Chapter 3

AN OFFER OF PARTNERSHIP.

This was the first time David had ever heard that a son could be held responsible for debts contracted by his father. At first he did not believe it; but Silas seemed to think it could be done, and he was a business man and ought to know what he was talking about. The truth of the matter was, that Silas Jones was a hard one to deal with. He wanted every cent that was due him and more too, if he could get it. It made no difference how poor his customers were, he always found means to make them pay the bills they contracted at his store. The eight dollars that Godfrey owed him looked almost as large in his eyes as it did in David's. He could not bear to lose it, and he did not care what tricks he resorted to to get it. When he rode away he took all David's peace of mind with him, "Wasn't it lucky that I didn't go down to his store and ask him to trust me for a dress for mother?" thought the boy; as he picked up his hammer and resumed work upon his trap. "He would have refused me sure. Now there is only one way I can pay that debt, and that is to ask Don Gordon for the ten dollars he promised to give me for breaking his pointer. That's something I don't like, for the money isn't fairly earned yet, but I don't see what else I can do. Mother must have something to eat, and the only way I can get it is by making a friend of Silas by paying him this debt father owes him. I don't care for myself, and as for Dan--let him look out for number one. That's what he makes me do."

While David was soliloquising in this way he heard a footstep near him, and looking up saw his brother Dan, whose appearance and actions surprised him not a little. His face wore a smile instead of the usual scowl, he had no coat on, his sleeves were rolled up, and he carried a frow in one hand (a frow is a sharp instrument used for splitting out shingles), and a heavy mallet in the other. He really looked as if he had made up his mind to go to work, and David could not imagine what had happened to put such an idea into his head. He stopped on the way to speak to the pointer and give him a friendly pat, and that was another thing that surprised his brother. Dan would have acted more like himself if he had given the animal a kick.

"He's up to something," thought David. "He wouldn't act that way if he wasn't. I shouldn't wonder if he wants part of that money I am going to get from Don Gordon, but he needn't waste his breath in asking for it. Every cent of it goes into mother's hands."

"Halloo, Davy!" said Dan, cheerfully. "I thought mebbe you wouldn't care if I should come out and lend you a hand. I hain't got nothing much to do this morning."

David made no reply. He was waiting to hear what object his brother had in view in offering his assistance, and he knew it would all be made plain to him in a few minutes.

"You got a heap of traps to build, hain't you?" continued Dan. "When be you goin' to set 'em?"

"I am going to set some of them to-night," was David's reply.

"Fifty dozen is a heap of birds, ain't it?" said Dan.

"How do you happen to know anything about it?" demanded David, who was greatly astonished.

"I heerd you an' Don talkin' about it."

"Where were you at the time?"

"O, I was around," answered Dan, who did not care to confess that he had intentionally played the part of eavesdropper.

David was silent, for he wanted to think about it. Here was another piece of ill luck. His experience had taught him that if he wished to make his enterprise successful, he must keep it from the knowledge of his father and Dan. If they found out that he expected to earn so much money, they would insist on a division of the spoils, and if their demand was not complied with, there would be trouble in the cabin. He had no fear of his father now, but here was Dan, who was an unpleasant fellow to have about when he was crossed, and he seemed to know all about it. There were troublous times ahead; David was sure of that.

"What does that feller up North want with so many quails, anyhow?" asked Dan, as he placed one of the oak blocks upon its end and began splitting off a shingle with the frow. "He can't eat 'em all by hisself."

"No, he wants to turn them loose and let them run," replied David, with as much good nature as he could assume. "You see they had an awful hard winter up there last year, and the quails were all killed off."

"Wall, what does the fule want to let 'em go fur, arter he's bought 'em?"

"Why, he wants to stock the country. He belongs to a Sportsman's Club up there. He and his friends will have a law passed keeping folks from shooting them for two or three years, and then there'll be just as many birds as there were before."

"Is that the way them rich fellers does?"

"That's what Don says."

