JOHNNY'S CHICKEN THIEF TRAP
"I'm only sorry for one thing, boys," remarked Farmer Trotter's wife,
who had apparently hailed the decision of the seven bold scouts to
guard her fowl-roost with undeniable joy.
"What might that be, ma'm?" asked Lil Artha, in a quivering voice; for
the poor fellow began to have a terrible fear that she was about to
warn them her stock of provisions was too valuable to be wasted on a
batch of tramps.
"Of course, we'll be glad to have you to supper, and breakfast, too,
for that matter," she told them; "but I'm afraid I couldn't find beds
enough to go 'round, even if you all doubled up."
At that the elongated scout gave a loud laugh; the clouds passed from
his face like magic. If he could only be positive of his regular
rations it mattered nothing to Lil Artha where he laid his head.
"Oh! don't let that little thing bother you, Mrs. Trotter," he hastened
to say, thereby making himself spokesman for the crowd; "why, we're
used to camping out, you see, and in our time we've slept in the
queerest beds you ever heard tell of. We can bunk in any old place, I
give you my word."
"What's the matter with sleeping in the barn?" asked Toby, suddenly.
"That's so," added Landy, eagerly; "it's nearly full of nice sweet hay,
cut only a month or so back. Me to hit the hay every time."
In fact, the idea seemed to appeal to all of them. They had planned to
make their camp just as circumstances permitted, and this thing of
spending the first night in a hay barn was romantic enough to suit the
fancy of any scout who loved adventure and the Big Outdoors.
So it was quickly settled.
The boys were shown the barn by the eager Johnny, who could hardly
finish his numerous chores on account of the excitement surrounding
him. It was an event of prime importance, according to his mind, when
seven real scouts came and took the farmhouse of the Trotters by storm.
That supper was one never to be forgotten by the fellows.
Why, according to Lil Artha, and he ought to know as well as the next
one, the table fairly _groaned_ under the weight of good things which
the farmer's wife kept placing upon it.
"Talk about your festive board," the tall scout afterwards remarked to
several of his pards, "that table just talked, that's what it did, and
in the sweetest tones you ever heard. Yum! yum, wouldn't I like to
board with the lady of the Trotter Farm for just one long week. I'd
pick up flesh at the rate of five pounds per day. The only trouble
would be about getting into my clothes in the end."
Johnny had shown them where they were to sleep, so that each fellow
could fix himself to his best advantage. This was done ahead of time,
for all of them knew how difficult it was to manage such things by the
aid of a wretched stable lantern.
Elmer saw that Johnny was fairly itching to tell him something, and so
he managed to get the bound boy aside just as darkness was creeping
along.
"What have you got up your sleeve, Johnny?" he demanded, at which the
other had a laughing spell, and confessed.
"Why, you see, I got a trap all rigged out!" he started to explain.
"A trap for the chicken thieves, do you mean?" asked the patrol leader.
"That's the ticket, Elmer. Yuh see, I reckoned that by now they'd be
gettin' real tired o' jest plain hen, and might feel like climbin'
higher. We gut some whoopin' nice young turks that like tuh roost in a
certain tree. Easiest thing in the world tuh grab a couple in the
night, and kerry 'em off. So I fixed it."
"Suppose you let me take a look at the trap you made, Johnny?"
suggested Elmer, naturally interested.
"Jest what I was agoin' tuh ask yuh tuh do, Elmer. And I guess now it
wouldn't be a bad ijee fur the rest tuh kim along, too. If so be
there's a kerflummix in the middle o' the night, they ought tuh know
what she means."
Now, Elmer himself could not exactly find a definition for that word,
but he had a faint idea Johnny meant a big noise or a row. At any rate
he was glad of the chance to invite the other six scouts to accompany
them.
Elmer lighted a lantern, and after the boys had gathered around he led
them away from the big barn.
Presently, at some little distance, he came to a halt.
"This here's the tree the turks hes picked out tuh roost in. Some o'
'em likes tuh fly 'way up, but others prefers the bottom limbs. If a
feller's keerful he kin climb up and wring the necks o' as many as he
wants. Young turks they don't know nigh as much as old uns, yuh see.
Now I'll show yuh how I sets my trap."
First of all they noticed that there was what appeared to be a drygoods
box exactly under the tree.
"Seems to me you're making it mighty easy for the chicken thieves when
they drop around, with that box right under the lower row of turkeys?"
suggested Toby, upon discovering this fact.
Johnny Spreen gurgled over with laughter.
"Say, d'ye reckon so?" he exclaimed; "well, by hokey! now, that's part
of the game, sure it be."
"Oh! then you really want them to climb up on that big box when trying
to grab one of the young turkeys?" asked Lil Artha.
"Jes' so," chuckled the bound boy.
"Is she loaded, then?" continued Lil Artha, as all of them gravely
examined the innocent-looking box.
"I'll show yuh how she works," Johnny said, proudly. "Mebbe my ijee
ain't good for nawthin', but she's the best I could think up. Course,
the thieves they hain't fotchin' no lantern along, 'cause they'd be
afeared we'd see a movin' light. Then ag'in I don't b'lieve sich
slinkers ever does own a lantern."
"That's right, Johnny," remarked Toby, impatiently, "let's take it for
granted then they come in the dark. What will they do next?"
"Huh! what'd any feller do when he sees sech a nice box awaitin' for
him to git up on, so's to grab the nigh turk?" demanded Johnny. "Now,
if yuh watch me yuh'll git the ijee in a jiffy."
A stout rope seemed to be hanging from the limb overhead. It had a
running noose at the end, which the bound boy was now adjusting on the
top of the drygoods box.
Elmer chuckled as he began to grasp the scheme; it seemed pretty smart
to him, and he was ready to give the bound boy credit for a bright idea.
"Now," continued Johnny, "jest tuh show yuh how she works I'm agoin'
tuh make a wat yuh calls it, a martin o' myself. Hold the lantern,
Elmer, and gimme room."
He climbed up on the big box. The turkeys were craning their necks and
observing him with evident wonder, though they were undoubtedly on
friendly terms with Johnny who had fed and driven them since hatching
time, and knew his raspy voice.
"Yuh see, in the dark he don't notice the loop any," continued the
inventor of the trap, "and when he gits real busy with the turks why
there's a good chanct o' his foot gittin' caught in the loop. She on'y
needs a leetle jerk this-aways!"
He gave the required pull, and instantly a most surprising event came
to pass. That jerk at the rope must have set a hair-trigger going, for
there followed a sudden rattling noise, the loop was instantly
tightened around his ankle, and in a trice Johnny was hanging head
down, as helpless as a snared rabbit.
The scouts clapped their hands in glee.
"Great scheme, Johnny!"
"It sure does you credit!"
"My! what a cwack when your feet hit the limb!"
So the scouts kept giving their views, while Johnny swung there, vainly
trying to reach up and catch hold of the limb, with the turkeys
twittering, and showing more or less alarm.
"Elmer, git me daown outen this, please!" begged the prisoner.
"But how can we do it, Johnny, when we don't know the combination of
the racket?" demanded Lil Artha.
"Foller the rope, and shove the hogshead up the rise agin!" explained
the suspended boy, who was probably already beginning to feel the
discomforts of "standing on his head."
Several of them rushed off, and sure enough they found the secret of
the springing of the trap. Johnny's clever scheme was simple enough
when once its secret had been disclosed.
He had an old hogshead perched on the top of a steep little rise near
by. It was connected with the long rope that had a noose at the end.
When anyone pulled the rope, as with a foot caught in the loop, a
trigger was set free, and the heavy hogshead started to roll down the
little descent, jerking the entangled thief up by one or both ankles,
as happened to be the case.
Of course, by rolling the hogshead back to its initial position Johnny
was enabled to right himself, and get his foot free from the noose.
He started rubbing his shin as though it felt sore after such a rough
experience, but they could hear him laughing softly to himself all the
while.
"I jest reckoned the old thing'd work to beat the band," he told them;
"an' now I knows it. Wait till I set the trap agin, fellers, an' then
we'll go back tuh the barn. What d'ye spect's agoin' tuh happen if
them chicken thieves kim around tuhnight, Elmer, hey?"
"Well, somebody's liable to meet up with the surprise of their lives,
that's all," the scout patrol leader admitted.
The boys were pretty tired, and did not care to remain up too long.
