"It hurts!" he said. "Get it off!"
Jack was the first to get down and look at the struggling boy.
"A trap!" he announced. "Easy! Don't pull it, Ned."
"More things than trees and lost girls in the Maine woods," exclaimed Nat. "Gee whiz! I wonder what we'll strike next."
"Just take a strike at this trap," begged Ned. "Seems to me it takes—oh! be careful, Jack, that hurts!"
"Let me!" suggested Dorothy. "I can open it, without hurting him," and she stooped over her cousin. "Oh, you poor boy! It has cut right through your shoe. Now, Jack, just hold the end of the chain so that it cannot slip back," she ordered. "Cologne, dear, can you unlace this shoe?"
"Oh, of course," growled Nat, "it takes a girl!"
"Any objections?" asked Ned, getting back to his good humor. "Now if this were Nat it would take a whole boarding school of girls."
Dorothy and Cologne very gently helped the boys get the steel trap free from the shoe. It took some time to do it without pressing the jaws still farther in through the leather, but they succeeded.
"Now, you must go back in the boat," decided Dorothy. "We cannot run the risk of having your foot poisoned."