"It's mighty nice to be rich, ain't it, Davy; to have all the money you want to spend, a nice hoss to ride, one of them guns what breaks in two in the middle to do your shootin' with, an' shiny boots an' a straw hat to wear to church! I wish me an' pap had found that thar bar'l with the eighty thousand dollars into it. I wouldn't be wearin' no sich clothes as these yere."

"That's all humbug," exclaimed David. "The silver things that old Jordan buried, the spoons, knives and dishes, were all dug up again and are in use now every day. General Gordon never had eighty thousand dollars in gold and silver."

"Don't you b'lieve no sich story as that ar," replied Dan, with a knowing shake of his head.

"That's what the Gordons say, anyhow."

"In course they do; an' they say it kase they don't want nobody diggin' arter that thar bar'l. They wants to find it theirselves. How much be you goin' to get fur these quail, Davy? As much as twenty-five dollars, mebbe thirty, won't you?"

This question showed that Dan didn't know all about the matter, and David took courage. "Yes, all of that," he replied.

"More, I reckon mebbe, won't ye?"

"I think so."

"You won't get fifty, will you?" said Dan, opening his eyes.

"I hope I shall."

"Whew!" whistled Dan. He threw down his frow and mallet and seated himself on the pile of shingles, with an air which said very plainly, that with such an amount of money in prospect there was no need that any more work should be done. "That's a fortin, Davy. It's an amazin' lot fur poor folks like us, an' I can't somehow git it through my head that we're goin' to git so much. But if we do get it, Davy, we'll have some high old times when it comes, me an' you."

"You and me!" exclaimed David.

"Sartin; I want some good clothes an' so do you. 'Twon't be enough to get us a hoss apiece. I _do_ wish I had a circus hoss like Don Gordon's, but we kin get some better shootin' irons, me an' you kin, an' mebbe we can git a boat to hunt ducks in, an' some of them fish-poles what breaks all in pieces an' you carry 'em under your arm. An', Davy, mebbe we'll have a leetle left to get something fur the ole woman."

"For mother! I rather think she'll get something," said David, in a tone of voice that made his brother look up in surprise. "She'll get it all, every cent of it."

"Not by no means she won't," exclaimed Dan, striking his open palm with his clenched hand. "No, sir, not by a long shot. You kin give her your shar', if you're fule enough to do it, but mine I'll keep fur myself. I'll bet you on that."

"_Your_ share?"

"In course."

"I didn't know that you had any share in this business."

"Whoop!" yelled Dan.

He dashed his hat upon the ground, jumped up and knocked his heels together, coming down with his feet spread out and his clenched hands hanging by his side, as if he were waiting for an attack from his brother.

"No, sir," said David, quietly but firmly, "this is my own business. If you want money, go to work and earn it for yourself. You've got six dollars and six bits hidden away somewhere that you never offered to share with me or mother either."

"I know it, kase it is my own. I worked hard fur it too."

"I don't know how, or when you got it," answered David, who little dreamed that his brother had more ready money than that, and that the most of it rightfully belonged to himself, "and I have never asked you for any of it. The money I shall receive for these quails will be mine, all mine."

Dan uttered another wild Indian yell and once more went through the process of preparing himself for a fight, leaping high into the air, knocking his heels together, coming down with his feet spread out and his hands clenched, and when he was fairly settled on the ground again, he exclaimed:

"Dave, does you want me to wallop you?"

"No, I don't," was the reply; "but if you do you won't keep me from doing what I please with my own money."

"But it won't be your own when you get it. I'm older nor you be, an' now that pap's away I'm the man of the house, I want you to know, an' it's the properest thing that I should have the handlin' of all the money that comes into the family. If you don't go 'have yourself it's likely you won't tech a cent of them fifty dollars when it comes. If you don't go to crossin' me, I'll give you your shar' an' I'll take mine; an' we'll get some nice things like Don and Bert Gordon has got."

"But how does it come that you will have any share in it? That's what I can't understand."

