"Well, I confess that I never expected such great good luck," admitted the other. "And now, boys, tell me just how it happened."
"Oh! he dropped in on us, Chief," Andy went on.
"And liked the accommodation afforded by the Birdsnest so well that he concluded to stop over," Larry remarked. "Frank here, expected something of the kind, and got ready to receive visitors."
"You mean he set a trap?" asked the official, looking admiringly at the party in question.
"Well," Larry drawled, "I guess you could call it that, and not get far off the road. It had a trigger all right, and when Jules touched this off a nice heavy plank that was like a log dropped, and pinned him down on his chest. We found him gasping for breath, and his gun with a broken lock."
"Gun! Then he was armed, and creeping into your shop!" exclaimed the other, with a frown toward the grinning and apparently indifferent prisoner. "That looks bad, now. What would he want to carry a gun for, if not to injure you boys? And where d'ye suppose he got it at?"
"Oh!" Frank remarked, "he says he entered a farmhouse, and hooked a suit of old clothes, so he could throw away the striped ones. And at the same time he helped himself to that old musket, thinking he might have to hunt game while he hid in the woods."
"Look here, Frank, wasn't you telling me about some villain who fired a shot up at you boys when you were flying over the Powell woods?" asked the Chief.
"That's so, and we believe it was Jules, all right," Andy took the liberty of saying; for when excited he could not be kept still.
"But he wisely declines to commit himself, so there is no proof," Frank went on. "And at any rate, what's the use bothering about that little thing? There was no real harm done, except a little scare. And I think Jules will have about all the trouble he wants to handle without adding any to it."