In the morning Darry occupied himself repairing the damage done by the fire.

After he had done all the ch.o.r.es, even to a.s.sisting Mrs. Peake wash the breakfast dishes, and there seemed nothing else to be undertaken, he took Joe"s shotgun on his shoulder and walked toward the marsh.

The woman, seeing how much he looked like her lost boy with the gun and the clothes, had a good cry when left to herself; but Darry did not know this.

As he approached his first trap he found himself fairly tingling with eagerness.

This was not because of the value involved in the skin of a muskrat, though it seemed as though each year the price was soaring as furs became more scarce; but he wanted to feel that he had learned his lesson well, and followed out the instructions given in Joe"s little handbook.

The trap was gone!

He saw this with the first glance he cast over the low bank.

Did it have a victim in its jaws or had some marauder stolen it?

With a stick he groped in the deeper water, and catching something in the crotch he presently drew ash.o.r.e the trap.

He had caught his first prize.

Of course he understood that when compared with the mink and the fox, a muskrat is an ignorant little beast at best, and easily captured; but for a beginning it was worth feeling proud over.

Setting the trap again in the hope that there might be others in the burrow, one of which would set his foot in trouble on the succeeding night, Darry went on.

He found only one more victim to the half dozen traps.

Perhaps he had been too careless with the others and left plain traces of his presence that had warned the cunning rodents.

Having placed all his traps in the water again, he started back home, swinging the two "muskies" in one hand, while carrying his gun in the other.

After leaving the marsh he chanced to look back and was surprised to see a boy come out and start on a run toward the village.

Darry had very little acquaintance with the village lads, and could not make up his mind whether he had ever seen this fellow before or not; but once or twice he thought he detected evidence of a limp in his gait when he fell into a walk, and this brought to mind Jim and his two cronies.

It was not Jim, but at the same time there was no reason why it should not be one of his bodyguard, "the fellows who sneezed when Jim took snuff," as Mrs. Peake had said in speaking of the lot.

Suppose this did happen to be Sim Clark or Bowser, what had he been doing in the marsh?

Could it be possible that the fellow had been spying on him, and was now hastening to report to his chief?

They might think to annoy him by stealing the traps he had placed, or at least robbing them of any game.

Darry shut his teeth hard at the idea.

He made up his mind that he would go out earlier on the following day, even if, in order to do so, he had to get up long before daylight to accomplish his various ch.o.r.es.

No doubt he made rather a sorry mess of the job when he came to removing those first pelts--at least it took him half a dozen times as long as a more experienced trapper would have needed in order to accomplish the task.

Still, when he finally had them fastened to a couple of boards left by Joe, he felt that he had reason to be satisfied with his first attempt.

Mrs. Peake declared they seemed to look all right, and as each represented a cash money value of some forty or fifty cents, Darry realized that there was a little gold mine awaiting him in that swamp, providing those miserable followers of Jim allowed him to work it.

Several times he awoke during the night and started up, thinking he heard suspicious sounds again, but they proved false alarms.

He was glad to see the first peep of day, and quickly tumbled out to set about his various duties of starting the fire, bringing in water and wood, and later on chopping a supply of fuel sufficient to last through the day.

When Mrs. Peake gave him permission to go Darry hurried off.

Again he carried the gun, thinking he might find a chance to bag a fine fat duck or two, which Mrs. Peake declared she would be glad to have for dinner.

Arriving at the scene of his first triumph of the previous day, he discovered once more that the trap was gone from the bank.

Again he fished for it with the crotched stick, but despite his efforts there was no trap forthcoming.

Finally, filled with a sudden suspicion, he crawled down to examine the stake in the water to which the chain had been secured.

The stake was there all right but no trap rewarded his search.

With his heart beating doubly fast, Darry sped along the path to where he had located his second trap, only to find it also missing.

Now he knew that it could be no accident, but a base plot to upset all his calculations and deprive him of the fruits of his industry.

The thing that angered him most of all was the fact that he must face Mrs. Peake and tell her he had lost the treasures she valued so highly.

He shut his teeth together firmly.

"They won"t keep them, not if I know it," he muttered. "I"ll find out where they hide them. I"ll get "em again, sure as I live!"

The thieves had apparently done their evil work well. Not a single trap did he find in the various places where he had left them.

But one thing he saw that gave him a savage satisfaction, and this was the fact that there were footprints around the last one, in which the muddy water had not yet had time to become clear.

Darry believed from this that those who had rifled his belongings could not have left the scene more than a few minutes.

Perhaps if he were smart he could overtake them and demand rest.i.tution.

It stood to reason that the rascals could not have returned along the same path, for he would have met them.

He bent down to examine the ground and could easily see where the marks of several wet and heavy shoes continued along the trial that followed the creek.

Darry immediately started off on a run.

Hardly five minutes later, as he turned a bend, he had a glimpse of a figure just leaving the path and entering the woods bordering the swamp.

So far as he knew he had not been noticed; but to make sure he crept along under the shelter of neighboring bushes until he reached the place where the moving figure had caught his eye.

Voices now came to his ear, and it was easy enough to follow the three slouching figures that kept pushing deeper into the swamp.

He even saw his precious traps on their backs, together with several muskrats which Jim himself carried.