“We’ll see you Saturday night then? At the Rotary Club?”
“Will they let people go?” Westy asked.
“Sure, the more the merrier,” said Warde; “it’s a public meeting.”
“I’ll come and shout for you when they announce the decision,” Westy said.
“Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” laughed Warde.
CHAPTER XXIII
IRA GOES A-HUNTING
When Westy strode away after making his sensational announcement at the farm, Ira Hasbrook watched the departing figure through a dense cloud of tobacco smoke. He was puzzled. For a while he smoked leisurely, submitting with languid amiability to the tirade of Aunt Mira. And when she finally withdrew to the sitting room to write to Bridgeboro he continued smoking and thinking for fully half an hour. Only once in all that time did he make any audible comment.
“Some kid,” he mused aloud.
It would be hard to say whether this comment was in approval of Westy’s sudden inspiration to kill a deer or in perplexity as to what he actually had done. Certainly Ira would not have held it to the boy’s discredit if he had killed a deer. He rather liked Westy’s unexplained decision to reform and kill a deer. With such a fine beginning he might some day even go after an Indian or run away to sea. Ira was greatly amused at the naïve way in which Westy had suddenly come out into the open as a lawless adventurer....
But he was puzzled. For one thing it seemed odd to him that Westy, directly after his bizarre exploit, should have chanced upon Luke Meadows, the leading poacher of the neighborhood and the bane of farmers and game wardens for miles around.