"No, you ain't," snapped Dan, who had made several ineffectual attempts to induce his father to stop talking and listen to him. "And you ain't by no means as smart as you think you be, neither."
"What for?" demanded his father.
"'Cause you keep jawing all the while and won't let me tell you. He's going to have them birds pertected, the old man is, and you can't shoot them loose and reckless like you did last winter."
"That for his pertection!" cried the ferryman, snapping his fingers in the air. "He can't do it, and I won't pay no heed to him if he tries it."
"Then he'll have the law on you."
"He can't do that, neither, 'cause there ain't no close season for English partridges. There's no such birds in this country known to the law. Besides, how is old man Warren going to tell whether it was me or some of them city sportsmen that shot 'em?"
"He's going to post his land, and put a game-warden up there in the woods to watch them partridges," observed Dan.
"What kind of a feller is that?" asked Silas. "Is it the same as a game-constable?"
"Just the same, only the old man will pay him out of his own pocket, instead of looking to the county to pay him. He's going to have that there game-warden shoot every dog and 'rest every man who comes on to the grounds with a gun in his hands, if he don't go off when he's told to."