"I'd like to do it, but it would be sure to raise a storm in the village," said Leon, shaking his head in a very significant manner. "All the folks used to like that boy, and he's got a good many friends yet."
"Then show me the hound, and I'll shoot him!" said Frank impatiently. "I thought you had more pluck. I am not afraid of that fellow, or his friends either. Now, let's set these snares again, and go on and see if we can find some birds. But in the first place, explain one thing to me: What did you build that fence for?"
"To stop any rabbit or partridge who might come this way," answered Leon.
"I shouldn't think it would stop them. They could easily jump over it, for it isn't much more than a foot high."
"But they won't do it," said Leon. "Whenever they come to an obstruction of this kind they never attempt to cross it—that is, they are not alarmed, but run along by the side of it to find some way to get through or around it. When they reach one of these openings they try to squeeze through it, and that is the time they get caught. Now I'll show you how the snares are set."
Leon placed his gun against the log on which he was sitting, and producing a piece of fine, strong twine from one of the pockets of his game-bag, he made a running noose in one end of it. The other he fastened securely to a small hickory sapling which grew near one of the openings in the fence. This done, he bent the sapling over and placed the noose in the opening, and confined it there with a short notched stick which he cut from a neighboring bush. Then, in order to show his cousin how the snare operated, he pushed the notched stick out of its place by giving it a gentle tap with his finger, whereupon the sapling straightened itself up with a jerk, and the running noose was fastened firmly about his wrist.
"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Frank. "When a bird or rabbit tries to pass through one of these little gates, he knocks out the stick, and is pulled up by the neck before he knows what is the matter with him."
"That is just the way the thing works," replied Leon; "and the noose is drawn together so quickly, when the sapling flies back to its place, that nothing can get out of the way of it. Nine times in ten, when you find one of your snares sprung, you will find game in it."
"Give me some of that string and I'll help you set them," said Frank, leaning his rifle against the log beside his cousin's double-barrel. "I know how it is done now."
The boys had a good hour's work before them. The fence was nearly a hundred yards long; there were a good many openings in it, and the person who destroyed the snares, whoever he was, had made sure work of it. He had not only carried off all the strings and thrown away the notched sticks, but in some places he had broken down the saplings to which the strings were tied.