“The horse! it’s the horse.” Sure enough, it was the horse they had seen; all this terrible trampling was nothing but him in the leaves, galloping back toward the spot from which they had frightened him. They listened until his long gallop died out in the distance through the woods. Jake suggested their going back to look and see if he had gone to the “little pasture,” as they called the place; but Jack was bent on getting the axe, and the corn with which they proposed to bait him. His reference to Aunt Winnie’s axe prevailed, and they kept on. They had some difficulty in finding the place where Jake had dropped the things, for though they found the clearing, they had to be very careful how they moved around through the woods. They could see the picket lounging about, and could hear them talking distinctly. They were discussing whether the men they had shot at were just scouts or were pickets thrown out, and whether they had hit any of them. One said that they were cavalry, for he had seen the horses; another said he knew they were infantry, for he had seen the men. Jack lay down, and crept along close up. Jack’s plan was to set a trap for the horse just at the head of the ravine, where the banks became very steep and high. He had read how Indians drove buffalo by frightening them till they all rushed to one point. He had seen also in a book of Livingston’s travels a plan of capturing animals in Africa. This plan he chose. He proposed to lay his bait along up to the gully, and to make a sort of alleyway up which the horse could go. At the end he would have an opening nearly but not quite closed by saplings inclined toward each other, and which would be movable, so that they might interlace. On either side of this he would have a high barricade. He believed that the horse would be led by the corn which he would strew along into the trap, and would squeeze through the pliant saplings, when he would be caught between the high banks of the gully, and then if he attempted to get back through the opening, he would push the saplings together. He would fix two strong poles so that any attempt to push through would bring them into position. The horse would thus be in a trap formed of the high banks and the barricade. They set to work and cut poles all the evening; but it got late before they got enough for the barricade, and they had to go home. Before leaving, however, Jack dragged some of the poles up, and laid his corn along leading up to the gully to accustom the horse to the sight of the poles and to going into the gully among them. They fixed the two poles firmly at the river crossing from the branch of the tree to the bank, so that they could get across easily, and then they crossed on them and came home. Jack was filled with excitement, and had hard work to keep from telling his mother and aunt about it, but he did not. Jake’s fear of his mammy’s finding out about the axe kept him silent.