"Well, I did call, and called again, until I was too hoarse to speak above a whisper," said Mr. Brown, walking into the cabin, and placing a camp-chair in front of the fire.
Just then the pointers came into view and went in also, stretching themselves out on the hearth with long-drawn sighs of relief, and the three took up about all the spare room there was in the game-warden's little domicile.
"I don't know who has the most impudence, the man or his dogs," thought Joe, as he closed and fastened the door. "They have come here to run things, judging by the way they shut me off from the fire."
"This is glorious," continued Mr. Brown, depositing his double-barrel in the chimney-corner, and spreading his benumbed hands out in front of the genial blaze. "The air begins to get cold up here on the mountain just as soon as the sun sinks out of sight, and I am chilled through. Now, how am I to get to the Beach? That's the question."
"You will have to answer it for yourself, for I can't," Joe replied. "You had a guide the last time I saw you."
These innocent words seemed to irritate the man to whom they were addressed, for he turned upon Joe almost fiercely.
"Yes, I did have one," said he. "But where is he now?"
"I don't know," answered Joe.
And he might have added that he did not care.
"You heard me remind him that I had given him a handsome sum of money to put me in the way of a good day's shooting, did you not? I knew him to be perfectly familiar with these woods, and I supposed he could do it. Of course, I was aware that I couldn't take home a bag of grouse; but I knew there was no law protecting the English birds that have just been turned down in these covers, and I looked for jolly good sport, and for twenty-five or thirty brace of birds to distribute among my friends."