e indifferent to
them when we have seventy-five dollars apiece in our pockets, can't
we?"

"Lester, you're a brick!" exclaimed Bob. "I never could have thought
up such a plot. I'll have my gun after all."

"Of course you will."

"And what will become of the club?"

"We don't care what becomes of it. Having served our purpose, it can
go to smash and welcome. Now will you vote for Don and Bert?"

"I'll be only too glad to get the chance. But you'll have to manage
the thing, Lester."

"I'll do that. All I ask of you is to talk the matter up among the
boys, that is, if Don and Bert agree to join us, and put in your vote
when the time comes."

The two friends spent the best part of the day in Bob's room, drawing
up the constitution that was to govern their society. Lester, who did
all the writing, had never seen a document of the kind, and having
nothing to guide him he made rather poor work of it. He had read a
few extracts from game laws, and remembered that Greek and Latin
names were used therein. He could recall some of these names, and he
put them in as they occurred to him, and talked about them so glibly,
and appeared to be so thoroughly posted in natural history that
Bob was greatly astonished. Of course there was a clause in the
instrument prohibiting pot-hunting and the snaring of birds, and that
was as strong as language could make it. The work being done at last
to the satisfaction of both the boys, Lester mounted his horse and
galloped away in the direction of Don Gordon's home.

CHAPTER IX.

NATURAL HISTORY.

Lester Brigham was not at all intimate with Don and Bert. The
brothers, as in duty bound, called upon him when he first arrived in
the settlement, and a few days afterward Lester rode over and took
dinner with them; and that was the last of their visiting. The boys
could see nothing to admire in one another. Don and Bert were a
little too "high-toned;" in other words, they were young gentlemen,
and such fellows did not suit Lester, who preferred to associate with
Bob Owens and a few others like him. Lester had been a leader among
his city schoolmates, and he expected to occupy the same position
among the boys about Rochdale; but before he had been many weeks in
the settlement he found that there were some fellows there who knew
just as much as he did, who rode horses and wore clothes as good as
his own, and who had some very decided opinions and were in the habit
of thinking for them