"Why, I kalkerlate to help you set the traps an' take out the quail when they're ketched, an' do a heap of sich hard work."

"I intend to do all that myself, and it isn't work either. It's nothing but fun."

"But I'll have a shar' in it anyhow," said Dan, with a grin, which showed that he felt sure of his position, "kase look at the boards I've split out fur you."

David laughed outright. "How many of them are there?" said he. "Five; and I could have split them out in less than half the time you took to do it, and made better boards besides. I can't use these at all."

"Dave," said Dan, solemnly, as he picked up the frow and mallet, "I see you're bound to go agin me."

"No, I am not, and I don't want you to go against me, either."

"Yes, you be. You're goin' to cheat me outen my shar' of them fifty dollars, ain't you now?"

"You will have no share in the money. It will all belong to me, and I shall give it to mother."

"Then, Dave, not a quail do you ketch in these yere fields so long as you hold to them idees. Don't you furget it, nuther."

"What do you mean?" asked David, in alarm. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't make no threatenings. I only say you can't ketch no birds so long as you go agin me, an' that's jest what I mean. If you come to me some day an' say, 'I wus wrong, Dannie, an' now I'm goin' to act decent, like a brother had oughter do,' I'll give you my hand an' do what I can to help you. You've got a big job afore you, an' you can't by no means do it alone. You'd oughter have somebody to help you, an' thar's a heap of hard work in me, the fust thing you know."

"That's so," thought David, running his eyes over his brother's stalwart figure; "but I guess it will stay there."

"We can make them fifty dollars easy, if we pull together; but you can't make 'em by yourself, an' you shan't, nuther. You hear me?"

As Dan said this he disappeared around the corner of the cabin, leaving his brother standing silent and thoughtful. He came out again in a few minutes with his rifle on his shoulder, and without saying another word to David or even looking toward him, climbed over the fence and went into the woods. When he was out of sight, David sat down on one of his traps and went off into a brown study. He was in a bad scrape, that was plain; and the longer he thought about it, the darker the prospect seemed to grow. He had his choice between two courses of action: he must either take Dan into partnership, divide the money with him when it was earned, and permit himself to be browbeaten and driven about as if he were little better than a dog; or he must make an enemy of him by asserting his rights. Which of the two was the more disagreeable and likely to lead to the most unpleasant consequences, he could not determine. If Dan were accepted as a partner, he would insist on handling all the money, and in that case Mrs. Evans would probably see not a single cent of it; for Dan did not care who suffered so long as his own wishes were gratified. If he stuck to the resolution he had already formed, and went ahead on his own responsibility, Dan would smash his traps whenever he happened to find them (he was always roaming about in the woods, and there was hardly a square rod of ground in the neighborhood that he did not pass over in the course of a week), and liberate or wring the necks of the birds that might chance to be in them. He never could capture so many quails if Dan was resolved to work against him, and neither could he make his enterprise successful if he allowed him an interest in it. David did not know what to do.

"I might as well give it up," said he to himself, after a few minutes' reflection. "I'll go up and tell Don that I can't fill the order; and while I am about it, I might as well ask him for that money. Perhaps, if I pay father's debt, Silas Jones will give us what we need until I can find something to do."

With this thought in his mind, David arose and went into the cabin. He put on the tattered garment he called a coat, exchanged his dilapidated hat for another that had not seen quite so hard service, and bent his steps toward General Gordon's house. While he was hurrying along, thinking about his troubles and the coming interview with Don Gordon, and wondering how he could word his request so that his friend would not feel hard toward him for asking for his money before it had been earned, he was almost ridden down by a horseman, who came galloping furiously along the road, and who was close upon him before David knew there was any one near.

"Get out of the way, there!" shouted the rider. "Are you blind, that you run right under a fellow's horse that way?"

