TOO TRICKY FOR TOBY
Later on Toby busied himself baiting his trap. Bandy-legs was invited to assist in the operation, but he declined. Perhaps he partly suspected the other had some sinister motive back of his invitation, and that when he least expected it that trailing loop would get twisted around one of his ankles, and his next step might precipitate an upheaval. Of course Toby could always declare that it must have been an accident; but his curiosity would have been satisfied at any rate. And Bandy-legs was firmly opposed to allowing himself to be experimented on. He had heard his father speak so many times of the horror of vivisection that somehow Bandy-legs seemed to have imbibed the idea that all experiments must be unpleasant.
At least it had not rained any at the time the boys sought their blankets; and some of the more sanguine began to hope it would prove to be a false alarm after all.
They had fixed things as well as they could, looking to a bad turn in the weather. If it did come they would have a sort of rustic shelter under which they could manage to keep their fire going, and in that way get some warmth in the tent.
"Come along in, Toby, and quit your fussing out there!" Steve called, as he settled himself under his warm blanket, having chosen a position where he could duck out easily in case there came an alarm in the night.
"P'raps Toby's meaning to try his trap himself before he lays down," suggested Bandy-legs, a little viciously; "he'll sure never be happy till he knows whether it works or not. We'll take you down, Toby, if you get hung up by the hind leg."
"H-h-hind leg!" retorted Toby indignantly, "what d-d-do you take me for, anyhow? Mebbe you think I'm a c-c-cow or a j-j-jackass, but I ain't, all the s-s-same; I leave it to others to p-p-play such g-g-games."
As he came in shortly afterward it was apparent that Bandy-legs had counted without his host when he figured that Toby meant to test the working of his trap at his own expense. Toby was too smart for that, it seemed; and besides he doubtless had confidence in his arrangements.
"Here goes for a bully sleep," said Bandy-legs, as he coiled up under his cover, with his knees close to his chin, a favorite attitude with him; "and I hope nothing wakes me till morning."
"If you sleep as sound as you generally do," Max told him, "it would take a hurricane to bother you. If one came whooping along, and carried our tent up into the tree, the chances are you'd open one eye and want to know who was making all that draught. You're a good sleeper, Bandy-legs, and your mother knows it, too."
"I believe in doing everything well," replied the other, sturdily. "When I eat I eat; and when the time comes to snooze take it from me I'm on the sleeping job from the word go. That's all you'll hear from me to-night, boys."
"Good!" said Steve, wickedly, "the rest of us can do a little thinking, then. Let it go at that, Bandy-legs; no reply needed. I'm expecting to go to sleep myself, for while I did say I meant to sit up and watch for that ham thief, since Toby's been so smart as to set a trap, what's the use?"
Presently all of them must have fallen asleep, to judge from the silence that hovered over the interior of the khaki-colored tent.
Some time passed by.
Then several heads suddenly projected from under as many blankets.
"What was that?" Max asked.
"My t-t-trap s-s-sprung!" gasped Toby.
"But what ails the beast that he don't let out a few howls?" demanded Steve, who was clawing desperately under his blanket, trying to find where he had placed his handy gun at the time he lay down.
"That's the funny part of it," Max declared; "if you've got your gun by now, Steve, let's crawl out and see what's doing."
The three of them hastened to do so, not knowing what they might see once they reached the open. Bandy-legs had as yet not stirred, and it really looked as if he meant to keep his word when he declared that nothing short of an earthquake or a cyclone would disturb him, once he got asleep.
As soon as the others huddled outside, and tried to focus their blinking eyes on their surroundings they discovered several things.
In the first place it had apparently not rained as yet, for the ground seemed to be perfectly dry. Then again, the fire had burned low, for it was giving only an apology of a light, and this flickered, and died down at intervals.
Max knew what should be the first duty, and stepping toward the fire he threw a handful of small trash on the coals. Immediately a flame sprang up, and the camp was fairly well illuminated.
