"I am confident I am right; but we won't say any thing more about it just now," added the stranger, who seemed to be struggling with other emotions than those of fear or indignation.
"That's very queer," said Dory, puzzled at the strange conduct of the man who had been fired at. "I think you will get a bullet through your head if you stay here much longer."
"I am not afraid of a bullet; but I don't think I had better stay here any longer," replied the stranger. "Which way are you going, young man?"
"I was going over to a place they call Belzer's."
"That is a mile from here. Were you going there when that gun was fired?" asked the man eagerly.
"Well, not just at that minute. I was tired out, and I lay down in the woods to rest me. I was going over to Belzer's to see if I could get a place to work. I"—
"You are too late: they hired a boy at Belzer's this afternoon," added the man.
"That's just my luck," added Dory, discouraged at this intelligence.
"The luck shall not go against you this time. You have no errand at Belzer's now; and, if you will walk to Plattsburgh with me, I will make it all right with you; and you shall not be sorry that you did not find a place at Belzer's, which is not a proper place for a boy like you."
"If there is no place there for me, and it is not the place for me, I shall return to Plattsburgh," answered Dory, as he started with the stranger in the direction from which he had come when he took to the woods.