"But how are we to catch the water-hen?" asked Dick.
"I don't quite know. We must get it alive, you see."
They talked it over, but could not hit upon any plan of capturing one alive, so at luncheon-time they went to Bell, and asked him if he could help them.
"Well, sirs, the water-hens come to my back garden to feed with the hens and sparrows. If you could lay some sort of a trap for them like a riddle-trap for sparrows it would be an easy matter to entice one into it."
"The very thing," said Jimmy. "We will put the casting-net round a wooden hoop and prop it up on a stick, and put bread-crumbs under it."
So the casting-net was called into requisition, and a trap was constructed, and set in Bell's back yard, which was close to a dyke leading to the broad. The boys hid themselves in an outhouse, having a long string fastened to the stick which supported the net at an angle of forty degrees. First the hens came under it and then the sparrows, and the two began to eat up all the bread put there. At last a water-hen was seen swimming across the dyke, and with slow and cautious steps creeping up the bank towards the net. Frank took the end of the string in his hand, and peeped cautiously through a chink in the door while the others looked through a little window. The water-hen fed for some time on the outskirts of the throng of hens and sparrows, and at last ventured within the circle of the net.
"Now," said Dick.
"No, wait until it is further under," said Jimmy.
Frank waited until the bird was fairly under the net, and then pulled the string. The trap descended upon three hens, half-a-dozen sparrows, and the water-hen.
"Hurrah!" cried the boys, rushing out. It was a matter of some difficulty to secure the bird they wanted from among the struggling mass of hens and sparrows, but they did so at last without hurting any of the others, and at once pinioned it by cutting off its wing feathers.