Billy Mink

<div><h1 id='ch9'>CHAPTER IX<br/> <span class='sub-head'>BOBBY COON GETS A FRIGHT</span></h1></div> <div class='poetry-container' style=''> <div class='lgp'> <!-- rend=';' --> <div class='stanza-outer'> <p class='line0'>Sense and reason take to flight</p> <p class='line0'>In the face of sudden fright.</p> <p class='line0'>&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;&ensp;<span class='it'>Billy Mink.</span></p> </div> </div></div> <!-- end poetry block --><!-- end rend --> <p class='pindent'><span class='sc'>Bobby Coon</span> walked slowly down the bank of the Laughing Brook to the little fence with the little opening in it where he knew a trap was hidden. Bobby was not at all easy in his mind. He didn’t know much about traps. If he had known more about them than he did, he would have been less afraid. Looking across the Laughing Brook he could see a little brown form bounding along the other bank in the moonlight. It was Billy Mink. He knew that Billy was not afraid and that Billy was going to do on that side of the Laughing Brook what he himself had agreed to do on his side.</p> <p class='pindent'>Bobby approached the little opening in that fence made of sticks and studied it carefully. Billy Mink had said there was a trap there, but look as he would Bobby couldn’t see a sign of one. Some wet, dead leaves lay in the little opening in the fence and nothing else was to be seen. Billy Mink had said the trap was under those leaves. Bobby wondered how Billy Mink knew. Billy had told him that there was no danger except right in that little opening.</p> <p class='pindent'>Very cautiously Bobby pulled away the dead leaves that covered the ground on his side of the little fence in front of the opening. He even dug down into the sand a little. Presently his fingers caught on something hard. He pulled them away as if they had been burned. Nothing happened. Curiosity gave Bobby new courage. He dug away very carefully the leaves and sand at that particular spot and presently he uncovered something shiny. Anything bright and shiny always interests Bobby Coon. Again he touched it and snatched away his paw. Nothing happened. Then Bobby got hold of that shiny thing and pulled ever so gently. The leaves in the little opening in the fence moved. Bobby pulled again. Those leaves moved some more. You see, Bobby had hold of the chain of that hidden trap.</p> <p class='pindent'>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.</p> <p class='pindent'>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.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />