"No, we can't pay," answered Earl.
"Then I'll expect you to quit by to-morrow noon."
Without waiting for another word, Caleb Norcross turned around his bony steed and urged him forward. In less than a minute he had disappeared in the direction whence he had come. With sinking hearts the boys watched him out of sight.
The blow they had dreaded had fallen, and for several seconds neither spoke. Then Randy, who had pulled off one boot, flung it across the kitchen floor.
"I don't care, he can have his old place," he cried angrily. "We'll never get rich here, if we stay a hundred years. I'm sick and tired of cutting timber just for one's meals!"
"It's all well enough to talk so, Randy," was the elder brother's cautious response. "But where are we to go if we leave here?"
"Oh, anywhere! We might try our luck down in Bangor, or maybe Boston."
Earl smiled faintly. "We'd cut pretty figures in a city, I'm thinking, after a life in the backwoods."
"A backwoods boy became President."
"Do you wish to try for the presidency?"