“These white trash are as impudent as the niggers,” said Bob, “and no one who has the least respect for himself will have anything to do with them. I used to think that Don Gordon was something of an aristocrat, but now I know better.”
“I wish I had given him a good cowhiding,” continued Lester, who did not think it worth while to state that he had been on the point of attempting that very thing, but had thought better of it when he saw how resolutely David stood his ground. “But never mind. We'll get even with him. We'll touch his pocket, and that will hurt him worse than a whipping. It will hurt the Gordons, too.”
“Then he wouldn't promise to give up the idea of catching them quails? I am sorry, for if we could only frighten him off the track, we would write to that man up North telling him that the party with whom he made his contract wasn't able to fill it, but we could catch all the birds he wants in two weeks.”
“That's a good idea—a splendid idea!” exclaimed Lester; “and perhaps we'll do it any how, if the plan I have thought of doesn't prove successful.”
Lester then went on to repeat the conversation he had had with David, as nearly as he could recall it, and wound up by saying:—
“I told him that we were going to start a Sportsman's Club among the fellows, and that after we got fairly going, our first hard work should be to break up this practice of trapping birds. Of course that wasn't true—I just happened to think of it while I was talking to him—but why can't we make it true? If all the boys will join in with us, I'd like to see him do any trapping this winter.”
“But who can we get to go in with us?”
“We'll ask Don and Bert the first thing.”
“Nary time,” exclaimed Bob, quickly. “If they are the sort you're going to get to join your club, you may just count me out. I don't like them.”
“You like them just as well as I do; but we have an object to gain, and we mustn't allow our personal feelings to stand in our way.”