CHAPTER XIII. DAN IS SCARED.
When Mr. Warren's newly-appointed game-warden turned away from Dan and went on down the road to meet his mother, he left behind him one of the maddest boys that had ever been seen in that part of the country.
In spite of all he had said to the contrary, Dan had no intention of asking Mr. Hallet to employ him to watch his birds and keep trespassers out of his wood-lot, for he knew very well that if he proffered such a request he would be met by a prompt and emphatic refusal.
Mr. Hallet was too well acquainted with his poaching propensities to give his imported game into his keeping, and Dan was painfully aware of the fact.
What he wanted more than anything else was that his brother should accept him as a partner, so that he could handle half the earnings, while Joe did all the work and shouldered all the responsibility; that was the plain English of it. But Joe was resolved to paddle his own canoe, and more than that, he had threatened to call upon a powerful friend to make Dan behave himself, if he didn't see fit to do it of his own free will.
"I've got be mighty sly about what I do," thought Dan, resting his elbows on his knees and looking down at the ground, after kicking Bony out of his way. "Don't it beat you when you think of the luck that comes to some fellers, while others, who are just as good as they be, and who work just as hard, can't make things go right no way they can fix it? I tell you it bangs me. I ought to have help to drive that Joe of our'n out of them woods, for, to tell you what's the gospel truth, I don't quite like the idee of facing him alone. I can't fight agin him and pap, with old man Warren throwed in."
While Dan was talking to himself in this way, he stretched his leg out before him and drew from his pocket the letter he had found in front of the door of the wood-shed. He little dreamed what an astounding revelation it contained. He had not the slightest idea where it came from, and neither could he have told why he picked it up.
He proceeded to examine it now, simply because he had nothing else to occupy his mind, except his many and bitter disappointments, and he had already expressed himself very feelingly in regard to them.
With great deliberation Dan spread the letter upon his knee, and, with a caution which had become habitual to him, looked up and down the road to make sure that there was no one in sight. Then he addressed himself to the task of reading the "notis" that was scrawled upon the envelope; but no sooner had he, with infinite difficulty, spelled out all the words in it, than the letter fell from his nerveless fingers, and Dan jumped to his feet and whooped and yelled like a wild Indian.