"Good!" cried Tug. "Take some crumbs out of the cracker box, and quietly throw them down where the snow-birds can get them. Put 'em on the top of the hummock first, then we'll gradually toll 'em down below. I'll be out in a minute."
Jim got his crackers and vanished. Aleck was chopping wood, and Katy was with him. It was a cold day, but sunny, and there were no signs of the snow melting. Tug, alone in the house, looked fondly at his tools, and having nobody else to speak to, talked to himself.
"We're like the boy and the ground-hog. 'We ain't got no meat for the supper, and the preacher's comin'.' So I guess I'd better leave the twitch-ups and make some common box traps that Kate and the kid can watch. Come here—you!"
This last was addressed to a wooden box about twelve inches square, in which Katy had been wont to pack the small articles of table use. Tug turned them all out, and pulled off the leather hinges that held the cover. Then, taking an oak splinter from the firewood, he cut it to the size of a lead-pencil, and notched it in the middle. In this notch he tied the end of the ball of twine which formed a part of the boat's stores, and cut off a length of about fifteen feet. Next, he drew the locker out of the bearings upon which it rested, emptied it of its contents, and made a stick and length of twine to fit it in the same way. Lastly, he tore two pieces a foot or so square from their one strong sheet of white paper. He had been at work scarcely ten minutes, but had ready two simple traps. Then he went outside and called to Katy, who came quickly.
"Katy," he said, "I have something for you to do. Please get a blanket and come out on top of the hummock, where you'll find me."
While the girl went inside for the blanket Tug climbed up to the icy hill-top, where a small flock of snow-birds were pecking away at the crumbs Jim had thrown out. The lad crept stealthily towards them, and though the birds moved away, they were not greatly frightened, and did not go far. As quietly and rapidly as possible he spread down his pieces of paper on the highest part of the hummock, at a little distance apart, and not far from the edge of the ice table. Then, setting his boxes bottom upward, he perched each one slantwise upon one of his sticks, and stretched the strings away to the hummock's edge. On the paper underneath the boxes, and somewhat on the snow about them, he spread his bait of crumbs. Then showing Katy, who had now come out, where she could hide herself behind the edge of the upheaved ice cakes, he told her to wrap herself up well in the blanket, and to keep perfectly still till the birds came back. They would pick at the crumbs until by and by one or two of them would be sure to step under the boxes.
"Then," said he, "you jerk your string, the box falls, and Mr. Snow-flake is a prisoner."
So Katy took her position, and Tug, asking Jim to help him, went off to make some other traps.
"Youngster," he directed, "I want you to cut me eight square pieces of ice, each one about as big as a brick, and after that two slabs about eighteen inches square and two or three inches thick. You can take the axe and cut 'em out in big chunks from the hummock, and then saw 'em into shape—here's the saw—and mind you keep away from where Katy is."
"What do you want them for?"