Chums of the Camp Fire Part 13

"H-h-hind leg!" retorted Toby indignantly, "what d-d-do you take me for, anyhow? Mebbe you think I'm a c-c-cow or a j-j-jacka.s.s, but I ain't, all the s-s-same; I leave it to others to p-p-play such g-g-games."

As he came in shortly afterward it was apparent that Bandy-legs had counted without his host when he figured that Toby meant to test the working of his trap at his own expense. Toby was too smart for that, it seemed; and besides he doubtless had confidence in his arrangements.

"Here goes for a bully sleep," said Bandy-legs, as he coiled up under his cover, with his knees close to his chin, a favorite att.i.tude with him; "and I hope nothing wakes me till morning."

"If you sleep as sound as you generally do," Max told him, "it would take a hurricane to bother you. If one came whooping along, and carried our tent up into the tree, the chances are you'd open one eye and want to know who was making all that draught. You're a good sleeper, Bandy-legs, and your mother knows it, too."

"I believe in doing everything well," replied the other, st.u.r.dily. "When I eat I eat; and when the time comes to snooze take it from me I'm on the sleeping job from the word go. That's all you'll hear from me to-night, boys."

"Good!" said Steve, wickedly, "the rest of us can do a little thinking, then. Let it go at that, Bandy-legs; no reply needed. I'm expecting to go to sleep myself, for while I did say I meant to sit up and watch for that ham thief, since Toby's been so smart as to set a trap, what's the use?"

Presently all of them must have fallen asleep, to judge from the silence that hovered over the interior of the khaki-colored tent.

Some time pa.s.sed by.

Then several heads suddenly projected from under as many blankets.

"What was that?" Max asked.

"My t-t-trap s-s-sprung!" gasped Toby.

"But what ails the beast that he don't let out a few howls?" demanded Steve, who was clawing desperately under his blanket, trying to find where he had placed his handy gun at the time he lay down.

"That's the funny part of it," Max declared; "if you've got your gun by now, Steve, let's crawl out and see what's doing."

The three of them hastened to do so, not knowing what they might see once they reached the open. Bandy-legs had as yet not stirred, and it really looked as if he meant to keep his word when he declared that nothing short of an earthquake or a cyclone would disturb him, once he got asleep.

As soon as the others huddled outside, and tried to focus their blinking eyes on their surroundings they discovered several things.

In the first place it had apparently not rained as yet, for the ground seemed to be perfectly dry. Then again, the fire had burned low, for it was giving only an apology of a light, and this flickered, and died down at intervals.

Max knew what should be the first duty, and stepping toward the fire he threw a handful of small trash on the coals. Immediately a flame sprang up, and the camp was fairly well illuminated.

Of course the boys all stared in the quarter where Toby had set that wonderful trap of his. If the hickory sapling had not been set free it would still be seen bent in the shape of a huge bow; but their first glance showed them that this was not the case.

"It's s-s-sprung!" said Toby, huskily.

Steve was holding his precious Marlin double-barrel gun so that he could raise it instantly and take aim.

"Yes," Max went on to say, with a touch of excitement in his voice as well as his manner, "and I can see something swinging back and forward there!"

"Oh! whatever can it be?" Toby ventured, tremulously; and then as he imagined that he detected a slight movement on the part of Steve he flung out a hand and tried to shove the other's gun aside, adding: "Don't you d-d-do it, Steve! Why, it can't be a hyena, or anything d-d-dangerous to us, because d-d-don't you see it's held right up in the air. Let's rush in and keep the poor thing from being c-c-choked to d-d-death!"

The three of them advanced in a straight line, Max and Steve being armed, and apparently ready to do fell execution, should there be any necessity for action. But nothing happened. The swinging object continued to move back and forth, but none of them could detect any spasmodic kicking connected with it that would suggest the dying struggles of a wild beast that was being slowly but surely choked.

Then Max gave a laugh.

