Darry wondered whether he had been utterly forgotten.
Perhaps the youth had regretted asking him to keep him company; it may have been done on the spur of the moment, simply because he chanced to resemble someone he knew.
Once in the comfortable club, with experienced guides to attend him, and the very best points for shooting reserved, doubtless Paul Singleton had forgotten that there was such a boy as Darry in existence.
So he tried to forget about it, and make up his mind that he could find plenty of congenial work looking after his traps and assisting Abner's wife during the winter, with occasional trips across the sound, and possibly a chance to pull an oar in the surfboat, should luck favor him.
All this while he had taken toll of the feathered frequenters of the marsh, and many a plump fowl graced the table of the Peake family, thanks to the faithful old gun, and the steady nerves back of it.
Darry soon learned where there were squirrels to be found, and twice he had brought in a mess of the gray nutcrackers, though not so fond of hunting them as other game.
And one day he had delighted the good housewife with four nice quail, or as they were known in this section, "pa'tridge," which he had dropped out of a bevy that got up before him in the brush close to the woods where he looked for squirrel.
He knew that something had been troubling Mrs. Peake, but it was a long time before he could tempt her to speak of it.
It concerned money matters, of course, as is nearly always the case when trouble visits the poor.
Abner had been incautious enough to put a little mortgage upon his humble home in order to help a relative who was in deep distress because of several sudden deaths in her family.