He selected a small clear spot near the thick undergrowth where a rabbit would naturally love to make his nest and around a circle about six inches in diameter he drove a number of smooth pegs.

Then he tied a strong cord made of strips of their clothing to one end of a stout bush, which he bent over until it curved in a semicircle.

The other end of the cord was drawn in a sliding loop around the pegs, and was attached to a little wooden trigger, set in the center of the inclosure.
The slightest pressure upon this trigger would upset it, cause the noose to slip off the pegs and close with a jerk around the neck of anything that might have its head thrust into the inclosure.

The bush, too, would fly back into place and there would be the intruder, really hanged by himself.

It was the common form of snare, devised for small game by the boys of early Kentucky, and still used by them.
Henry and Paul made four of these ingenious little contrivances, and baited them with bruised pieces of the small plantain leaves that the rabbits love.