CHAPTER XXI.

CAUGHT IN A TRAP.

"I'm glad, right glad to hear you say that, Thad," declared Step Hen.

"Yes, I know how you feel," the scoutmaster went on, "and it does you a lot of credit too, for scouts should stand by each other through thick and thin. But go slow, Step Hen, go slow. We don't want to do any shooting, if it can be avoided; and then, remember, only pepper their legs. We belong to an organization that stands for _peace_ every time, and no scout can be permitted to do any violence, unless it is to actually save his own life, or that of a chum."

"Oh! I understand all that, Thad; make your mind easy," declared Step Hen, jauntily. "What I'd like to do in case those curs have kicked and pounded poor old Bumpus, would be to just give 'em each forty whacks on the bare back with that bull whip we use on Mike and Molly, our pack mules, when they get too stubborn for anything."

"Now, that ain't a bad idea, Step Hen," asserted Giraffe, nodding his head until, perched on such a long neck, it reminded Thad of a wooden manikin he had seen working as an advertisement in a shop window where razors were sold. "No, it's a pretty good scheme--for you, Step Hen; but I can go you one better. We ought to just tar and feather such rascals, take their guns away, and ride 'em out of camp on a rail."

"The last part could be done easy enough," Step Hen declared; "but that other about the tar and feathers is too silly for anything."

"Why is it, I'd just like to know?" demanded Giraffe. "It's been done hundreds of times, down South, out West, and even up North."

"Sure, and I've no doubt it's a heap of satisfaction to them that apply the feathers. Something like the old fable 'fun for the boys, but death to the frogs.' But tell me, Giraffe, please where would you get the tar, up in this big timber wilderness? And how about the feathers--got a pillow handy you can rip open?" and Step Hen laughed in the face of the long scout, feeling that he had by far the best of the bargain.

"Oh, shucks! guess that did kinder slip my mind," grumbled Giraffe; and he felt so humiliated over his defeat in the wordy war that for five full minutes he actually remained as mute as the sphinx; and it generally took a good deal to keep Giraffe silent that long.

Of course they were constantly on the lookout for any signs ahead of those whose trail they followed. But they had very little hope of stumbling upon such a piece of good luck as overtaking them before night set in.

According to the latest report from Allan, in whom they all felt the utmost confidence, some hours had passed, perhaps four or more, since Hank and his French-Canadian partner had made those footprints.

"But they have been catching up on Bumpus right along," he had also announced in the same breath. "If they were two hours behind at the spot where the bear was killed, they've cut that down to one at the time they passed here. And going at the same rate of speed I should say they'd overtake our chum about a couple of miles away from this spot."

"Hope they made up their minds to camp right away then," said Giraffe. "I'm not saying anything, and I can keep on as long as the next one; but this right--left, which old leg is it, anyway--feels sore sometimes, and then numb-like."

"And I'm afraid mine's swelling just a little, Thad," ventured Step Hen. "P'raps there was some poison in that snake bite after all, and you didn't suck it all out."

"Don't worry," remarked the scoutmaster, cheerily. "Both of you are using your lame limb more than you should, that's all. But that can't be helped, because we're bound to find our chum."

"Yes," said Giraffe, sturdily, "even if it takes a leg, as they say. But suppose, now, those men do come up with Bumpus, I reckon they'll make out to be friendly hunters, sent out by some of us to find him; because they know a lot about the scouts. Step Hen here jabbered like an old woman, when we believed Hank was the forest ranger, Toby Smathers, we'd been told to find."

"Not near so much as you did yourself, Giraffe," remonstrated Step Hen. "That's one thing I will admit you stand in a class by yourself--talking; yes, and in the making of fires at any old time and place. But of course they'll fool Bumpus that easy, he's so confiding, so free from suspicion himself."

"And then, before he knows what's happening, they'll switch his gun out of his hands, give him a few hard kicks, and just treat him like a dog. Oh! it fairly makes my blood boil just to think of it," Giraffe went on to say, while he frowned, and gnashed his teeth in a way that must have seriously alarmed the objects of his detestation, could they have been near enough to see and hear.

But unfortunately it was all wasted, for both Hank and Pierre were miles away at the time.

"What's that yonder?" exclaimed Thad, startling the others.

