"It looks mighty strange to me that he should go out of his way to be so scandalous mean to some, while he is so good to others," said Silas, reflectively. "I don't pertend to understand it. Here he is, robbing me of the onliest chance I had to make a living during the summer, and yet he's standing over there now, offering that Joe of our'n a chance to make a hundred and twenty dollars."
"What doing?" inquired Hobson, who was paying more attention to the surveyor's movements than he was to Silas.
"You remember them English pa'tridges he brought over here to stock his woods, the same year he built that big hotel down to the Beach, don't you?" asked Silas, in reply.
"I should say I did," answered Hobson. "You shot the most of them, and I got the rest, all except the few that Dan managed to catch with his snares and that little black dog of his'n. I wish I could see him cleaned out of everything as slick as he was cleaned out of them birds."
"Well, he's got a new supply of them, old man Warren has—six hundred dollars' worth."
Hobson opened his eyes and began taking some interest in what the ferryman was saying to him.
"I am powerful glad to hear it," said he. "If he won't let me keep hotel and support myself, he can just make up his mind that he's got to keep me in grub. I won't allow myself to go hungry while his covers are well stocked, I bet you. I'll earn a tolerable good living by shooting over his grounds this fall and winter."
"But you will have more bother in doing it than you did last season," said Silas, who then went on to repeat what Dan had told him concerning the game-warden who was to live in Mr. Warren's woods, and devote his entire time and attention to keeping trespassers at a distance.
This seemed a novel idea to Hobson, who finally said: