“Tell us what sort of a trap, Tom?” urged Bobolink.
“A regular bear trap!” replied the one addressed.
“Oh, come now! you’re trying to play some sort of trick on us, fellows,” cried Spider Sexton. “How ever would a real bear trap come there?”
“Ask Tolly Tip,” suggested Paul.
“That’s right, lads, I know all about that trap,” admitted the old woodsman, as he grinned at 133 them. “I had an ole bear trap that had lost its grip and wasn’t wuth much. I sot the same in the woods, but nothin’ iver kim nigh it, and so I jest forgets all about the same. But bless me sowl I niver dramed it’d be afther grippin’ a lad by the leg. All he had to do was to push down on the springs, and he’d been loose.”
“I could see that plainly enough,” admitted Jack. “The trouble was Sim fell into a panic as soon as he found himself caught, and all he could do was to squirm and pull and shout and groan. It shows the foolishness of letting a thing scare you out of your seven senses.”
“But do you mean to say there are real, live bears around here, Tolly Tip?” demanded Bobolink, his eyes nearly round with excitement.
“There’s one rogue av a bear that I’ve tried to git for this two year, but by the same token he’s been too smart for the likes av me.”
“That interests me a whole lot,” remarked Paul; “and I mean to devote much of my spare time to trying to shoot that same bear with my camera in order to get a flashlight picture of him in his native haunts!”