"Would you believe it, looks like an old stake and rider country fence, left alone to go to the waste years ago?" Allan announced, after taking a look.

"Well, that's a sign we're getting near some village, I take it," declared Step Hen.

Giraffe laughed aloud when he heard this.

"Why, what a goose you are, Step Hen," he remarked, bluntly.

"Oh! am I? See any down coming along?" demanded the other, warmly.

"Sure I do--on your upper lip," Giraffe went on. "Noticed it only the other day; and thought then that if you keep on for a dozen years or so, we'll expect you to be sportin' as fine a moustache as the one old Jerry William has been coaxing along this half century. You know, the Cranford boys liken it to a baseball game, because there are nine on one side and nine on the other."

"But why was I silly when I said we might run across a village up here?" Step Hen persisted, being just bound to know.

"Because we were told that there wasn't such a thing within fifty miles of this same place, except the little settlement where we got our pack mules," the tall scout went on to say, convincingly.

"But that was a fence, all right," Step Hen avowed. "I heard Allan say so; and I guess I know a fence when I see one."

"Oh! well, don't talk of a fence now, Step Hen. I think if you ask Thad, he'll tell you some feller must a tried to hold out up here, and gave it up from sheer loneliness. Either that, or else the Injuns got him."

"Injuns!" repeated Step Hen, apparently startled.

"Sure," Giraffe went on, for he was a great tease.

"How about that, Thad?" and the other scout turned to the patrol leader; because it had long ago become second nature with the members of the Silver Fox Patrol to put all arguments up to him for settlement; and it was really remarkable how satisfied both sides usually seemed with his decisions, since they had absolute faith in Thad as a just judge.

"Well, I rather expect Giraffe is yarning a little when he says the man may have been wiped out by the Indians," the scoutmaster replied, laughingly. "Fact is, the chances would be, some trappers come up here each season, and likely spent the whole winter reaping a harvest, returning in the Spring with their take. If we had time to look around, which we haven't, I reckon we'd stumble on a concealed cabin somewhere in the thickest of the timber."

"Wow! must be cold, all right, in winter. Talk about your zero, I guess the bottom drops out of the thermometer up here," Giraffe ventured to say.

"No doubt it is cold, because we're not a great distance from the border line of the British Northwest provinces. But then, these fur takers expect that. The further north you go the better the fur," Thad remarked.

"That's a well-known fact," added Allan. "One trapper told me that the skin of a muskrat or a raccoon, taken away up in Canada, was worth three of the same captured down in Florida."

"Yes, I reckon that's so," said Giraffe, "I can understand why the fur is heavier and richer. Old Nature provides it according to the weather. If it's a country with hardly any winter, why the fur is thin; and just the other way where it's bitter cold for many months."

"But that fence?" Step Hen went on.

"Listen to him still harping on that fence business!" jeered Giraffe.

"Oh!" Thad went on to say, pleasantly, "perhaps one year these trappers tried to stay through the summer too, and put up a fence to keep their horses from straying, and falling prey to the wild beasts."

Step Hen seemed satisfied, because the explanation appeared natural. So for a while they kept plodding on in almost complete silence.

Both lame boys limped more or less. Thad noticed this, and concluded that they deserved a rest, especially since the afternoon was creeping along, and already the timber began to look a little shadowy.

So he mentioned the fact to Allan, who immediately resolved to keep a bright lookout for a nice spring of cool water, alongside of which they might stop, build a little fire, and take things comfortable for a while.

Luckily this chanced to appear very shortly. Although they would not say as much, being too proud to complain, Step Hen and Giraffe were secretly glad of the chance to rest. They talked valorously, however, of what great stunts they would be ready to perform after they devoured some supper, and had taken things a little easy.

Thad knew, however, that it would really require something of an effort to get the boys started afresh. The two hours' rest would refresh their energies, but stiffen their sore legs, more or less.

Giraffe attended to the fire part of the business, as usual, and Step Hen hovered near by, ready to assist with what little cooking they might have to do. Thad sat there, examining some rough charts he had made of the country, as he knew it; and figuring on just where the camp by the rapids, occupied by Bob White, Davy Jones and Smithy, must be.

Allan had started to take a look around the vicinity, and it was hardly more than ten minutes when he was heard calling:

"Hello! Thad, come here, and give me a hand, will you? I'm caught fast in a trap!"