He's quite right, Stewart," said his friend Sandy, who was hugely
enjoying himself. "You know well enough you are down on the farmer chaps
who go pot hunting before season. It's rotten sport, you know."

"Oh, hell! Will you shut up! Can't I shoot over my dog when he points?
I'm not out shooting. If I want to give my dog a little experience an
odd bird or two don't matter. Besides, what the--"

"Oh, come on, Stewart! Get in, and get a move on! You know you are in
the wrong. But I thought you were a better shot than that," added Sandy.

His remark diverted Duff's rage.

"Better shot!" he stormed. "Who could shoot with a--a--a--" he was
feeling round helplessly for a properly effective word,--"with a fellow
yelling at you?" he concluded lamely. "I'd have had a brace of them if
it hadn't been for him."

"In that case," said Barry coolly, "I saved you from the law."

"Saved me from the law! What the devil do you mean, anyway?" said
Stewart. "If I want to pick up a bird who's to hinder me? And what's the
law got to do with it?"

"Well, you know, I'm not sure but it might have been my duty to report
you. I feel that all who break the game laws should be reported. It is
the only way to stop the lawless destruction of the game."

Barry spoke in a voice of quiet deliberation, as if pondering the proper
action in the premises.

"Quite right, too," said Sandy gravely, but with a twinkle in his blue
eye. "They ought to be reported. I have no use for those poachers."

Duff made no reply. His rage and disgust, mingled with the sense of his
being in the wrong, held him silent. No man in the whole country was
harder upon the game poachers than he, but to be held up in his action
and to be threatened with the law by this young preacher, whom he rather
despised anyway, seemed to paralyse his mental activities. It did not
help his self-control that he was aware that his friend was having his
fun of him.

At this moment, fortunately for the harmony of the party, their
attention was arrested by the appearance of a motor car driven at a
furious rate along the trail, and which almost before they were aware
came honking upon them. With a wild lurch the bronchos hurled themselves
from the trail, upsetting the buckboard and spilling its load.

Duff, cumbered with his gun, which he had reloaded, allowed one of
the reins to drop from his hands and the team went plunging about in a
circle, but Barry, the first to get to his feet, rushed