“Because the bait is gone!” continued Dan, growing more and more excited. “I hung it up on that branch you can see moving in the wind, and now it’s bare. No danger of its having fallen off either. Something’s taken it, Dick!”
“So? Then let’s move along and make sure,” remarked the second boy.
Ten seconds later Dan made another discovery.
“Oh! the mat over the hole has been broken in, Dick—it certainly has!” he cried in growing excitement.
“Good enough!” his chum observed. “Then let’s hope Mr. Gorilla is right now down in the pit, waiting for us to come and explain what we mean by deceiving a poor old simian in such a mean way. Come along, Dan. The chances are you’ve caught him.”
All doubt was removed shortly afterwards, when creeping cautiously up the two boys peered over the edge of the pit. Most of the covering had been dragged down with the heavy descending body of the gorilla when he fell in, so that enough daylight managed to struggle to the bottom to disclose a fearful sight.
There sat the gorilla, blinking his wicked little eyes up at the faces of his captors, of whose presence he seemed to be fully aware. He was all that Dan had pictured him, short of stature, with an immense girth of chest, long muscular arms, and squatty lower limbs. Ugly though he seemed to the boys, Dick was rather of the opinion that the animal could not be quite as ferocious as those of his species when met in their native Borneo haunts.
“He must have got used to folks in the years of his captivity,” Dick remarked to the shivering Dan; “and that’s why he doesn’t take on dreadful, now that he understands he’s caught in a trap, and will have to go back to his cage again.”
“My stars!” muttered the entranced Dan, “if he’s a tame gorilla deliver me from ever running across a real wild one. All the money in the world couldn’t tempt me to drop down in that pit alongside that old chap. Ugh! excuse me! Even the thought of it makes me creep all over.”
“We’ll try not to have any such accident as that,” remarked Dick, experiencing a squeamish feeling himself at the idea. “And now, what are you going to do with Bob, since you’ve trapped him?”