Chapter XVI.
HOW TUG MADE "TWITCH-UPS."
"It's cold work, though," Katy replied, "sitting so still out on thatice. I am just stiff."
"I'll fix that all right," Tug said, showing some small forked andnotched sticks he had cut out of oaken chips. "Come out with me, andI'll show you how to set a trap that will drop itself, or, rather,where the bird shuts his own prison door."
Gathering up Jim's blocks and slabs of ice, the whole party climbed tothe top of the hummock, which, as I have said, was almost the onlyspot in the wide plain free from deep snow, and Tug went to work.
Making a little hole in the ice, he wedged into it a short,flat-topped peg, and packed a handful of snow about its base.
Then with the brick-like blocks of ice he arranged a hollow squarearound the peg. On top of the peg he laid the flattened side of thestem of a forked stick, like a letter -
SETTING THE NEW TRAPS.]
"Oh, I see how it works," Katy cried. "The bird, in leaping down, isalmost sure to perch on the forked twig, or, at least, to strike it.That throws it out of place, and tumbles the whole cover down,shutting him in."
"Correct!" said Tug, admiringly, as he went to work on a second trapof the same kind.
This set, all left the hummock (except Jim, who agreed to take histurn, wrapped in a blanket, at watching the strings) and joined laborin making two or three more of the new ice traps, for now that thebirds were plenty, they wanted to capture as many as possible.
"If only I had some sort of a spring," Tug announced, "I could maketwitch-ups. I've all the rest of the fixin's, 'cause I found somehorse-hairs in my 'shop' this morning; but I don't see how I am to geta springy twig or a strip of whalebone. I had some old umbrella-ribs,but I didn't bring 'em along. Wish I had."
Aleck thought over all his stores, but could remember nothing thatwould answer the purpose. "How about your ramrod?" he asked.
"Too stiff," Tug replied.
So they gave up talking, and attended to their work. Suddenly Aleckwent to the log, split off a strip of oak, and whittled it into a thinrod. "How is that?" he said, as he handed it to his comrade.
Tug beat his hands and blew on his aching fingers a while beforeanswering. Then he bent the rod gently, but before it was curved halfas far as he needed, it broke.
"No good. Nothing but hickory will stand the strain."
"I'll tell you what you might do, perhaps," Katy suggested, havingcome out just in time to witness this little trial. "The handle of theboat-hook is hickory. If you could make an oak handle for that, youcould split the hickory up into springles, couldn't you?"
"That's so!--that's a bright idea. Try it, Tug," and the Captain ranoff for the boat-hook. The shaft of this was straight-grained,well-seasoned, and tough, but an oaken staff would serve its purposequite as well.
"I should think that would answer first-rate," said Tug, "but you hadbetter whittle out your oak stick first. It would be rough to becaught suddenly without any handle to our boat-hook."
"That's so," Aleck assented, and took his axe to split a suitablepiece from the log.
The making and shaping of a new handle, even in the rough, cost himmuch labor with his few tools. It was nearly an hour, therefore,before he was ready to pull the irons off the old handle and fastenthe new one into its place; and fully another hour had passed by thetime this difficult job had been done.
Then, with great care, and by the help of little wedges, a clean,straight splinter about as thick as your finger was split from thetough hickory staff. It was tried by the trapmaker, very gently atfirst, and bent well, so that it was pronounced serviceable, thoughnot as good as a green twig or sapling, such as one would cut in thewoods for the same purpose. It would answer to try with, however, andafter a bit of luncheon they watched Tug make his twitch-ups--or, atleast, all did except the one on duty at the strings. As Tug himselfhad to take a turn, he didn't get his traps done in time to put themup that day.
Next morning, however, all were out bright and early to help him doso. The snow-flakes had been there before, however, and oneunfortunate had stepped on a treacherous fork, and was caught.
Having arranged two more ice-boxes and letter Y traps, for which thepieces had been cut yesterday, they all gathered around Tug to watchhim set his first twitch-up.
With one of the tent spikes he dug a slanting hole in the ice, intowhich he inserted one end of his hickory splint, which was about fourfeet long, fastening it firmly by ramming ice and snow down into thehole beside it, which would quickly freeze solid. A short distancefrom the foot of the splint he then laid down a short board, which wasbraced at the foot (or end farthest from the splint) against the sideof a trough cut in the ice. The remaining three sides of the boardwere then fenced in by small blocks of ice.
Next, taking from his pocket a cord made by twisting two horse-hairstogether, he slipped one end through a loop in the other, thus makinga noose, and tied it to the top of the hickory splint. This done, hebent down the splint until he hooked its tip under the nearest end, orhead, of the board, which was raised a couple of inches from theground. Spreading the noose carefully out upon the board, he sprinkledwithin a particularly nice lot of crumbs, then laid a little trainaway from the foot of the board as a leader, and the snare was ready.The weight of the bird treading upon the board to get the bait wouldpress it down enough to let the lightly caught whip end of the splintspring up: this would pull the noose with a sudden movement, and thebird would find itself dangling in the air by the legs or a wing, orpossibly by the neck.
Removing their captive, and resetting the square trap, the whole partywent out of sight to await further results. Yesterday they hadcaptured thirteen birds in all, and had eaten only nine. With threemore traps, they ought to do better to-day, and so accumulate a littlestock ahead.
"At any rate," Katy observed, "we've plenty of refrigerator room tokeep them in."
They had, indeed--a refrigerator about a hundred miles square!