"Why, it isn't a beast at all, but the heavy pole Bandy-legs threw over here the time you accused him of wanting to spring your trap, Toby!" he announced; and as all of them gathered close to the now upright hickory sapling, it was seen that what Max declared was really so.

"Then Bandy-legs m-m-must have d-d-done this trick!" burst from Toby, who was apparently, filled with indignation.

"Don't you believe it," Steve a.s.sured him; "because we all heard it go off, and right then Bandy-legs was sound asleep alongside me. He's there yet, bundled up in his blanket."

"You think so, but you d-d-don't know for s-s-sure," spluttered Toby, distressed at the failure of his much vaunted trap to show results.

"C-c-chances are if you went and looked you'd f-f-find he had a d-d-dummy there under his b-b-blanket all the time."

"Well, now," observed Max, frowning, "that never occurred to me before, and while I can hardly believe our chum would play such a prank on us, still you never can tell. So Toby, we appoint you a committee of one to go back into the tent and see if Bandy-legs is there or not."

"I will!" Toby responded, firmly, as though he meant to have the truth made manifest without any delay; and accordingly he hastened away from Max and Steve, who started in to learn the way in which the heavy pole had been seized by the loop.

Immediately Toby came running back, and his face looked more blank than ever.

"Well, did you find him there?" asked Max.

"Yep, and as d-d-dead to the w-w-world as anything," replied the stutterer, as he looked blankly at his two chums, and then toward the swinging pole, as though, the puzzle had become more exasperating than ever.

Steve gave a low whistle, which was his way of expressing amazement.

"Say, that must be a wonderful old stick, all right!" he declared, jerking his thumb toward the object that was held in the tightened loop of rope.

"B-b-but you d-d-don't really think it j-j-jumped up all by itself, and g-g-got c-c-caught, do you?" Toby demanded, quite aghast.

"Well, hardly," said Max, though a little frown told that he too considered the enigma a nut hard to crack. "Something that had life about it made that stick do that trick; there's no doubt about that."

"Was it an animal or--a man?" Steve immediately asked, as he looked nervously around, and half raised his gun, as though he expected to see some ugly hobo advancing menacingly from the shelter of the forest.

Max was bending down, and evidently trying to examine the soil.

"I don't seem to see any tracks of a man here," he said; "and perhaps you've noticed that about all the bait Toby put out is gone!"

"C-c-cracky! that's so!" cried Toby, although up to then he had not thought to pay any attention to this important fact.

"Then some sort of animal must have been here," Max steadily affirmed.

"It ate up the bait, and then must have either accidentally or on purpose poked that heavy stick into the loop, and sprang Toby's trap."

"Sure it must have been an accident, Max," objected Steve; "because it would have to be a mighty smart animal, and a tricky one at that, to play such a sly game as using this stick to set the bent sapling free."

"I know it looks that way," Max went on to say; "but don't forget that the animal that threw the ham at your head from the tree _was_ a tricky one. Some of those beasts belonging to the show are trained to do lots of queer things."

"Oh! if we're up against an _educated_ animal," Steve admitted as though convinced against his will, "that might make a difference, because I've seen such do things I never would have believed any beast could be taught to perform. But he was keen enough to move all around here and never once get caught in the loop. Yes, chances are he knew what that was there for all the time; and having finished his supper, just to show us what he thought of such silly tricks he picks up this stick, gives it a hitch through the loop, jerks at the same, and there you are, with three half scared fellows crawling out of the tent expectin' to find a tiger held up by the hind quarters. This is what they call coming down from the sublime to the ridiculous, I think."

"It's all Bandy-legs' fault anyway!" muttered the disappointed Toby, as he commenced taking the pole out of the loop, as though he meant to reset his trap, hoping for better luck the next time.

"How do you make that out, I'd like to know!" asked Steve.

"Mebbe if he'd only been half way d-d-decent, and l-l-let me try it out on him, this wouldn't have h-h-happened," Toby advanced, at which the other boys felt constrained to chuckle.

"Hard luck, old chap," said Steve; "we'll help you fix things up again, and p'raps you'll strike it different the next time."