“They never had a closer shave, that thar is sartin,” thought Dan, as he turned about and trudged toward home.  “I wonder what pap would say if he knowed what a smart trick I played onto ’em!  I wish I could go an’ tell him, but I am a’most afeared, kase he must be jest a bilin’ over with madness.  He’s lost the pinter—­I reckon Dave must have stole him, kase I don’t see how else he could have got him—­an’ I don’t keer to go nigh him ag’in, till I kin kinder quiet his feelin’s by tellin’ him some good news ‘bout them hundred an’ fifty dollars.”

The events of this night were the last of any interest that transpired in the settlement for more than two weeks.  Affairs seemed to take a turn for the better now, and the boy trapper and his two friends were left to carry out their plans without any opposition.  Bob and Lester kept out of sight altogether; but they need not have been so careful to do that, for the General was the only one who was the wiser for what they had done, and he never said a word about it to anybody.  They could not even muster up energy enough to go out of nights to rob David’s traps; and perhaps it was just as well that they did not attempt it, for they might have run against Dan Evans in the dark.  The latter spent very little time at home now.  He was sometimes absent for two days and nights, and David and his mother did not know what to make of it.  He had built a camp near the field in which the traps were set, and there he lived by himself, subsisting upon the squirrels and wild turkeys that fell to his rifle.

Things went on smoothly for a week, and during this time David and his friends were as busy as they could be.  Quails were more abundant than they had ever known them to be before.  They seemed to flock into the General’s fields on purpose to be caught, and before many days had passed, it became necessary to fit up another cabin for the reception of the prisoners.  In the meantime the General’s timber and nails were used up rapidly.  The boys had the hardest part of their work to do now, and that was to build a sufficient number of coops to hold all the birds.  Silas Jones said that the Emma Deane was expected down every day, and Don declared that the birds must be shipped on her when she came back from New Orleans, if it took every man and woman on the plantation to get them ready.  She came at last, and Don was at the landing to meet her.  He held a short interview with her captain and Silas Jones, who was freight agent as well as express agent and post-master, and when it was ended he jumped on his pony and rode homeward as if his life depended upon the speed he made.  When he arrived within sight of the field where the traps were set, he saw his brother and David coming in with another wagon load of birds.

“How many this morning?” asked Don.

“We have enough now to make fifty-five dozen altogether,” replied Bert.

“Hurrah for our side!” cried Don.  “We’ll ship them all.  Some may die on the way, you know, and that man must have the number he advertised for.  Captain Morgan will stop and get the birds when he comes back.  He will see them shipped on the railroad at Cairo, and all we have to do is to be sure that the game is at the landing in time.”