Well, Teddy gave over his games now and stood up and showed a great deal of annoyance.  His bead-black eyes flashed and his jaw stood out, as it always did when he was vexed.

“Too bad!” he said, “and if I knew who the man was, I’d have him up for libel I reckon.  I may or may not agree about the damn birds, but I wouldn’t have made a policeman my fast friend in this place if I weren’t a straight man, and I’m a good bit surprised, Joseph, that you thought it worth your while to name such a thing to me.  And I’ll go out of a moony night when and where I please so long as it’s a free country.  So now then!”

He sulked a bit and didn’t come to see the Fords for a week, though Joey was over often enough to see him, and Joseph felt rather interested to mark how the little man had taken it.  But then ‘Santa Claus’ made friends again and came into Sunday supper and brought a pheasant along with him!

He made a lot of fun about it and pretended as he’d shot it in the coverts over night; and presently he told Joseph that, if he wanted to run him in, he’d best to go to Mercer’s at Newton Abbot first and find out if he’d bought it all decent and in order, or if he had not.  So the matter dropped, and all was firm friends again till the blow fell.

Poaching went on, and Joseph noted that Teddy was apt to be from home a bit and would often go away for a day or two.  And the new head-keeper, who was sleepless on the job, traced where a car had come across one of the drives in Oakshott’s by night, for the wheels had scored the grass; and where the thing had stood was a dead bird the blackguards had overlooked.

The pheasant had been shot roosting and an air-gun was the weapon, for they found the slug in it.

And the next thing was that just afore the end of the season, Joseph Ford set out to lend a hand with the job on his own, unknown to anybody but the head-keeper.  He worked out of his business hours and off the regular policeman’s beats, and the keeper, who now felt pretty sure one of his own under-men was in it, and he’d got treachery to deal with, put Joseph up to a secret plan.  Oakshott’s is a huge place and the six keepers kept there couldn’t be everywhere; but an unknown seventh man might steal a march on the rogues and lie hid when ’twas given out the others were somewhere else.  And that was done by Joseph, with a very startling result.

The season had near reached an end, when on a quiet moonlight night in January, Joseph kept his third secret watch at the edge of the North Wood.  He’d got there at dusk, being off duty at the time, and there he bided; and then, just after moonrise, he saw a dog slip past him within ten yards, and he knew the dog very well, and his heart sank.

Behind the lurcher came her master, and Teddy, with something in his hand that glinted, popped by, silent as a ghost and was gone into the covers.