“But what can you do with him?” asked the man who had first objected. “If the Government finds that you have him they’ll take him away from you.”
“Nobody will find out,” declared the other men, who did not seem to care how wrongfully they acted. “We’ll catch this lone, big buffalo in a trap, and sell him to a circus or some zoo. Then we’ll get a lot of money.”
“I’m not going to have anything to do with it,” said the first man.
But the bad men made up their minds they would catch Shaggo, and so they laid their plans. They gradually came nearer and nearer to him, and, to keep out of their way, Shaggo traveled in just the direction the men wanted him to. They were slowly driving him toward a lonely valley where they had set a trap.
“And to get him into the trap before he knows it, we’ll sprinkle some salt along the way,” said one of the men. “Buffaloes like salt. He’ll follow a salt trail and be in the trap before he knows it.”
And this is just what happened. Shaggo was so eager to get the salt that he never noticed where he was going until he heard the trap door slam shut behind him, and then he was caught.
“Now we’ve got him!” cried the men, as they rushed up.
[Shaggo, when he knew that he was caught, tried to get away.] His head was big and strong and hard. He had often knocked down fence posts, and butted over other buffaloes, just as he had knocked down the antelopes. So now Shaggo thought he could knock a hole in the trap and get out. He tried it, but the logs of which the trap was made were stronger than the buffalo’s head. He only felt himself hurled back, making his sore shoulder hurt worse than ever. After trying this two or three times Shaggo gave up.