, set to work upon the hasp with his lever and in a few minutes more the door swung open.

"Now is our time," whispered Bob, as the robber disappeared in the smoke-house. "Stand by me and we'll have a prisoner when we go back to the house."

Lester would have been very glad indeed to have had some excuse for remaining in his place of concealment, and allowing his companion to go on and capture the robber alone; but he could not think of any, and when Bob jumped up and ran toward the smoke-house, Lester followed him, taking care, however, to regulate his pace so that his friend could keep about ten or fifteen feet in advance of him. Bob, who was in earnest and not in the least alarmed, moved with noiseless footsteps, while Lester, preferring to let the robber escape rather than face him with no better weapon than a fence picket in his hand, made all the noise he conveniently could, hoping that the man would take the alarm and run out of the smoke-house before they could reach it. But the thief was so busily engaged that he did not hear their approach, and never dreamed of danger until the boys halted in front of the door and ordered him to come out and give himself up. We ought rather to say that Bob halted in front of the door and boldly stood his ground there, while Lester took care to shelter himself behind the building, and showed only the top of his cap to the robber.

"We've got you now, you rascal!" exclaimed Bob, bringing his club against the side of the smokehouse with a sounding whack. "Come out and surrender yourself, or we'll come in and take you out."

"Yes," chimed in Lester, in a trembling voice, at the same time hitting the building a very feeble blow with his fence picket. "Come out, and be quick about it. There are a dozen of us here, enough to make----"

Lester finished the sentence with a prolonged shriek of terror, for just then something that seemed to move with the speed and power of a lightning express train, dashed out of the intense darkness which concealed all objects in the interior of the smoke-house, and Lester received a glancing blow on the shoulder that floored him on the instant. While the latter was calling upon the robber to surrender, Bob heard a slight rustling in the smoke-house, and knowing very well what it meant, he jumped back out of the door-way, and raised his club in readiness to strike; but the thief was out and gone before he could think twice. The instant the robber landed on his feet outside the door, he turned toward the place where he had left his bag of meal and happened to come into collision with Lester, who went down with a jar that made him think every bone in his body was broken. It was a minute or two before he could collect his scattered wits and raise himself to his feet, and then he found that he was alone. Bob was scudding across the field in pursuit of the robber, who carried a side of bacon on one shoulder and the bag of meal on the other; but burdened as he was he ran quite fast enough to distance Bob, who presently came back to the smoke-house, panting and almost exhausted.

"Is he gone?" asked Lester, who was groping about on the ground in search of his club.

"I should say he was," Bob managed to reply. "He ran like a deer. He knocked you flatter than a pancake, didn't he?"

"He didn't hurt me as badly as I hurt him," said Lester. "Did you hear my club ring on his head?"

"No, but I heard you yell. You didn't strike him."

"What's the reason I didn't? I did, too, but it must have been a glancing blow, for if I had hit him fairly, I should have knocked him flatter than he knocked me. I yelled just to frighten him."

"I guess you succeeded, for I never saw a man run as he did. He got away, and he took the meal and bacon with him. They'll not do him any good, however, for he'll be in the calaboose by this time to-morrow, if there are men enough in the settlement to find him. I know him."

"You do? Who was he?"

"G.o.dfrey Evans. He's been hiding in the cane ever since he and Clarence Gordon got into that sc.r.a.pe, and no one has ever troubled him. But somebody will trouble him now. I'll tell my father of it the first thing. I wonder how Dave will feel when he sees his father arrested and packed off to jail?"

"I wouldn't do anything of the kind, if I were you," said Lester.

"You wouldn't?" cried Bob, greatly astonished. "Well, I won't let this chance to be revenged on Dave slip by unimproved, now I tell you."

"We can take revenge in a better way than that. We've got just as good a hold on him now as we want, and we'll make him promise that he will make no effort to catch those quails."

"O, I am no longer interested in that quail business," said Bob, loftily. "I'd rather have three hundred and sixty dollars than seventy-five."

"But you must remember that you haven't been appointed mail carrier yet, so you are by no means sure of your three hundred and sixty dollars. And even if you were, it would be worth your while to earn the seventy-five dollars, if you could, for that amount of money isn't to be found on every bush."

