“No? That’s all you know about it. I’ll admit that you wouldn’t care to walk with it very far. You would see why I didn’t take it into shelter at the close of the season—although of course it’s easy enough to haul on a sled. You notice it’s attached to a chain, and that chain to a toggle.”
“Toggle” was a word that Ned had never heard before, but which plainly represented a great log, or drag, to which the trap chain was attached. Ned gazed, and another foolish question came to his lips. “You use that because there isn’t a tree handy?” he asked.
“If there was a tree handy, I’d use it just the same,” Doomsdorf explained. “There’s no holding the animal I catch in that trap by chaining him fast. No matter how big the tree or how stout the chain, he’d break loose—or else he’d pull out his foot. You’ve got to give him play. That’s why we use a toggle.”
“You don’t mean he drags that great thing——”
“No, only about halfway across the island before I can possibly overtake him and shoot him, bellowing like a devil every step of the way. Moreover, the toggle has to be chained near the end, rather than in the middle—otherwise he’ll catch the ends back of a couple of tree trunks and break loose. Now set the trap.”
It took nearly all of Ned’s strength to push down the powerful springs and set the great jaws. The fact that he didn’t know just how to go about it impeded him too. And when he stood erect again, he found Doomsdorf watching him with keenest interest.
“I didn’t think you were man enough to do it,” he commented. “You’ll say that’s quite a trap, won’t you?”
“It’s quite a trap,” Ned agreed shortly. “What kind of an elephant do you take in it?”
“No kind of an elephant, but one of the grandest mammals that ever lived, at that. I don’t trap them much, because I hardly get enough for their skins to pay for handling them—you can guess they’re immensely bulky. There’s a fair price for their skulls, too, but the skull alone is a fair load for a weak back. Last year I needed a few hides for the cabin. Did you ever hear of the Kodiac bear?”
“Good Lord! One bear can’t move all that.”