to have it."

"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 Dav