CHAPTER XXVI
THE SPRING TRAP
For several moments the boys gazed in silence at the strange marks theyhad come across. Then Jack said:
"Well, fellows, we seem to be up against some more of that mystery."
"Why?" asked Bony. "Do you think this has anything to do with theother?"
"I do."
"You mean the strange sound we heard at night?" asked Will.
"That's it," went on Jack. "I think we are on the track of somethingqueer."
"And do you intend to look further?" was Nat's query.
"Well, not to-day," answered Jack. "But I will sooner or later. Ibelieve something happened here which has to do with that queerdisturbance we have heard several times. What it is I don't know, butI'm going to find out."
"Say, I have an idea," came from Bony.
"Don't let it get away from you," advised Nat.
"No, I'm serious," went on the lanky youth. "I think these men have somestrange beast or bird in captivity, and that it gets away from them attimes. Maybe that's what happened here, and they had to fight to captureit again."
"That's nonsense!" exclaimed Sam.
"Not so nonsensical, either," Jack hastened to say. "If it was animmense bird, like a big eagle, it would account for the noises weheard--at least, some of them."
"But there is no eagle large enough for men to ride on its back,"objected Nat.
"How do you know men were on its back?"
"Didn't we hear them call and speak about our camp fire? How could theysee it unless they were up high in the air, on the back of some bigbird?"
"They might have been on some point of the mountain above us," saidBony. "They could have the eagle, or whatever it was, tied by a cord."
"Yes," admitted Nat; "but I don't believe it's a bird."
"Me either," came from Sam. "But what is it?"
"Let's look at the marks a little more carefully," proposed Jack.
"Several men have been here, struggling with the--the--er--whatever itwas," spoke Will. "See the different footprints."
That much was evident. In addition to the man with the mark on hisshoes of the arrow in hobnails, there were tracks of several otherindividuals.
"And if this isn't the mark of a big bird's wing, I'll eat a pair ofsnowshoes!" exclaimed Nat suddenly. "Look here, fellows!"
They hurried to where he was. There in the snow was the unmistakableprint of what seemed to be a wing of a great creature of the air.
"And here's another wing," added Sam a little later as he walked slowlyover the level place. "But they're some distance apart."
"I should say so," agreed Jack. "Sixty feet, if they're an inch."
"But the marks are those of two wings, and they were made at the sametime," went on Sam. "Look, you can see where the body comes between thewings. The bird was over on its back. That happened when they tried tosecure it."
"But sixty feet," objected Nat. "There's no bird living with a spread ofwings like that. It's out of the question."
"Here's the evidence," spoke Sam obstinately. "You can see foryourself."
"Sixty feet spread," murmured Jack. "It doesn't seem possible."
But there was no doubt but that the marks in the snow were those ofwings, and, as Jack paced the distance from tip to tip, they proved tobe over sixty feet apart.
"Maybe the men have discovered some prehistoric monster," suggestedWill, "and are trying to subdue it so they can exhibit it. There used tobe monsters as large as the marks left by this thing, whatever it is."
"Yes," admitted Jack; "but they disappeared from the earth ages ago.Only their fossil remains are to be found now."
"But might one not be alive, by chance, in some big mountain cave?"asked Nat.
"I don't know," spoke Jack with a worried look. "It has me puzzled,fellows. I don't know what to think."
"Let's go back to camp, tell Long Gun about it, and bring him hereto-morrow to see it," suggested Sam.
"Long Gun would never come," said Jack. "He's too much afraid of badspirits. No, boys, we'll have to solve this ourselves, if it's to besolved at all."
The boys walked around the little level place, whereon there was themute evidence of some terrific struggle.
"The queer part of it is," said Sam, "that the footsteps of the mendon't seem to go anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Look, they beginhere, and they end over there, as if they had dropped down from theclouds and had gone up again on the back of the big bird."
Jack looked more thoughtful. As Sam had said, there were no marks of themen coming or going, and they could not have reached the level place,nor departed from it, without leaving some marks in the tell-tale snow.
"I give it up!" exclaimed Jack. "Let's get back to camp. It's gettinglate."
They started, talking of nothing on the way but the mystery, andbecoming more and more tangled the more they discussed it.
It was getting dusk when they came in sight of the camp fire, and theysaw Budge and the Indian busy at something to one side of the blaze.
"I wonder what they're up to now?" said Jack.
"Oh, probably Budge is teaching Long Gun how to chew gum," was Nat'sopinion.
A moment later something happened. Budge seemed to shoot through theair, as if blown up in an explosion. He shot over the top of a smalltree, and coming down on the other side, hung suspended by one foot.
"Help me down! Help me down!" he cried.
"What's the matter?" called Jack, spurring his horse forward.
"I'm caught!" answered Budge.
"It certainly does look so," spoke Nat, and he could not refrain fromlaughing at the odd spectacle Budge presented as he hung by one leg ina rope that was fast to the top of a tree, which bent like a bow withhis weight.
"Take me down!" wailed the unfortunate one.
"How did it happen?" asked Sam.
"Long Gun made a spring trap," gasped Budge, "and--and----"
"And you wanted to try it," finished Jack, as he went to his chum'said.
Jack Ranger's Gun Club; Or, From Schoolroom to Camp and Trail Page 27