"They're great!"

Accordingly the next day the boys chopped holes in the ice, and with baited hooks attached to springy branches, set in the ice, with a piece of cloth, that, by its bobbing gave indication of a bite, planned for a big catch. The visual signals enabled each lad to set several hooks.

But either they were not in the right place, or they did not use the right bait, for two small fish were all they caught.

"Those lumbermen have them hypnotized," complained Will. "I'm going up to their fishing grounds to-morrow."

The other boys said they would accompany him. This left the girls to their own devices, since they did not care to go with the boys.

"Who's for a walk in the woods?" asked Mollie, and they all were eager to come along. In their short skirts and leggings they found it easy going, even in comparatively deep snow.

"Oh, it's great to be an outdoor girl!" exulted Betty, as she trudged along beside Grace.

"Yes. I wonder if Carrie Norton, the girl who fell out of the tree, would like this?" ventured Amy.

"She was a real outdoor girl, too," observed Mollie, reflectively.

Carrie, however, who figured largely in the third book of this series, had gone, as has been said, to live with a distant relative.

Occasionally she wrote to her young friends.

The girls had gone about a mile, or perhaps two, from their camp, and were nearing the debatable ground where Mr. Jallow claimed a valuable strip of timber. Grace was just about to warn her companions not to trespa.s.s, when Amy called attention to something in the woods a short distance off.

"See the cute little log cabin!" she cried. "Let's see if any one lives there."

"If they do they must be frozen!" declared Mollie. "It is full of c.h.i.n.ks and cracks."

They approached closer to it. It was not like any log cabin they had ever seen, consisting, as they could see through the open door, of but one room.

"It's probably only a hunter's lean-to," said Betty. "Don't go too close, Amy."

But Betty spoke too late. Curious to see the whole interior of the cabin, Amy stepped across the threshold. A moment later she heard something move behind her. She turned, but not in time.

An instant later a raised, sliding door of heavy logs slid down in grooves, and Amy was a prisoner.

"Oh--Oh!" she cried out. "What has happened?" and she beat on the heavy logs with her little hands. "Oh dear!"

"It's a trap! You're in a bear trap!" cried Betty. "We must go for help!"

CHAPTER XVI

TROUBLE

The girls were stunned for a moment. After Amy's first frantic cry, and Betty's realization of the danger, and the way out, there came, as there often does following a shock, a period of lethargy.

Mollie and Grace, who had clung to each other spasmodically, now separated. Grace, even in this moment sought her sweater pocket, where, as might be supposed, she carried some of her seemingly never-failing chocolates.

"What--what must we do?" asked Mollie, who looked to Betty to answer this question. It was curious how even Mollie, used as she was to thinking for herself, turned to the Little Captain now.

"Get her out, of course. If we can't do it, we must go for help. But we must get her out!" Thus spoke Betty promptly.

"Is--is she really in there?" asked Grace, as though she hardly believed it. Grace had a habit of saying surprising things when least expected.

"Yes, I am in here! Oh, don't go away and leave me!" begged the imprisoned one, sobbing hysterically. "I shall die if you do!"

"That's all right, Amy dear," answered Betty soothingly. "We won't leave you. Or, at least some one will stay with you. But perhaps you can find a way out yourself. Look and see, dear."

But it was only too evident that the bear trap was made to hold whatever unfortunate animal or human being got into it. The affair was like a small log cabin, the whole front consisting of a heavy planked sliding door, dropping down from above in grooves.

The back of the trap was against a great slab of rock, and the sides and roofs were made of heavy logs, notched together at the ends, and spiked.

While there were c.h.i.n.ks and crevices between the logs they were not large enough for even a cat to get through. The girls, as far as they could see, could find no way for Amy to get out unless the heavy door was raised, and this they did not believe they could accomplish.

"Can you see a way out, Amy?" asked Betty. "Look carefully, my dear."

They could hear Amy moving about in the trap, and presently her voice came falteringly out through the c.h.i.n.ks:

"No, there's no way out that I see. Can't you raise the door?"

"We'll try!" called Mollie. But the trouble was that there was no way of getting a hold on the smooth planks.

"We must go for help!" decided Betty after a few ineffectual attempts.

"There is no use wasting time here."

"Oh, don't leave me!" cried Amy. "I can't stand it to be here alone!"

"Listen," said Betty. "Grace and I will go for help. It needs a man's strength to raise this door. Mollie will stay and keep you company, Amy. Grace and I will go to where the lumbermen are fishing. That is the nearest place, and the boys may be there also. We'll be as quick as we can."

"Please do!" urged Amy. "Oh, how silly of me to get caught like this!"

"You couldn't help it," said Betty. "Come on, Grace."

They started off over the snow, heading in as straight a line as possible for the river. They knew they were near the place where they had seen the fishing lumbermen, and they hoped to meet some of them there now. The boys had said they were going there to learn the trick of getting pickerel through the ice.

"Are you hurt, Amy?" asked Mollie, when she was left alone outside the trap.

"No, not a bit; only a little scared," replied Amy.

"Well, you'll get over that. How did it happen? Was the trap baited?"

As Mollie asked this she thought of the possibility of the bear, for which the trap evidently had been set, coming along. In that case her position would be worse than that of Amy's who was effectually protected.

"I'd be glad to be in the trap then myself," thought Mollie.

"No, I don't see any signs of bait," said Amy, looking about.

"Then what made the door fall down?"