Part 6 (1/2)

”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.”