Page:Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone.djvu/176

170 "Good!" cried Ned. "But, Tom, there's a weak spot in your mouse-trap."

"What is it?"

"How are you going to know which telephone the unknown will call up from? He may go to any of a hundred, more or less."

"He might—yes. But that's a chance we've got to take. It isn't so much of a chance, though, when you stop to think that he will probably go to some public telephone in an isolated spot, and, unless I'm much mistaken he will go to a telephone near where he was to-day. He knows that was safe, since we didn't capture him, and he's very likely to come back."

"But to make the thing as sure as possible, I'm going to attach my apparatus to a number of public telephones in the vicinity of the one near the sawmill. So if the fellow doesn't get caught in one, he will in another. I admit it's taking a chance; but what else can we do?"

"I suppose you're right, Tom. It's like setting a number of traps."

"Exactly. A trapper can't be sure where he is going to get his catch, so he picks out the place, or run-way, where the game has been in the habit of coming. He hides his traps about that place, and trusts to luck that the animal will blunder into one of them.