But when the trapper stole out on a visit to his horses he found that every one had been completely riddled by balls. The treacherous dogs had taken every means of revenge at hand.
'Skin me fur a skunk, but we've stood this long as we ought to!' exclaimed Baldy Bicknell, when he returned. 'You take care of yourselves till I come back again!'
With which speech he slung his rifle over his shoulder and started for St. Louis.
CHAPTER VII. THE STEAM MAN ON HIS TRAVELS.
YOUNG BRAINERD had a mortal fear that the existence of the steam man would be discovered by some outsider, when a large crowd would probably collect around his house, and his friends would insist on a display of the powers of the extraordinary mechanism.
But there was no one in the secret except his mother, and there was no danger of her revealing it. So the boy experimented with his invention until there was nothing more left for him to do, except to sit and watch its workings.
Finally, when he began to wonder at the prolonged delay of the trapper, who had visited him some weeks before, he made his appearance as suddenly as if he had risen from the ground, with the inquiry:
'Have you got that thundering old thing ready?'
'Yes: he has been ready for a week, and waiting.'