"Now, Dan, that's only an excuse on your part. You know very well that Mr. Warren and Mr. Hallet are not the only ones who will want cord-wood this winter. I don't blame you for keeping away from the gorge; but you can find plenty to do elsewhere, if you are not too lazy to look for it. Well, good-by."
"What a teetotally mean, stingy feller, that Joe of our'n is!" soliloquized Dan, gazing after his brother, who was walking toward the cabin with a light and springy step. "He ain't a going to go halvers with me and pap, is he? I wish in my soul that the hant would run him outen the mounting this very night."
The young game-warden carried a very bright and smiling face into his mother's presence, and Mrs. Morgan felt immensely relieved the moment she looked at it. Instead of locking the door, as Dan and his father always did whenever they wished to hold a secret interview with each other, Joe sat down on the threshold so that he could talk to his mother and keep watch of Dan at the same time.
The latter was inclined to be "snooping," and it would be just like him, Joe thought, to slip up and crouch under the open window, so that he could hear every word he uttered. Dan had an idea of doing that very thing; but he straightway abandoned it when he looked up and saw his brother sitting at ease in the open door.
"Now, mother," said the latter, cheerfully, "throw your fears to the winds. I've got at the bottom of the whole matter, and know there's nothing to be afraid of."
Then he went on to repeat the story to which he had just listened, but he did not take up so much time with the narration as Dan did, because he used fewer words.
"Dan was so badly frightened that he didn't know whether he stood on his head or his heels," said Joe, in conclusion. "But it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and this is the best thing that could have happened for me. I told you this morning that if father and Dan didn't behave and let my birds alone, I would find means to make them, but I guess the ghost has taken that most unpleasant job off my hands, and I should really like to thank him for it."
"Then you think there is some one hidden in the gulf?" said Mrs. Morgan.
"I am sure of it; and the reason that father and Dan did not do any damage with their four charges of bird-shot was, because they sent them into a dummy. If they had held a little lower, and fired into the bushes, there might have been another story to tell."