"Oh! get me down, quick!" moaned the trapped prowler. "All the blood's agoin' to my head, and I'll be a dead one soon! Please cut me down, fellers! I won't run!"
"I'm right sure you won't," remarked Colon, drily; "but while I've got you held up so neat, I might as well make it doubly certain."
With, that he secured the other flourishing leg so that when Conrad was lowered to the ground he could not move without their permission.
"Give us a hand here, Fred, and we'll get him out of the trap," remarked the proud inventor of the running-barrel game. "You see, he stepped right up on this box, just as I figured, and touched the trigger. With that he started the heavy barrel rolling down-grade; and the loop caught him by one leg, instead of both, as I meant it should."
"But what was all the fierce noise that woke us up?" asked Fred, as he assisted Colon to take the victim down, by dragging in on the rope, so as to slacken the loop around the leg of the trapped one.
"Oh! shucks! just a pile of tin cans I built up, to be knocked over when the barrel got to turning around. You see, I was a little afraid that we mightn't hear when the trap was sprung, and I wouldn't want to miss this funny sight for anything. Here, you are, Conrad; lie there now, till we can drag you inside the house."
The boy was evidently very much frightened. He had thought his ankle in the grasp of some unseen giant, when the loop tightened, and snatched him upwards. No wonder he trembled and wheezed as he cowered there.
"We'd better go in right now, then," remarked Fred. "Some of that crowd might take a notion to come back and see what has happened to Conrad. Take hold of him on that side, Colon, while I look after this one."
"Oh! what you a-goin' to do with me?" queried the prisoner. "I haven't done a single thing, fellers, cross my heart if I did. Just wanted to see if anybody was a-sleepin' in the old shed. Buck told me to be sure and not hurt the boat. He says that its bad enough because we lost ours, without anything a-happenin' to yours. I wouldn't do a little thing, sure I wouldn't. Hope you believe me boys. Don't lick me! I got about all I ought to have already. I'm shiverin' to beat the band. Quit jerkin' me that way, Chris Colon; I ain't hurt you!"
"Oh! come along, you silly!" said the tall boy, who had a contempt for so great a sneak and coward as Conrad Jimmerson.