"My first official act is going to be one that I would rather leave for some one else to perform," said he, to himself. "I must hunt up father and Dan, and tell them to make themselves scarce about here. I could be as happy and contented as I want to be during the next eight months, if they would only let me alone. With a business I like, to keep me occupied while daylight lasts, plenty of books and papers to help me pass the evening hours pleasantly, and a fair prospect of earning money enough to make mother comfortable during the coming winter—what more could a boy ask for? If father and Dan get into serious trouble by trying to upset my arrangements, they must not blame me for it."
While Joe communed with himself in this way, he filled the magazine with cartridges, which he took from a box he found on the table, and went out, locking the door behind him.
But where should he go? That was the question. Mr. Warren's wood-lot covered a good deal of ground, and the birds he was employed to protect might be at the farthest end of it.
If that was the case, Silas and Dan with the aid of the three dogs they had brought with them, could easily find some of the flocks, and create great havoc among them with their heavy guns, before Joe could put a stop to their murderous work.
"When snow comes I shall not have any of this trouble," soliloquized the young game-warden. "I shall feed the birds near the cabin twice each day, and that will get them in the habit of staying around so that I can keep an eye on them; and I shall know in a minute if there are any pot-hunters about, for I can see their tracks."
For an hour Joe worked hard and faithfully to find the two hunters, who as he believed, had come up there to kill off Mr. Warren's imported game, but he could neither see nor hear anything of them.
Finally he told himself that he did not think his father and Dan had come to those woods, because the birds he put up did not act as though they had been frightened before. If they had been shot at, Joe would have heard the report of the gun.
"I'd give something to know what it was that took those two off in such haste this morning," thought he. "They're up to some mischief or other, or else the face that Dan brought to the table belied him. Well, it's none of my business what they do, so long as they let my birds alone. Hallo, here! I'm afraid that I am going to have more to do than I thought for. Go back where you came from!"
As Joe said this he bent over quickly, caught up a stick, raised it threateningly in the air, whereupon a brace of pointers, which had just emerged from a thicket a short distance away, turned and beat a hasty retreat, giving tongue vociferously as they went.
A moment later, suppressed exclamations of surprise arose from a couple of men who were following the dogs, and who forthwith set themselves to work to find out what it was that had sent the pointers back to them in such a hurry.