n
baiting Ducks," thought he. "He has been putting out corn to get them to
come here regularly. My, how I hate that sort of thing! It is bad enough
to hunt them fairly, but to feed them and then kill them--ugh! I wonder
if he has shot any yet."

He looked all about keenly, and his face cleared. He knew that if that
hunter had killed any Ducks, there would be tell-tale feathers in the
blind, and there were none.

CHAPTER XXIV: Farmer Brown's Boy Does Some Thinking

Farmer Brown's boy sat on the bank of the Big River in a brown study.
That means that he was thinking very hard. Blacky the Crow sat in the
top of a tall tree a short distance away and watched him. Blacky was
silent now, and there was a knowing look in his shrewd little eyes. In
calling Farmer Brown's boy over there, he had done all he could, and he
was quite satisfied to leave the matter to Farmer Brown's boy.

"A hunter has made that blind to shoot Black Ducks from," thought Farmer
Brown's boy, "and he has been baiting them in here by scattering corn
for them. Black Ducks are about the smartest Ducks that fly, but if they
have been coming in here every evening and finding corn and no sign of
danger, they probably think it perfectly safe here and come straight
in without being at all suspicious. To-night, or some night soon, that
hunter will be waiting for them.

"I guess the law that permits hunting Ducks is all right, but there
ought to be a law against baiting them in. That isn't hunting. No, Sir,
that isn't hunting. If this land were my father's, I would know what to
do. I would put up a sign saying that this was private property and no
shooting was allowed. But it isn't my father's land, and that hunter has
a perfect right to shoot here. He has just as much right here as I have.
I wish I could stop him, but I don't see how I can."

A frown puckered the freckled face of Farmer Brown's boy. You see, he
was thinking very hard, and when he does that he is very apt to frown.

"I suppose," he muttered, "I can tear down his blind. He wouldn't know
who did it. But that wouldn't do much good; he would build another.
Besides, it wouldn't be right. He has a perfect right to make a blind
here, and having made it, it is his and I haven't any right to touch
it. I won't do a thing I haven't a right to do. That wouldn't be honest.
I've got to think of some other way of saving those Ducks."

The frown on his freckled face grew deeper, and for a long time he s