"But then I don't care for such trifling things as birds any more," said Silas to himself. "If Hallet has been fooling away his money for more pa'tridges, Dan can have the fun of shooting 'em, if he wants it; and while he is tramping around through the cold looking for 'em, I'll be snug and warm at home, living like a lord on the money I took out of that cave up there in the mountings. What was you saying, Dannie?"
"I said that me and Joe could have made right smart by doing a little trapping on the quiet," answered Dan. "But he wouldn't hear to my going up there to live with him. What's grub enough for one is grub enough for two, and I could have had piles of things that come from old man Warren's table, and never cost you a red cent the whole winter. More than that, being on the ground all the while, it wouldn't be no trouble at all for me to knock over one of them deer now and then, and that would save you from buying so much bacon; but that mean Joe of our'n he wouldn't hear to it, and now I'm going to knock all his 'rangements higher'n the moon."
"What be you going to do, Dannie?" Silas asked, in a voice so calm and steady that the boy backed off a step or two and looked at him suspiciously.
Was his father about to side with Joe? Dan was really afraid of it, and his voice did not have that resolute ring in it when he answered:
"I'm going to set some snares up there where Joe won't never think of looking for them, and by the time Christmas gets here I'll have every one of them English birds in the market and sold for cash."
The ferryman thrust one hand deep into his pocket, and shook the other menacingly at Dan.
"Look a-here, son," said he, in a tone which he never assumed unless he meant that his words should carry weight with them, "you just keep away from old man Warren's woods, and let them English birds be. Are you listening to your pap?"
"What for?" Dan almost gasped.
"'Cause why; that's what for," was the not very satisfactory answer. "You want to pay right smart heed to what I'm saying to you, 'cause if you don't, I'll wear a hickory out over your back, big as you think you be."
"Well, if this ain't a trifle the beatenest thing I ever heard of, I don't want a cent," began Dan, who was utterly amazed. "Do you want them—that rich feller to have all the fine shooting to himself?"