He stopped and appeared to be listening.
"Can you tell if he's there?" asked the wondering Bandy-legs.
"I can tell that he ain't there," replied the trapper. "It's all as still as anything. That means either our bear didn't come along his trail after we set the trap, or else he's come and carried it away with him."
"She's gone!" ejaculated Bandy-legs, as he craned his neck the better to see the spot where, as he remembered, the big trap had been set, artfully concealed, squarely in the track Bruin used in going to and fro from the marsh to his chosen den, where he expected to hibernate during the coming winter.
"You're correct, son," Trapper Jim declared. "The bear has been here and walked off with my prize trap. Here's where the clog tore up the ground, you see. I reckon now any one of you boys could follow them marks."
"With my lamps blindfolded," Steve ventured.
"Then come on with me. We ought to have bear steak for supper to-night," and holding on to the eager and straining Ajax, while Owen looked after Don, the trapper led the pursuit.
Everywhere could be seen the plain marks where the weighty clog had plowed into the ground when the trapped bear pulled it along after him.
As the trapper had said, the merest tyro could easily have followed such a broad, blood-marked trail.
Sooner or later they must expect to come upon the bear unless he had been able, through good luck, to reach his den ere now.