"Days," is only a fashion of speaking. I was months getting my five
death-traps into working order. I couldn't work steadily because there
was heaps of cavework to do besides, fish to be caught, wood to be cut
for the fire, and all; and then, dozens of times, I'd suddenly get
scared about Ivy and go running back to the cave to see if she was all
right. I might have known better; she was always all right and much
better plucked than I was.

Well, sir, my traps wouldn't work. The fish rotted on the wattle-lids of
the pitfalls, but the beasts wouldn't try for 'em. They were getting
ravenous, too--ready to attack big Bahut even; but they wouldn't step
out on those wattles and they wouldn't step under my balanced trees.
They'd beat about the neighborhood of the danger and I've found many a
padmark within six inches of the edge of things. I even baited with a
live kid. It belonged to the Thibet goats and I had a hard time catching
it; and after it had bleated all night and done its baby best to be
tiger food I turned it loose and it ran off with its mammy. She, poor
soul, had gone right into the trap to be with her baby and, owing to the
direct intervention of Providence, hadn't sprung the thing.

The next fancy bait I tried was a chetah--dead. I found him just after
his accident, not far from the cave. He was still warm; and he was
flat--very flat, like a rug made of chetah skin. He had some shreds of
elephant-hide tangled in his claws. It looked to me as if he'd gotten
desperate with hunger and had pounced on big Bahut--pshaw! the story was
in plain print: "Ouch!" says big Bahut. "A flea has bitten me. Here's
where I play dead," and--rolls over. Result: one neat and very flat rug
made out of chetah.

I showed the rug to Ivy and then carried it off to the woods and spread
it in my first and fanciest trap. Then I allowed I'd have a look at the
pitfalls, which I hadn't visited for a couple of days--and I was a fool
to do it. I'd told Ivy where I was going to spread the chetah and that
after that I'd come straight home. Well, the day seemed young and I
thought if I hurried I could go home the roundabout way by the pitfalls
in such good time that Ivy wouldn't know the difference. Well, sir, I
came to the first pitfall--and, lo and behold! something had been and
taken the bait and got away with it without so much as putting a foot
through the wattling. I'd woven it too strong. So I thought I'd just
weaken it up a little--it wou