“Wal, I’ll tell you what I’ll do:  I’ll pay him outen them fifty dollars we’re goin’ to get fur them quail.  An’, Davy, if you’ll give me the money you’ve got in your pocket, I’ll hide it with mine whar nobody can’t find it, and then it’ll be safe.”

“It is safe now.”

“But if I go halves with you, you had oughter go halves with me.  Let’s go out to them traps agin, and we kin talk it over while we’re workin’.”

“I am not going to do anything more with those traps.”

“You hain’t give it up, have you?  You ain’t goin’ to let them fifty dollars slip through your fingers, be you?”

“What encouragement have I to do anything after what you said this morning?  I have made other arrangements.  I am going to work over at the General’s.”

David expected that his brother would be very angry when he heard this, but if he was, he did not show it.  He looked steadily at David for a moment and then turned and walked around the corner of the cabin out of sight.

CHAPTER VI.

Bruin’s island.

“That’s a purty way he’s got of doin’ business, I do think.  He’s a trifle the meanest feller I ever seed, Dave is, an’ if I don’t pay him fur it afore he’s a great many weeks older, I’ll just play myself out a tryin’.  If me an’ him works together we kin get them fifty dollars as easy as fallin’ off a log; but he can’t arn ’em by hisself, an’ he shan’t, nuther.”

This was the way Dan Evans talked to himself, as he trudged through the woods with his rifle on his shoulder, after his unsuccessful attempt to overhear what passed between his brother and Don and Bert Gordon; or, rather, after his failure to find out what it was that brought Don and Bert to the cabin.  He did overhear what passed between them, but he did not learn anything by it.  Of course that made him angry.  A good many things had happened that day to make him angry, and he had gone off in the woods by himself to think and plan vengeance.

“Bein’ the man of the house I’ve got more right to them fifty dollars nor Dave has,” thought Dan, “an’ if he don’t give me half of ’em, he shan’t see a cent of ’em hisself.  Wouldn’t I look nice loafin’ around in these yere clothes while Dave was dressed up like a gentleman an’ takin’ his ease?  I’ll bust up them traps of his’n faster’n he kin make ’em.  I’ll show him that I’m the boss of this house now that pap’s away, no matter if them Gordon fellers is a backin’ on him up.  I’ve larned a heap by listenin’.  I heard Dave tell the ole woman that he’s goin’ to make three dollars a dozen outen them quail.  I didn’t larn nothing this arternoon, howsomever.  Them fellers must a seed me lookin’ through the cracks, kase they didn’t tell him what they was agoin’ to tell him when they fust come up to the fence.”