“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.

CHAPTER IV.

More bad news.

David’s feelings, as he stood there in the road, gazing after the retreating horseman, were by no means of the most pleasant nature.  He was naturally a cheerful, light-hearted boy, and he would not look on the dark side of things if he could help it.  But he couldn’t help it now.  Here was more trouble.  If he had been disposed to give up in despair when he found that his brother was working against him, he had more reason to be discouraged when he learned that a new enemy had suddenly appeared, and from a most unexpected quarter, too.  That was the way he looked at the matter at first; but after