“No, I don't. I am working to keep him from cheating me out of it. If he will keep his place among the niggers, where fellows of his stamp belong, I'll be the last one to say or do anything against him; but when he tries to shove himself up among white folks, and swindle me out of a new shot-gun and get appointed mail carrier over my head, it's something I won't stand. Say, Dave,” he added, drawing rein, as the subject of his remarks approached, “can you spare us just about two minutes for a little private conversation?”
“I reckon,” replied David. “Have you joined that sportsman's club, and are you going to prosecute me for being a pot-hunter?”
“Lester has already told you what we are going to do about that, and you may rest assured that we shall do it,” answered Bob, sharply. “What we say, we always stand to. What we want to talk to you about now is this: We know, as well as you do, that your father is hiding out here in the cane, and that he dare not show himself in the settlement for fear he will be arrested. You wouldn't like to see him sent to jail, would you?”
“I know what you mean,” replied David. “My father may have been foolish, but he has done nothing that the law can touch him for.”
When he said this he was thinking of Clarence Gordon and the barrel with the eighty thousand dollars in it. He did not know that Godfrey was guilty of highway robbery, and he forgot that he had also committed an assault upon Don, and that he had received and cared for stolen property, knowing it to be stolen.
“Hasn't he, though!” cried Bob. “He got into my father's smoke-house last night and stole some meal and bacon. He forced a lock to do it, too. The law can touch him for that, can't it?”
David leaned against the fence and looked at the two boys without speaking. He did not doubt Bob's story. He had been expecting to hear of such things for a long time. He had told himself more than once that when his father grew tired of living on squirrels, somebody's smoke-house and corn-crib would be sure to suffer. Godfrey was getting worse every day, and something told David that he would yet perform an act that would set every man in the settlement on his track.
“We can send him to prison,” continued Bob. “You would not like that, of course, and you can prevent it if you feel like it. Lester and I are the only ones who know that he robbed my father last night, and we will keep it to ourselves on one condition.”
“I know what it is,” said David. “You want me to promise that I will trap no more quails. Perhaps you want the money yourselves.”
“That's the very idea,” said Lester.