A part of this programme was duly carried out.  As soon as they reached home Bob told his father what had happened the night before, and was a good deal surprised as well as disgusted, because Mr. Owens did not grow very angry, and declare that Godfrey should be punished to the full extent of the law.

“A bag of meal and a side of bacon are hardly worth making a fuss about,” said Bob’s father.  “I will put a new lock on the smoke-house.  But how does it come that you boys did not tell me of this at once?”

“Because we wanted to make something out of it,” replied Bob.  “If it hadn’t been for Dave, Lester and I would have pocketed a nice little sum of spending money; but he’s gone and got the job of trapping the quails, or rather that meddlesome Don Gordon got it for him, and, not satisfied with that, he has the cheek to run against me when I am trying to be appointed mail carrier.”

“Well,” said Mr. Owens.

“Well,” repeated Bob, “I told him his father was a thief, and I could prove it, but I would say nothing about it if he would agree not to trap any more quails.  If he had done that, I should have brought up this matter of carrying the mail, and made him promise to leave me a clear field there, too; but he wouldn’t listen to anything.”

“I am glad you told me this,” said Mr. Owens, after thinking a moment, “and it is just as well that you did not say anything to David about the mail.  No one knows that I am going to put in a bid for the contract, and I don’t want it known; so be careful what you say.  Gordon will never get that mail route for David, for the authorities will think twice before appointing the son of a thief to so responsible a situation.”

“But are you going to do nothing to Godfrey?”

“I’ll keep him in mind, and if it becomes necessary I’ll put the constable after him, and tell him that the more fuss he makes in capturing him, the better it will suit me.”

The first thing the two boys did after they had eaten their dinner, was to fit up one of the unoccupied negro cabins for the reception of the birds they intended to steal that night.  There were a good many holes to be patched in the roof where the shingles had been blown off, and numerous others to be boarded up in the walls where the chinking had fallen out, and the afternoon was half gone before their work was done.  They still had time to visit their traps, but all the birds they took out of them could have been counted on the fingers of one hand.  Bob looked at them a moment, then thought of the big box full he had seen Don and Bert take home that morning, and grew very angry over his ill luck.  He proposed to wring the necks of the captives and have them served up for breakfast the next morning, but Lester would not consent.  Every one helped, he said, and these five birds, added to the forty or fifty they were to steal that night, would make a good start toward the fifty dozen they wanted.