David sprang quickly to one side, and the horseman drew up his nag with a jerk and looked down at him. It was Lester Brigham, one of the neighborhood boys of whom we have never before had occasion to speak. He was comparatively a new resident in that country. He had been there only about a year, but during that time he had made himself heartily detested by almost all the boys about Rochdale. Of course he had his cronies--every fellow has; but all the best youngsters, like Don and Bert Gordon and Fred and Joe Packard, would have little to do with him. He had lived in the North until the close of the war, and then his father removed to Mississippi, purchased the plantation adjoining General Gordon's, and began the cultivation of cotton.

Mr. Brigham was said to be the richest man in that county, and Lester had more fine things than all the rest of the boys about there put together. He took particular pride in his splendid hunting and fishing outfit, and it was coveted by almost every boy who had seen it. He had four guns--all breech-loaders; a beautiful little fowling-piece for such small game as quails and snipes; a larger one for ducks and geese; a light squirrel rifle, something like the one Clarence Gordon owned; and a heavier weapon, which he called his deer gun, and which carried a ball as large as the end of one's thumb. He had two jointed fish-poles--one a light, split bamboo, such as is used in fly-fishing, and the other a stout lancewood, for such heavy fish as black bass and pike.

If there was any faith to be put in the stories he told, Lester was a hunter and fisherman who had few equals. Before he came to the South, it was his custom, he said, to spend a portion of every winter in the woods in the northern part of Michigan, and many a deer and bear had fallen to his rifle there. He could catch trout and black bass where other fellows would not think of looking for them, and as for quails, it was no trouble at all for him to make a double shot and bag both the birds every time. There were boys in the neighborhood who doubted this. Game of all kinds was abundant, and Lester was given every opportunity to exhibit the skill of which he boasted so loudly, but he was never in the humor to do it. He seldom went hunting, and when he did he always went alone, and no one ever knew how much game he brought home.

"Your name is Evans, isn't it?" demanded Lester.

David replied that it was.

"Are you the fellow who intends to trap fifty dozen quail in this county, and send them up North?"

"I am," answered David.

"Well, I just rode down here on purpose to tell you that such work as that will not be allowed."

"Who will not allow it?"

"I will not, for one, and my father for another."

"What have you to say about it?" asked David, who did not like the insolent tone assumed by the young horseman. "Do the birds belong to you?"

"They are as much mine as they are yours, and if you have a right to trap them and ship them off, I have a right to say that you shan't do it."

"Why not? What harm will it do?"

"It will do just this much harm: it will make the birds scarce about here, and there are no more than we want to shoot ourselves. O, you needn't laugh about it, I mean just what I say; and if you don't promise that you will let the quail alone, you will see trouble. I am going to get up a Sportsman's Club among the fellows, and then we'll keep such poachers and pot-hunters as you where you belong. No one objects to your shooting the birds over a dog--that's the way to shoot them; but you shan't trap them and send them out of the country. Will you promise that you will give up the idea?"

"No, I won't," answered David.

"Then you'll find yourself in the hands of the law, the first thing you know," exclaimed Lester, angrily. "We won't stand any such work. Don Gordon ought to be ashamed of himself for what he has done. He's the meanest----"

"Hold on, there!" interrupted David, with more spirit than he had yet exhibited. "You don't want to say anything hard about Don while I am around. He's a friend of mine, and I won't hear anybody abuse him. He's the best fellow in the settlement, and so is his brother; and any one who talks against him is just the opposite."

Lester seemed very much astonished at this bold language. He glared down at David for a moment and then slipping his right hand through the loop on the handle of his riding-whip, pulled his feet out of the stirrups and acted as if he were about to dismount. "Do you know who you are talking to?" said he.

"Yes, I do," replied David, "and that's just the kind of a fellow I am."

Lester looked sharply at the ragged youth before him and then put his feet back into the stirrups again and settled himself firmly in the saddle. He felt safer there. "I'll be even with you for that," said he. "You shan't catch any quail in these woods this winter. I'll break up every trap I find and I'll make the rest of the fellows do the same."

Lester gave emphasis to his words by shaking his riding-whip at David, and then wheeled his horse and rode away.