"If that's the case, we'll have to go somewhere else to do our shooting."
"What for?" demanded the ferryman, who was not a little surprised. "Do you think that that little Joe of our'n could 'rest us if we didn't want him to?"
"Of course not; but he could report us, and the sheriff could arrest us," answered Hobson.
Silas clenched both his fists and glared savagely at Joe, who was just then holding an animated colloquy with his brother Dan upon some point concerning which there was evidently a wide diversity of opinion.
CHAPTER V. WHAT DAN OVERHEARD.
"If I thought that Joe of our'n would be mean enough to carry tales on me and have me 'rested, I'd larrup him 'till his own mother wouldn't know him," declared Silas, who grew so angry at the mere mention of such a thing, that he wanted to catch up a stick and fall upon the boy at once.
"And make the biggest kind of a fool of yourself by doing of it," said Hobson, calmly. "Look a-here, Silas, you want to keep away from old man Warren's woods this winter."
"With them six hundred dollars' worth of birds running around loose and no law to pertect 'em?" cried the ferryman. "I'll show you whether I will or not. I tell you I'll have the last one of them before the winter's over. It is true that I don't care for such trifling things as the ferry any more, 'cause I've got a plan in my head that'll—hum! But I want to get even with old man Warren for breaking up my business, don't I?"