Perhaps Mrs. Trotter might have liked to have these lively fellows in
to sing for her, and enliven her monotonous life a little; but
considering that they half expected to be hard pushed on the morrow,
Elmer advised that they try to get all the sleep possible while they
had the chance.
The horses had been well cared for, and arrangements made with the
farmer to keep them in his stable until the scouts were ready to return
to Hickory Ridge.
"This is what I call a soft snap," ventured Toby, who had burrowed into
the hay as far as he thought necessary, and lay there at full length.
"The farmer was mighty careful to ask whether any of us smoked, you
noticed," remarked Lil Artha.
"Can you blame him?" demanded Landy. "He must have twenty tons of fine
new hay in this big barn, and that's worth all of four hundred dollars."
"Jutht as like ath not, too, he didn't put a cent of inthurance on the
barn," Ted remarked; "farmers are careleth that way, you know."
"And so are boys who make out to be men because they smoke on the sly,"
Elmer went on to say. "More than one barn has been set on fire by
smokers using matches in the hay. Tramps are responsible for a heap of
this waste; and I don't blame any farmer for asking such a question.
I'm glad we could tell him none of us had taken to the habit as yet."
"Or if they had they'd reformed!" chuckled Lil Artha, meaning himself.
"One thing sure," observed Mark, "if we hear that barrel crashing down
the hill with all those stones inside it, we ought to be pretty spry
getting out there, because a poor wretch might get dizzy hanging with
his head down."
"What if nobody happened to hear the alarm," suggested Landy, who had a
tender heart even when chicken thieves were concerned.
"I take it suh, that would be a bad thing fo' the coon that set the
trap off," Chatz announced, gravely.
"Oh! Johnny has prepared for even that," said Elmer. "He showed me
how he had fixed another cord that runs all the way to his room in the
house. When the barrel starts to rolling that cord will be snapped,
causing a weight to fall on the floor close to his bed, and bound to
waken anybody but the dead."
"Say, that Johnny's a sure-enough wonder!" declared Toby; "he's got the
inventive genius developed to beat the band. I'd like to see more of
Johnny Spreen. Who knows but that we might hitch together and make a
team. I've done a few little wrinkles along the line of invention
myself, you remember. Jones and Spreen wouldn't sound bad."
Of course, that brought about a stirring up of old history, for many
and humorous had been Toby's attempt to construct a flying machine, and
also a parachute that would save the lives of daring aeronauts when
their engines gave out a mile or two up in the air.
Finally, the boys began to talk less, and it could be easily seen that
they were getting sleepy. Elmer really encouraged them to quit their
efforts to keep awake. He himself felt that sleep would be welcome
just then; and when that humor seizes a fellow he dislikes being kept
awake against his will by the chattering of a comrade who does not know
what a bed is meant for.
Then the last word was mumbled, and stentorian breathing here and there
in those hay nests announced that the tired scouts had surrendered to
the sleep god. Elmer was, perhaps, the last to drop off, for he had
been thinking of a lot of things, running from the chicken-thief trap
to the strange conduct of Hen Condit in robbing his guardian, and then
leaving that ridiculous note to condemn himself.
Once Elmer chanced to awaken, and more from the habit of the cattle
range than anything else, he raised his head to listen. The only
sounds he heard consisted of the champing of the horses, still busy
with their sweet hay, or it might be the distant cry of a
whip-poor-will calling to its mate in the apple orchard.
So Elmer dropped back with a satisfied feeling such as comes on
realizing that all is well. Perhaps the thieves would not make a visit
to the farm adjoining the big Sassafras Swamp, on that particular
night, at least. Perhaps morning would come at last, and find the trap
undisturbed.
Elmer was letting these things pass through his brain in a hazy sort of
way peculiar to one who is just yielding to sleep. He had almost
reached the point when things would have slipped entirely from his grip
when suddenly and without the least warning there started a tremendous
racket such as he had noticed came to pass when that hogshead started
rolling down the grade, and the stones with which it was loaded began
to rattle about inside.
Almost at the same instant there rang out a shrill scream of agony that
could only have come from the throat of someone in mortal distress.
As if by magic every scout sat bolt upright, as though they had been
shot into that position by the action of a gigantic galvanic battery.
"Oh! what happened?" Landy was heard to call out in trembling tones.
"It's Johnny's trap!" whooped Lil Artha, all excitement.