"It's Johnny's trap!" whooped Lil Artha, all excitement.

CHAPTER V

THE KNIFE WITH THE BUCKHORN HANDLE

"Everybody get out in a hurry!" called Elmer, suiting the action to the word himself by scrambling erect and making for the open door of the big barn.

It was far from light in there; but as they could easily see the opening all they had to do was to make for it. Elmer had been careful to make sure that there were no pitchforks lying around loose, to be run upon by accident.

Hardly had the scouts managed to stream from the interior of the barn than they became aware of the fact that someone was running headlong toward them. Toby threw himself into an att.i.tude of defense, raising the piece of wood he had grasped for a club; but Elmer realized that the runner was approaching from the direction of the farmhouse and therefore must be a friend rather than a foe.

"Steady, boys, it must be Johnny!" he told his comrades as they cl.u.s.tered there.

Johnny it proved to be. The bound boy must have lain down on his cot fully dressed and equipped, for he had on even his cowhide boots, and was minus only a hat. Of course, the boy was fairly br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with intense excitement.

"Didn't yuh hear him yell?" he was crying. "We've kotched the chicken thief fur sure, fellers. Whoop la! kim on, everybody, and nab him afore all the blood runs tuh his head!"

Lil Artha and Elmer, of course, had s.n.a.t.c.hed up their guns, although they hardly believed they would find any use for the weapons. All of them started on the run toward the spot where the turkeys roosted in the favorite tree.

The sky was clouded over, and while it was not actually dark the boys had some little difficulty in seeing as well as they might have liked.

Now and then one of the sprinters would stumble over some impediment, and perhaps measure his length on the ground, only to scramble erect again and tear after the rest.

It was usually clumsy Landy who met with these mishaps; but even such things did not seem to subdue his ambition to keep after the crowd.

Elmer was listening as he ran. He wondered why they did not already hear the groans or whines of the wretched thief who had been hung up by the heels without receiving a second's warning.

Remembering how Johnny had been whisked aloft, Elmer felt sure no one could be blamed for letting out that shriek when the catastrophe came about. Nor would he have thought it queer if the suspended rascal kept up his groans as he writhed and twisted in a vain effort to reach up to the limb; which only a circus contortionist would have been able to do.

He imagined he heard some sort of sound ahead of them. But even at that Elmer could not be certain. It might be the night breeze sighing through the upper branches of the tall tree, or the alarmed turkeys holding a confab among themselves, for all he could tell.

But they were rapidly bearing down upon the spot now, and in another half minute ought to be where they could see the swaying figure of the caught thief.

"I don't seem to get him, Johnny!" ventured Lil Artha, in a disappointed tone.

"Huh! somethin' gone wrong I guess!" grunted the inventor; and if the tall scout could feel chagrin, fancy what a shock it must have been to Johnny when he realized that there was no dangling figure to greet him, despite that wild yell so full of mortal agony.

Perhaps already wise Elmer had begun to hazard a shrewd guess as to the why and wherefore of this vacancy. He was a great hand to see through things long before the answer became apparent to his chums. If this were so, at least he did not venture to say anything to them about it.

By now all of them, save slow-poke Landy, had arrived at the tree.

They could hear the alarmed turkeys making some twittering sounds above, but if any of them had flown off the rest remained on their roosts.

Johnny had been smart enough to fetch his lantern along. This he now proceeded to light, and as soon as the wick took fire he began to examine the trap.

"Dog-gone the luck, she went and broke on me!" he wailed, as though his boyish heart were almost broken by the catastrophe.

"That's what comes of not testing things before-hand!" said Toby, with the air of a wise-acre who knew it all; and yet Toby was himself a most notorious offender along those very same lines, as his chums could have informed the bound boy had they chosen to give a fellow-scout away.

"Gee whiz! he did test it, Toby," said Lil Artha, indignantly; "didn't we all of us see him ahangin' head-down. There's some sort of a mystery about it, that's what."

"Not much," said Elmer, who, while the others were talking, had been examining the end of the rope that lay on the ground near by; "it's been cut, that's all."

"Cut with a knife d'ye mean, Elmer?" cried Johnny, aghast.

"Just what it has," continued the patrol leader firmly; "you can see that with one eye, for the edges are smooth, and not ragged as they would be if the rope had broken a strand at a time."

Every fellow had to push up and examine it to make sure, and there was no dissenting voice after that. They knew Elmer was right, as he very nearly always appeared to be in matters like this.

"But say, however could he have twisted up to get at the rope while he was hanging here by one leg, I'd like to know?" demanded Landy.

"Mebbe the second thief helped him git loose," suggested the bound boy.

"Just what happened as sure as anything," a.s.sented Elmer. "They were too smart for you that time, Johnny. Instead of running away when the alarm went off, this second fellow whipped out his blade, and finding the rope where it ran from the tree, he cut it."

"Then the other dropped down, and got his legs loose," added Toby.

"See, here's the loop lying on the ground."

Sure enough, it was just as he said. The loop was there in plain sight, just as it had apparently been hurled aside by the trapped thief after he had a chance to use his hands.

Johnny was the most bitterly disappointed fellow Elmer had come across in a long time. He kept muttering to himself as he examined the fragment of rope. Lil Artha said he was "chewing the rag," whatever that might mean; but, at any rate, Johnny did not seem to be in a very happy frame of mind, so the operation could hardly have been of a pleasant nature.

"Now, I understand that second little rumble I heard," said Elmer. "It was just as Johnny reached us in front of the barn, and sounded like the barrel had started on again. That happened when the rope was cut, allowing the weighted hogshead to keep on a little further to the bottom of the drop."

"Let's see if you hit the nail on the head with that guess," suggested Toby, who liked to be convinced by his own eyesight when anything came to pa.s.s.

So, led by the inventor of the trap, they hurried to where the hogshead had been perched on the brink of the steep little descent. It could be seen at the bottom; and this confirmed the theory Elmer had advanced.

"And we didn't get a glimpse of the thieves after all," lamented Landy; "now I was hoping I'd see a fellow dangling there when we came up. Not that I'd like him to suffer too much, you know; but for Johnny's sake I wanted him to be nabbed."

"Yes, it's all off now," admitted Lil Artha.

"Of course, after that row they wouldn't be silly enough to come again for another try?" suggested Toby.

"Huh! that ole trap ain't no good after that mess," grunted Johnny, disdainfully. "I reckons as how I'll hev tuh think up sum other kind.

But they ain't agoin' tuh git any o' them turks if I have to sot up all night, and borry a gun frum you fellers in the bargain."

"What's the matter with tying Moses the bulldog to the tree here?"

remarked Elmer; "he's barking now at the kennel near the house. I'd certainly make use of the old dog if I were you, Johnny."

"Jest what I will do, Elmer. Moses ain't a great hand tuh bark, yuh see; bulls do the business with their teeth 'stead o' with their noise.

But he kin give tongue when he wants tuh. I'll fix him here fur the rest o' the night."

"How does it come the farmer hasn't shown up?" asked Mark, who thought it a bit queer Mr. Trotter displayed so little interest in the safe keeping of his young turkeys.

"Oh! him," chuckled Johnny; "n.o.body never ain't agoin' tuh get him waked up once he hits the hay. Talk tuh me baout sleepin', he kin beat anything yuh ever met. I bet yuh the missus is up and waitin' tuh know if we grabbed one."

"Do you think they got a turkey after all?" asked Landy, as he picked up several feathers from the ground near the tree.