Of course the boys all stared in the quarter where Toby had set that wonderful trap of his. If the hickory sapling had not been set free it would still be seen bent in the shape of a huge bow; but their first glance showed them that this was not the case.
"It's s-s-sprung!" said Toby, huskily.
Steve was holding his precious Marlin double-barrel gun so that he could raise it instantly and take aim.
"Yes," Max went on to say, with a touch of excitement in his voice as well as his manner, "and I can see something swinging back and forward there!"
"Oh! whatever can it be?" Toby ventured, tremulously; and then as he imagined that he detected a slight movement on the part of Steve he flung out a hand and tried to shove the other's gun aside, adding: "Don't you d-d-do it, Steve! Why, it can't be a hyena, or anything d-d-dangerous to us, because d-d-don't you see it's held right up in the air. Let's rush in and keep the poor thing from being c-c-choked to d-d-death!"
The three of them advanced in a straight line, Max and Steve being armed, and apparently ready to do fell execution, should there be any necessity for action. But nothing happened. The swinging object continued to move back and forth, but none of them could detect any spasmodic kicking connected with it that would suggest the dying struggles of a wild beast that was being slowly but surely choked.
Then Max gave a laugh.
"Why, it isn't a beast at all, but the heavy pole Bandy-legs threw over here the time you accused him of wanting to spring your trap, Toby!" he announced; and as all of them gathered close to the now upright hickory sapling, it was seen that what Max declared was really so.
"Then Bandy-legs m-m-must have d-d-done this trick!" burst from Toby, who was apparently, filled with indignation.
"Don't you believe it," Steve assured him; "because we all heard it go off, and right then Bandy-legs was sound asleep alongside me. He's there yet, bundled up in his blanket."
"You think so, but you d-d-don't know for s-s-sure," spluttered Toby, distressed at the failure of his much vaunted trap to show results. "C-c-chances are if you went and looked you'd f-f-find he had a d-d-dummy there under his b-b-blanket all the time."
"Well, now," observed Max, frowning, "that never occurred to me before, and while I can hardly believe our chum would play such a prank on us, still you never can tell. So Toby, we appoint you a committee of one to go back into the tent and see if Bandy-legs is there or not."
"I will!" Toby responded, firmly, as though he meant to have the truth made manifest without any delay; and accordingly he hastened away from Max and Steve, who started in to learn the way in which the heavy pole had been seized by the loop.
Immediately Toby came running back, and his face looked more blank than ever.
"Well, did you find him there?" asked Max.
"Yep, and as d-d-dead to the w-w-world as anything," replied the stutterer, as he looked blankly at his two chums, and then toward the swinging pole, as though, the puzzle had become more exasperating than ever.
Steve gave a low whistle, which was his way of expressing amazement.
"Say, that must be a wonderful old stick, all right!" he declared, jerking his thumb toward the object that was held in the tightened loop of rope.
"B-b-but you d-d-don't really think it j-j-jumped up all by itself, and g-g-got c-c-caught, do you?" Toby demanded, quite aghast.
"Well, hardly," said Max, though a little frown told that he too considered the enigma a nut hard to crack. "Something that had life about it made that stick do that trick; there's no doubt about that."
"Was it an animal or—a man?" Steve immediately asked, as he looked nervously around, and half raised his gun, as though he expected to see some ugly hobo advancing menacingly from the shelter of the forest.
Max was bending down, and evidently trying to examine the soil.
"I don't seem to see any tracks of a man here," he said; "and perhaps you've noticed that about all the bait Toby put out is gone!"
"C-c-cracky! that's so!" cried Toby, although up to then he had not thought to pay any attention to this important fact.
"Then some sort of animal must have been here," Max steadily affirmed. "It ate up the bait, and then must have either accidentally or on purpose poked that heavy stick into the loop, and sprang Toby's trap."
"Sure it must have been an accident, Max," objected Steve; "because it would have to be a mighty smart animal, and a tricky one at that, to play such a sly game as using this stick to set the bent sapling free."
