"Why don't a bird fly when its wing's broken? Ease the spring! Jes' you put your foot in this yer trap, and see if you can get the spring down with thirty pound o' iron at the end of your foot and your muscles all turned to water--to liquid fire--with the pain of the hold. All I could do was to rub my knee and yell and bite at the quince leaves, and dig my fingers inter the flesh. After a time I found my voice ain't got no carrying power; it came out in a hoarse whisper, and I seed if the people at the house hadn't yeard my first call they wouldn't catch any cry for help I could give now; so I jes' groaned for comfort, same's if I were a trapped tiger growling through the night. My head were tossing about from side to side like the pendulum of a clock, and one of these side swings I noticed the glare of something bright close by. I jes' noticed it as if 'twere something of no account; for, if all the stars in heaven had taken to swinging at the ends of golden threads it wouldn't have mattered to me as much as the flame of a tallow candle sputtering in a horn lantern. Well, each time I swung my head I seed these yer bright spots without seeing them--if you know what I mean?-- when I were held still for a moment by a sound. I looked, and I saw then that they were eyes staring at me, which blinked as I stared, and turned away, then sought my face ag'in, and, narrering to a thin green slit, so looked at me. What do ye think it were?" "A pig, of course, waiting for you to move," said Topper. "You can tell a pig by his grunt," said Abe, pointedly. "Who ever seed a pig with green eyes flaming through half-closed lids? It were a tiger," and Abe took his pipe out and impressively spat at a black-beetle that was fussily moving on a ball of earth with its hindlegs. "A tiger?"