BOBBY AND BILLY PUT THEIR HEADS TOGETHER
Oh, if we but always knew
What to do or not to do.
_Billy Mink._
When Billy Mink cried “Stop!” Bobby Coon stopped. He stopped with one
paw lifted and just ready to put it down in the middle of the little
opening in that fence which had so puzzled him. He turned his head to
look back at Billy Mink. “Why should I stop?” he demanded, and he spoke
rather crossly.
“Because, if you take one more step ahead, it will be the last step you
ever will take,” snapped Billy.
Bobby didn’t take that step. Instead he backed away in such a hurry that
it really was funny. You would have thought that he had burned his toes.
Then he turned to face Billy Mink. “What sort of nonsense is this?” he
growled. “I don’t see anything wrong.”
Billy grinned. “You may not see anything wrong,” said he, “but if you
had put your foot down in that little opening you would have felt
something wrong. Yes, indeed, you would have felt something wrong! You
certainly would. There is a trap hidden there. I suspect it was set for
me, but I guess the trapper who set it would almost as soon catch you as
me.”
Bobby Coon blinked and looked very hard at Billy Mink to see if he were
fooling. When he saw the angry red in Billy’s eyes, he knew that Billy
wasn’t fooling.
“Goodness, that was a narrow escape!” exclaimed Bobby. “I’m ever so much
obliged to you, Billy Mink. I hope that some day I can do something for
you. If you hadn’t happened along to-night, I guess I would be in a
terrible fix right now. Do you suppose that trapper built that little
fence?”
“Of course,” retorted Billy Mink. “He built it so that the only way of
going up or down the Laughing Brook without taking a lot of trouble
would be to go through that little opening, and no one could get through
that little opening without stepping in that trap. There’s another one
set just the same way on the other side of the Laughing Brook.”
Bobby Coon looked across and for the first time he saw the other little
fence. Bobby’s face became very sober. “We ought to do something about
those traps,” said he. “We are the only ones who know anything about
them, and we can’t sit here all the time to warn others who may be
traveling up and down the Laughing Brook. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy
to be caught in one of those dreadful traps. What can we do to warn
others?”
“I don’t know,” replied Billy Mink. “I guess we’ll have to put our heads
together and think up something. You know two heads are better than
one.”
Bobby nodded. “Let’s go back to that old log there and talk it over,”
said he. And this is just what they did.