"Then, Dave, not a quail do you ketch in these yere fields so long as you hold to them idees. Don't you furget it, nuther."

"What do you mean?" asked David, in alarm. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't make no threatenings. I only say you can't ketch no birds so long as you go agin me, an' that's jest what I mean. If you come to me some day an' say, 'I wus wrong, Dannie, an' now I'm goin' to act decent, like a brother had oughter do,' I'll give you my hand an' do what I can to help you. You've got a big job afore you, an' you can't by no means do it alone. You'd oughter have somebody to help you, an'

thar's a heap of hard work in me, the fust thing you know."

"That's so," thought David, running his eyes over his brother's stalwart figure; "but I guess it will stay there."

"We can make them fifty dollars easy, if we pull together; but you can't make 'em by yourself, an' you shan't, nuther. You hear me?"

As Dan said this he disappeared around the corner of the cabin, leaving his brother standing silent and thoughtful. He came out again in a few minutes with his rifle on his shoulder, and without saying another word to David or even looking toward him, climbed over the fence and went into the woods. When he was out of sight, David sat down on one of his traps and went off into a brown study. He was in a bad sc.r.a.pe, that was plain; and the longer he thought about it, the darker the prospect seemed to grow. He had his choice between two courses of action: he must either take Dan into partnership, divide the money with him when it was earned, and permit himself to be browbeaten and driven about as if he were little better than a dog; or he must make an enemy of him by a.s.serting his rights. Which of the two was the more disagreeable and likely to lead to the most unpleasant consequences, he could not determine. If Dan were accepted as a partner, he would insist on handling all the money, and in that case Mrs. Evans would probably see not a single cent of it; for Dan did not care who suffered so long as his own wishes were gratified.

If he stuck to the resolution he had already formed, and went ahead on his own responsibility, Dan would smash his traps whenever he happened to find them (he was always roaming about in the woods, and there was hardly a square rod of ground in the neighborhood that he did not pa.s.s over in the course of a week), and liberate or wring the necks of the birds that might chance to be in them. He never could capture so many quails if Dan was resolved to work against him, and neither could he make his enterprise successful if he allowed him an interest in it. David did not know what to do.

"I might as well give it up," said he to himself, after a few minutes' reflection. "I'll go up and tell Don that I can't fill the order; and while I am about it, I might as well ask him for that money. Perhaps, if I pay father's debt, Silas Jones will give us what we need until I can find something to do."

With this thought in his mind, David arose and went into the cabin.

He put on the tattered garment he called a coat, exchanged his dilapidated hat for another that had not seen quite so hard service, and bent his steps toward General Gordon's house. While he was hurrying along, thinking about his troubles and the coming interview with Don Gordon, and wondering how he could word his request so that his friend would not feel hard toward him for asking for his money before it had been earned, he was almost ridden down by a horseman, who came galloping furiously along the road, and who was close upon him before David knew there was any one near.

"Get out of the way, there!" shouted the rider. "Are you blind, that you run right under a fellow's horse that way?"

David sprang quickly to one side, and the horseman drew up his nag with a jerk and looked down at him. It was Lester Brigham, one of the neighborhood boys of whom we have never before had occasion to speak.

He was comparatively a new resident in that country. He had been there only about a year, but during that time he had made himself heartily detested by almost all the boys about Rochdale. Of course he had his cronies--every fellow has; but all the best youngsters, like Don and Bert Gordon and Fred and Joe Packard, would have little to do with him. He had lived in the North until the close of the war, and then his father removed to Mississippi, purchased the plantation adjoining General Gordon's, and began the cultivation of cotton.

Mr. Brigham was said to be the richest man in that county, and Lester had more fine things than all the rest of the boys about there put together. He took particular pride in his splendid hunting and fishing outfit, and it was coveted by almost every boy who had seen it. He had four guns--all breech-loaders; a beautiful little fowling-piece for such small game as quails and snipes; a larger one for ducks and geese; a light squirrel rifle, something like the one Clarence Gordon owned; and a heavier weapon, which he called his deer gun, and which carried a ball as large as the end of one's thumb. He had two jointed fish-poles--one a light, split bamboo, such as is used in fly-fishing, and the other a stout lancewood, for such heavy fish as black ba.s.s and pike.

If there was any faith to be put in the stories he told, Lester was a hunter and fisherman who had few equals. Before he came to the South, it was his custom, he said, to spend a portion of every winter in the woods in the northern part of Michigan, and many a deer and bear had fallen to his rifle there. He could catch trout and black ba.s.s where other fellows would not think of looking for them, and as for quails, it was no trouble at all for him to make a double shot and bag both the birds every time. There were boys in the neighborhood who doubted this. Game of all kinds was abundant, and Lester was given every opportunity to exhibit the skill of which he boasted so loudly, but he was never in the humor to do it. He seldom went hunting, and when he did he always went alone, and no one ever knew how much game he brought home.

"Your name is Evans, isn't it?" demanded Lester.

David replied that it was.

"Are you the fellow who intends to trap fifty dozen quail in this county, and send them up North?"

"I am," answered David.

"Well, I just rode down here on purpose to tell you that such work as that will not be allowed."

"Who will not allow it?"

"I will not, for one, and my father for another."

"What have you to say about it?" asked David, who did not like the insolent tone a.s.sumed by the young horseman. "Do the birds belong to you?"

"They are as much mine as they are yours, and if you have a right to trap them and ship them off, I have a right to say that you shan't do it."

"Why not? What harm will it do?"

"It will do just this much harm: it will make the birds scarce about here, and there are no more than we want to shoot ourselves. O, you needn't laugh about it, I mean just what I say; and if you don't promise that you will let the quail alone, you will see trouble. I am going to get up a Sportsman's Club among the fellows, and then we'll keep such poachers and pot-hunters as you where you belong. No one objects to your shooting the birds over a dog--that's the way to shoot them; but you shan't trap them and send them out of the country. Will you promise that you will give up the idea?"

"No, I won't," answered David.

"Then you'll find yourself in the hands of the law, the first thing you know," exclaimed Lester, angrily. "We won't stand any such work.

Don Gordon ought to be ashamed of himself for what he has done. He's the meanest----"

"Hold on, there!" interrupted David, with more spirit than he had yet exhibited. "You don't want to say anything hard about Don while I am around. He's a friend of mine, and I won't hear anybody abuse him.

He's the best fellow in the settlement, and so is his brother; and any one who talks against him is just the opposite."

Lester seemed very much astonished at this bold language. He glared down at David for a moment and then slipping his right hand through the loop on the handle of his riding-whip, pulled his feet out of the stirrups and acted as if he were about to dismount. "Do you know who you are talking to?" said he.

"Yes, I do," replied David, "and that's just the kind of a fellow I am."

Lester looked sharply at the ragged youth before him and then put his feet back into the stirrups again and settled himself firmly in the saddle. He felt safer there. "I'll be even with you for that," said he. "You shan't catch any quail in these woods this winter. I'll break up every trap I find and I'll make the rest of the fellows do the same."

Lester gave emphasis to his words by shaking his riding-whip at David, and then wheeled his horse and rode away.

CHAPTER IV.

MORE BAD NEWS.

David's feelings, as he stood there in the road, gazing after the retreating horseman, were by no means of the most pleasant nature. He was naturally a cheerful, light-hearted boy, and he would not look on the dark side of things if he could help it. But he couldn't help it now. Here was more trouble. If he had been disposed to give up in despair when he found that his brother was working against him, he had more reason to be discouraged when he learned that a new enemy had suddenly appeared, and from a most unexpected quarter, too. That was the way he looked at the matter at first; but after a little reflection, he felt more like defying Dan and Lester both. What business had either of them to interfere with his arrangements, and say that he should not earn an honest dollar to give his mother, if he could? None whatever, and he would succeed in spite of them.

He would get that grocery bill off his hands the first thing, and when he was square with the world, he would go to work in earnest and outwit all his foes, no matter how numerous or how smart they might be. He would tell Don all about it and be governed by his advice.

Having come to this determination, David once more, turned his face toward the General's house. A few minutes' rapid walking brought him to the barn and there he found the boy he wanted to see. The brothers had just returned from a short ride--Don was not yet strong enough to stand his usual amount of exercise--and having turned the ponies over to the hostler, were on the point of starting for the house, when David came in.

"Halloo, Dave!" exclaimed Don, who was always the first to greet him.

"Traps all built?"

"Not yet," answered David, trying to look as cheerful as usual.

"You have plenty of nails and timber, I suppose. If not come straight to us. It will never do to let this thing fall through for want of a little capital to go on," said Don, who was as much interested in David's success as though he expected to share in the profits of the enterprise.

"I have everything I want in the way of nails and boards," replied David, "but I--you know--may I see you just a minute, Don?"

"Of course you may, or two or three minutes if you wish. Come on, Bert. I have no secrets from my brother, _now_," said Don with a laugh. "I kept one thing secret from him and got myself into trouble by it. If I had told him of it perhaps he would have made me behave myself. Now what is it?" he added, when the three had drawn up in one corner of the barn, out of earshot of the hostler.

David was silent. He had made up his mind just what he wanted to say to Don, but Lester Brigham's sudden appearance and the threats he had made had scattered all his ideas, and he could not utter a word.

"Speak up," said Bert encouragingly. "You need not hesitate to talk freely to us. But what's the matter with you? You look as though you were troubled about something."

"I am troubled about a good many things," said David, speaking now after a desperate effort. "In the first place, there are two fellows here who say I shan't trap any birds."

"Who are they?" demanded Don, surprised and indignant.

"My brother Dan is one of them."