CHAPTER XXVI

THE SPRING TRAP

For several moments the boys gazed in silence at the strange marks they had come across. Then Jack said:

"Well, fellows, we seem to be up against some more of that mystery."

"Why?" asked Bony. "Do you think this has anything to do with the other?"

"I do."

"You mean the strange sound we heard at night?" asked Will.

"That's it," went on Jack. "I think we are on the track of something queer."

"And do you intend to look further?" was Nat's query.

"Well, not to-day," answered Jack. "But I will sooner or later. I believe something happened here which has to do with that queer disturbance we have heard several times. What it is I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

"Say, I have an idea," came from Bony.

"Don't let it get away from you," advised Nat.

"No, I'm serious," went on the lanky youth. "I think these men have some strange beast or bird in captivity, and that it gets away from them at times. Maybe that's what happened here, and they had to fight to capture it again."

"That's nonsense!" exclaimed Sam.

"Not so nonsensical, either," Jack hastened to say. "If it was an immense bird, like a big eagle, it would account for the noises we heard--at least, some of them."

"But there is no eagle large enough for men to ride on its back," objected Nat.

"How do you know men were on its back?"

"Didn't we hear them call and speak about our camp fire? How could they see it unless they were up high in the air, on the back of some big bird?"

"They might have been on some point of the mountain above us," said Bony. "They could have the eagle, or whatever it was, tied by a cord."

"Yes," admitted Nat; "but I don't believe it's a bird."

"Me either," came from Sam. "But what is it?"

"Let's look at the marks a little more carefully," proposed Jack.

"Several men have been here, struggling with the--the--er--whatever it was," spoke Will. "See the different footprints."

That much was evident. In addition to the man with the mark on his shoes of the arrow in hobnails, there were tracks of several other individuals.

"And if this isn't the mark of a big bird's wing, I'll eat a pair of snowshoes!" exclaimed Nat suddenly. "Look here, fellows!"

They hurried to where he was. There in the snow was the unmistakable print of what seemed to be a wing of a great creature of the air.

"And here's another wing," added Sam a little later as he walked slowly over the level place. "But they're some distance apart."

"I should say so," agreed Jack. "Sixty feet, if they're an inch."

"But the marks are those of two wings, and they were made at the same time," went on Sam. "Look, you can see where the body comes between the wings. The bird was over on its back. That happened when they tried to secure it."

"But sixty feet," objected Nat. "There's no bird living with a spread of wings like that. It's out of the question."

"Here's the evidence," spoke Sam obstinately. "You can see for yourself."

"Sixty feet spread," murmured Jack. "It doesn't seem possible."

But there was no doubt but that the marks in the snow were those of wings, and, as Jack paced the distance from tip to tip, they proved to be over sixty feet apart.

"Maybe the men have discovered some prehistoric monster," suggested Will, "and are trying to subdue it so they can exhibit it. There used to be monsters as large as the marks left by this thing, whatever it is."

"Yes," admitted Jack; "but they disappeared from the earth ages ago. Only their fossil remains are to be found now."

"But might one not be alive, by chance, in some big mountain cave?" asked Nat.

"I don't know," spoke Jack with a worried look. "It has me puzzled, fellows. I don't know what to think."

"Let's go back to camp, tell Long Gun about it, and bring him here to-morrow to see it," suggested Sam.

"Long Gun would never come," said Jack. "He's too much afraid of bad spirits. No, boys, we'll have to solve this ourselves, if it's to be solved at all."

The boys walked around the little level place, whereon there was the mute evidence of some terrific struggle.

"The queer part of it is," said Sam, "that the footsteps of the men don't seem to go anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Look, they begin here, and they end over there, as if they had dropped down from the clouds and had gone up again on the back of the big bird."

Jack looked more thoughtful. As Sam had said, there were no marks of the men coming or going, and they could not have reached the level place, nor departed from it, without leaving some marks in the tell-tale snow.

"I give it up!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's get back to camp. It's getting late."

They started, talking of nothing on the way but the mystery, and becoming more and more tangled the more they discussed it.

It was getting dusk when they came in sight of the camp fire, and they saw Budge and the Indian busy at something to one side of the blaze.

"I wonder what they're up to now?" said Jack.

"Oh, probably Budge is teaching Long Gun how to chew gum," was Nat's opinion.

A moment later something happened. Budge seemed to shoot through the air, as if blown up in an explosion. He shot over the top of a small tree, and coming down on the other side, hung suspended by one foot.

"Help me down! Help me down!" he cried.

"What's the matter?" called Jack, spurring his horse forward.

"I'm caught!" answered Budge.

"It certainly does look so," spoke Nat, and he could not refrain from laughing at the odd spectacle Budge presented as he hung by one leg in a rope that was fast to the top of a tree, which bent like a bow with his weight.

"Take me down!" wailed the unfortunate one.

"How did it happen?" asked Sam.

"Long Gun made a spring trap," gasped Budge, "and--and----"

"And you wanted to try it," finished Jack, as he went to his chum's aid.