Chapter IV: 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.