Three pairs of willing hands made light work, and by two o’clock in the afternoon a dozen traps were completed and ready for setting.  The boys then stopped long enough to take a hasty lunch, which they ate in the shop, in order to save time, and after that one of the mules was hitched to a wagon and brought before the door.  The traps, a basket containing the “figure fours,” with which they were to be set, a bag of corn for bait, an axe, with which to clear away the underbrush, and a spade to dig the trenches, having been packed away in the vehicle, the boys got in and drove off.  They directed their course along the fence, which ran around the plantation, and wherever they found a clump of bushes or a little thicket of briers and cane, there they stopped long enough to set one of their traps.

The traps were made of slats split from oak boards, and were a little less than four feet square and a little more than a foot in height.  In the top was a slide covering a hole large enough to admit one’s arm, and it was through this hole that the captured birds were to be taken out.  The undergrowth was first cut away with the axe and the trap put down in the clear space, a narrow board being placed under two sides of it, to give it a solid foundation.  A trench just large enough to admit a single quail was dug under each of these boards, one end of the trench being on the outside of the trap and the other on the inside.  A small ear of corn was tied firmly to the trigger, the trap set with the “figure four,” a few kernels were scattered about in the immediate neighborhood, and the trap was ready for the first flock of quails that might come that way.  When they came, they would, of course, find the corn, and while they were eating it they would be sure to find the trap.  One or more of them would go in and spring it by pecking at the ear that was tied to the trigger, and the others, no matter if there were a hundred in the flock, would all go in to him through the trenches before spoken of.  After they had eaten the corn, they would look up instead of down for a way of escape, and, although the trenches at which they came in were still open to them, they would not know enough to make use of them.  If the trap was once sprung, the capture of the entire flock was certain, provided those outside were not frightened away before they had time to go in to their imprisoned companions.

In two hours’ time the traps had all been set and the boys were at home again.  They had done a good day’s work, but they wanted to do a better; so as soon as the mule was unharnessed and the wagon put under the shed where it belonged, they set to work in the shop again, and before dark a large coop, which would just fit into the wagon box, was completed.  This was to be used to bring home the captured quails.  After that one of the unoccupied negro cabins was selected to confine the birds in until the required number had been trapped.  It received a thorough sweeping, the floor was covered with clean sand, and the broken window was boarded up so that the captives could not escape.  When this was done David started for home, and Don and Bert went into the house to get ready for supper.