“What in the world did you ever put your foot in that trap for?” asked Jack, when it was ascertained that Budge had not been injured.
“Well,” he said, “I’ll tell you. You see, I asked Long Gun to show me how to make a spring trap. I thought it might come in handy when I got back home. He showed me, and made one. But it didn’t look to me as if it would work. So I just touched the trigger with my foot, and—and——”
“We saw the rest,” finished Bony. “Cracky! But I thought at first you were giving us an exhibition of a human skyrocket.”
“Or trying to imitate the gigantic bird that left the marks in the snow,” added Sam. “Let’s tell Budge about it.”
Which they did; and as his chum was usually pretty sharp in his conclusions, Jack asked him what he thought it was that had made the mysterious prints in the snow.
“It must have been a roc, one of those birds you read about in the ‘Arabian Nights,’” declared Budge.
“There never were such birds,” objected Jack.
“Sure there were,” declared Budge. “It says so in the book.”
“No one ever saw one,” objected Sam.