Lester went on to tell his friend of a bright idea that had just then occurred to him, and before he had fully explained how the events of the night could be made to benefit them, he had won Bob over to his way of thinking. The latter promised that he would say nothing to his father about the theft of which G.o.dfrey had been guilty, until he and Lester had first told David of it and noted the effect it had upon him. If they could work upon his feelings sufficiently to induce him to give up the idea of trapping the quails, well and good. G.o.dfrey might have the meal and bacon, and welcome. But if David was still obstinate and refused to listen to reason, they would punish him by putting the officers of the law on his father's track.

"It is a splendid plan and it will work, I know it will,"

exclaimed Bob, in great glee. "It will be some time before my appointment--those folks in Washington move very slowly--and while I am waiting for it, I may as well make seventy-five dollars. I can get my shot-gun with it, and spend my three hundred and sixty for the other things I need."

Bob slept but little that night for excitement, and dreaming about the glorious things that might be in store for him, kept him awake.

He and Lester were up long before the sun, and as soon as they had eaten breakfast, they mounted their horses and rode off in the direction of G.o.dfrey Evans's house. Early as it was when they arrived there, they found the cabin deserted by all save Dan, who sat on the bench by the door. David was hastening through the woods toward his father's camp, intent on finding the pointer, and Mrs. Evans had gone to her daily labor.

"He's just went over to the General's house, Dave has," said Dan, in reply to a question from Lester; and he thought he told the truth, for we know that David went in that direction on purpose to mislead his brother. "Yes, he's went up thar, an' 'tain't no ways likely that he'll be to hum afore dark."

The visitors turned their horses about and rode away, and as soon as they were out of sight of the cabin, they struck into the woods to make one more effort to find David's traps, if he had set any. But, as usual, they met with no success, and Lester again gave it as his opinion, that David had no intention of trying to trap the quails.

Bob thought so too; but in less than half an hour, they received positive proof that they were mistaken. They were riding around the rear of one of the General's fields, on their way home, when they happened to cast their eyes through the bushes that lined the fence, and saw something that surprised them greatly, and caused them to draw rein at once. There was a wagon in the field, and Don and Bert Gordon were pa.s.sing back and forth between it and a little thicket of bushes and briers that stood a short distance away. They left the wagon with empty hands, and when they came back, they brought their arms full of something, which they stowed away in a box. While Lester and Bob were looking at them, a small, dark object suddenly arose from the box and came toward them, pa.s.sing swiftly over their heads and disappearing in the woods.

"That's a quail!" exclaimed Bob. "It escaped from Don's hands."

"Yes, sir, and we have made a discovery," said Lester. "Dave Evans hasn't given up trapping the quails after all. He's catching them every day, and Don and Bert are helping him."

"It's just like them," replied Bob, in great disgust. "They're always poking their noses into other people's business. But I don't feel as badly over it as I did a short time ago."

"I know what you are counting on. You are as sure of that mail carrier's berth as you would be if you were to ride the route for the first time to-day; but if you should happen to slip up on it, you'd be glad to have the seventy-five dollars to fall back on."

"O, I am willing to work for it," replied Bob, quickly, "not only because I want it myself, but because I don't want Dave Evans to have it. What's to be done?"

"That trap must have been as full as it could hold," said Lester, thoughtfully. "They have made five or six trips between the wagon and that clump of bushes since we have been here. We know where one of the traps is set now, and that will guide us in finding the rest.

When we do find them, we'll carry out our plan of robbing them every day. They must have trapped some birds before, and if we watch them when they go home we can find out where they keep them. What do you say to that?"

Bob replied that he was willing, and so the two dismounted, and having hitched their horses, set themselves to watch the wagon. They followed it at a respectful distance, as it made the rounds of the traps (they did not know that they also were followed by somebody, who kept a sharp eye on all their movements), and Bob grew angry every time he saw more quails added to those already in the coop.

"Those fellows are always lucky," he growled. "I'll warrant that if we visit those traps we set yesterday, we'll not find a single bird in them. Don and Bert are hauling them in by dozens."