"We can't stop him by the aid
of the Sportsman's Club, and so we will stop him ourselves without
the aid of anybody. Let him go to work and set his traps, and we'll
see how many birds he will take out of them. We'll rob every one we
can find and keep the quail ourselves. In that way we may be able to
make up the fifty dozen without setting any of our own traps. We'll
write to that man, as you suggested, and when Dave finds he can't
catch any birds, he'll get discouraged and leave us a clear field.
But first I want to touch up Don and Bert Gordon a little to pay them
for the way they treated me this evening. That shooting-box shall be
laid in ashes this very night. I expected an invitation to shoot
there last spring, but I didn't get it, and now I am determined that
they shall never ask anybody there. What do you say?"
"I say, I'm your man," replied Bob.
And so the thing was settled. Lester put his horse in the barn, went
in to supper, which was announced in a few minutes (Bob found
opportunity before he sat down to the table to purloin a box of
matches, which he put carefully away in his pocket), and when the
meal was over, the two boys went back to the wagon-shed, where they
sat and talked until it began to grow dark.
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