"I know it looks that way," Max went on to say; "but don't forget that the animal that threw the ham at your head from the tree was a tricky one. Some of those beasts belonging to the show are trained to do lots of queer things."
"Oh! if we're up against an educated animal," Steve admitted as though convinced against his will, "that might make a difference, because I've seen such do things I never would have believed any beast could be taught to perform. But he was keen enough to move all around here and never once get caught in the loop. Yes, chances are he knew what that was there for all the time; and having finished his supper, just to show us what he thought of such silly tricks he picks up this stick, gives it a hitch through the loop, jerks at the same, and there you are, with three half scared fellows crawling out of the tent expectin' to find a tiger held up by the hind quarters. This is what they call coming down from the sublime to the ridiculous, I think."
"It's all Bandy-legs' fault anyway!" muttered the disappointed Toby, as he commenced taking the pole out of the loop, as though he meant to reset his trap, hoping for better luck the next time.
"How do you make that out, I'd like to know!" asked Steve.
"Mebbe if he'd only been half way d-d-decent, and l-l-let me try it out on him, this wouldn't have h-h-happened," Toby advanced, at which the other boys felt constrained to chuckle.
"Hard luck, old chap," said Steve; "we'll help you fix things up again, and p'raps you'll strike it different the next time."
That sort of talk helped Toby forget his keen disappointment, so that he actually brightened up somewhat.
"All right, Steve; that's k-k-kind of you. I was g-g-going to ask if you'd care to test the thing for me; but we kind of k-k-know what she can do now. The way it gripped this stick shows how it would h-h-hang on like grim d-d-death."
"I'm going to ask you as a special favor, boys, not to tramp around here any more than you can help," said Max.
"Which I take it means you hope to learn something from finding tracks, when you can see in the daylight; is that the answer, Max?" Steve asked.
"Yes, and when you set the trap keep on this side. I should think that whatever it was picked up the bait might have gone off that other way," Max-continued, thoughtfully.
"Unless it came down the tree here, and went back the same way," Steve proposed. "We know already that the thief is a climber, don't we, Max?"
"You remember, Steve, that ham sailed out of a tree, and whizzed past your head," replied the one whose opinion had been asked. "Yes, and I had a glimpse of some moving object up among the branches, even if it did slip away before I could see whether it had the stripes of a tiger, the spots of an ocelot, or the gray coat of our American panther."
"Gee! but this thing is getting some exciting, for a fact!" Steve admitted; "and we'll all feel a heap sight easier in our minds when we do know just what sort of critter it is hanging around our camp, and trying to make a living off our stock of good grub."
"But Bandy-legs isn't caring whether school keeps or not," suggested Max, as they plainly heard a loud snore from the direction of the tent, where the other chum was evidently sleeping soundly.
"He'll hardly believe us when we tell him in the morning what happened," Steve went on to say. "And now that we've gone and set the old spring trap again, there's not a single thing to show for it, unless we're lucky enough to get our game the second time around."
"S-s-shucks!" muttered Toby just then.
"What's the matter?" asked Max.
"D-d-don't believe the thing'll come again; it's r-r-raining right now."
"Only a few drops, Toby, and they never make a storm, you know," Steve informed him. "We don't want to see any rain, and for one I won't believe it's going to visit us till I see it pouring cats and dogs. When it comes to the weather I never believe anything until it happens, and then, like as not it turns out a fizzle."
"Well, there's no use of our staying out here to get wet," remarked Max; "so I move the meeting be adjourned. All in favor call out aye!"
Both the others were of the same mind, for they hastened to add their voices to that of Max. And accordingly all of them crawled back under the waterproof tent, content to let things move along as they pleased, and quite sure that no matter how the rain did come down they would find their covering faithful to its trust.
Bandy-legs still slept on, and he looked so young and innocent lying there doubled up in a knot that none of the others found the heart to disturb him, but sought their respective nooks, and tried to compose themselves once more for a good sleep.