counting on.

"Well, it's this way my little scheme is agoin' to work," he explained,
after reaching a certain point. "See this rope--I throw it across a limb
o' this tree. Yuh notice that it's got an easy runnin' slip-noose at the
end, don't yuh? That I'm fixing right here, where there's a good chance
the thief will put his foot in it as he takes this step I'm showing
you."

He proved that he was right, and indeed it was really a difficult
thing, after Obed had placed the noose just as he wanted it, close to
the ground, and on little wooden crotches he had arranged there for the
purpose, for any one to step across without getting his foot entangled
in the rope.

"Well, let's reckon, then, he does get caught in the noose, and jerks it
tight around his ankle," continued Obed, very much interested himself in
what he was saying, and as Max quickly noticed, even neglecting to speak
as he usually did, although he had shown this odd trait before. "What
happens? I'll show you how it's going to work out, if everything runs as
I've planned."

Accordingly, he picked up a heavy piece of wood that chanced to be lying
close by, and which doubtless Obed had used before in order to test the
accuracy of his figuring. This he inserted in the noose, and then gave
it a hunch that not only tightened the rope but carried out the further
purpose of the inventor.

Instantly things began to happen. The boys heard a queer rattling sound
near by, and immediately the wooden "dummy" was jerked out of Obed's
hands, to be drawn up until it struck against the limb of the tree fully
ten feet above. Steve gave a whoop.

"My stars! but that worked like a charm, Obed, let me tell you. Greased
lightning could hardly be quicker than the way you've arranged your
trap. And what was all that rattling sound about? What's holding on to
the other end of the rope, which pulled the log up on the run? I want to
know, even if I ain't from Missouri."

The woods boy laughed as though quite pleased because his trap had
worked well enough to call forth such words of praise from these new
friends.

"Come over and see," he simply said.

They followed the line of rope, now taut, and resembling a huge "fiddle
string," as Bandy-legs remarked, testing it as he passed along. It led
them to the brow of an abrupt little descent, a sheer drop of perhaps
twenty feet. Down this slope they followed the rope with their eyes and
then discovered it was attached to a large