Finding that there was nothing dangerous about the chain, Bobby continued to pull, and presently there was the trap itself right in front of him. He sat down and studied it. He wondered how it worked. He was afraid of it, but he was very, very curious. There it lay with its jaws spread wide. Bobby remembered that Billy Mink had said that there would be no danger if he put his paw under it. Very cautiously Bobby slipped a paw underneath. All of a sudden that trap jumped right off the ground. There was a wicked-sounding snap, and those two jaws flew up and came together so swiftly that Bobby didn’t really see what had happened. He had sprung the trap.
Bobby didn’t wait to see what had happened or what was going to happen next. He almost turned a back somersault in his hurry to get away from that strange thing. He scurried along back up the Laughing Brook as if he expected that trap would follow him.
CHAPTER X BILLY AND BOBBY WARN THEIR FRIENDS
To feel as happy as you would Try working for the general good. _Billy Mink._
Bobby Coon had been so frightened when he had sprung that trap by the Laughing Brook that probably he would have run clear back to his home in the Green Forest had he not found Billy Mink waiting for him at the old log where they had met earlier in the evening. Billy was grinning.
“What are you running for?” he demanded. “I thought you were not afraid.”
Bobby Coon stopped. “It—it tried to catch me,” he panted. “It jumped right at me.”
Billy Mink chuckled. “But I see it didn’t catch you,” said he. “Didn’t I tell you it wouldn’t hurt you if you put your paw under it? That kind of a trap is perfectly harmless as long as you do not step in it. I’m glad you sprung it. I sprung the one on the other side of the Laughing Brook the same way. Now, both of those traps are harmless. They will be until the trapper sets them again. We can go up and down the Laughing Brook through the openings in those little fences with nothing to fear as long as those traps are in plain sight. That trapper will probably come around to-morrow, but for the remainder of to-night there is nothing for us to worry about. Let’s go down the Laughing Brook to the Smiling Pool.”
The idea of going down to the Smiling Pool was too much for Bobby Coon to resist. So he followed Billy Mink down the bank of the Laughing Brook. When they reached the trap which Bobby had sprung, Billy Mink kicked it aside as he passed. It was plain to see that Billy had known what he had been talking about when he had said that now that trap was perfectly harmless. Then, without hesitating, Billy slipped through the little opening in that fence the trapper had built. That proved there was nothing to fear there now, so Bobby followed. He had to make the opening big enough to get through, but he did this by pulling up a couple of the sticks.