“And how would they feel if we-uns should go up where they live, and set about breaking up their business—should try to take the bread out of the mouths of their children?” exclaimed Barr, in savage tones. “The birds we shoot bring we-uns in our grub and clothes. Being wild, they don’t belong to nobody; but they belong to we-uns who live here, more’n they do to folks who don’t live here, and we have a right to get ’em in any way we can. Them fellers up north can’t break up our business, for we won’t let ’em; an’ as for the folks who live round here and tries to help ’em do it—”
“Fellows like Gus Egan, for instance,” interrupted Enoch.
“Yes, he is one of the worst in the lot of the mean fellers that won’t let us shoot the ducks because they want to shoot them theirselves,” assented Barr. “As for him, and others like him, that I could call by name if I wanted to, they are getting theirselves deeper and deeper into a furse every day. Something’s going to happen if them detectives comes down here this season. You hear me speaking to you?”
As Barr said this, he played with the lock of his heavy duck-gun, and looked very fierce indeed.
CHAPTER III.
BARR’S BIG GUN.
“I don’t blame you for being angry,” said Jones, after a few minutes’ pause. “I hold as you do, Mr. Barr—that the wild fowl which come into this bay are the property of any one who can bring them to bag; and that men who live hundreds of miles away, who come here only once a year, and for a few days at a time, are taking a good deal upon themselves when they presume to tell us how these wild birds shall be killed. Those ‘gentlemen sportsmen,’ as Enoch calls them, have no right to make laws for my government, and I shall pay no attention to them.”
“No more will I,” said Barr, emphatically. “But I bet you I will pay some attention to the fellers about here who are mean enough to side with them and the detectives.”
“Was that you shooting last night?” asked Enoch, suddenly.
“I didn’t hear no shooting last night,” answered Barr, with another sidelong glance at Lester.
“You have grown very suspicious since I saw you last,” said Enoch, with some impatience in his tones. “But I tell you that you need not be afraid to trust me or any one whom I endorse. We all heard a big gun shortly after midnight, and I’ll bet my schooner against your sink-boat, that if I were to look along the shores of Powell’s Island, I could find the gun.”