Stretched out with one foot fast in the trap and the choking circle of buckskin about its neck, the lynx was prevented from rising by the boys, who pulled vigorously on the pole. All the while the lynx was thrashing about madly in a useless struggle to free itself.
Working with lightning-like rapidity, Bill soon had the thick, muscular legs tied and drawn securely together. Then, having cut a hardwood gag, two inches thick and four or five inches long, he waited his chance, and slipped it between the jaws of his snapping captive. Next he took a piece of buckskin and passed it about the gag and around the head and jaws of the helpless lynx.
Having rendered the creature harmless, Bill cut two long, heavy poles. These he placed on the ground parallel to each other and about three feet apart. Across them he lashed shorter poles, close together, to form a platform.
Releasing the trap from its leg, Bill and the boys dragged their still defiant prisoner to the rough stretcher, and soon had him securely bound in place.
Then they shouldered the poles, and, carrying the captive between them, they started for the cabin. The lynx was heavy and the country rough, and before they had gone far the lads began to realize that they had a hard job on their hands. But they stuck to it, and finally, with aching shoulders, they arrived before the door of the little shack and set down their burden with a sigh of relief.
“We’ll have to build a good, stout crate to ship him in, and, meantime, we’ll leave ‘his royal highness’ tied up so he’ll do no harm,” said Bill, opening the door.
Moze instantly rushed out and hurled himself upon the prostrate lynx before any one could stop him. The trapper seized him by the neck and pulled him off, else he would surely have killed the helpless animal, which was entirely at his mercy.
“I’m afraid we’ll have our own troubles before we get that gray villain off our hands,” laughed Bill.