avid doesn't come here himself and tell me to give you the
things, he must send a written order."

"Dave, he done told me to git 'em," faltered Dan.

"I don't doubt it; but in order to have things straight, you go home
and get an order for such things as you want and I'll give them to
you."

Dan gathered the articles which he had purchased for his father under
one arm, took his rifle under the other, backed slowly away from the
counter and went out of the store. He wasn't quite so smart as he
thought he was. His shoes and stockings, and the ammunition for his
rifle, which he thought he was going to get for nothing, were likely
to cost him something after all. It was an easy matter to cheat
confiding fellows like Don and Bert, who were much more familiar with
Greek than they were with the way business was conducted, but it was
not so easy to deceive a man like Silas Jones. Dan was surprised
and disappointed, and of course as angry as he could be. He walked
rapidly along the road with his bundles, under his arm and his rifle
on his shoulder, and it was not until he reached home and had sunned
himself for a few minutes on the bench in front of the door, that he
cooled down so that he could think the matter over. But he could
think to no purpose even then; and after resting a few minutes
longer, he arose and went into the cabin.

He walked straight to the "shake-down" which he and his brother
occupied, and drew from under the head of it a piece of rope he had
placed there the night before. With this in his hand he came out
again, and after looking up and down the road, to make sure that
there was no one in sight, he went around the building to the kennel
where Don's pointer was confined. The animal came out to meet him,
and Dan did not send him back with a kick, as he usually did. He took
off his collar, and having tied the rope about his neck, buckled the
collar again and threw it on the ground, hoping in this way to give
David the impression that his charge had liberated himself. He then
led the dog to the high rail fence which surrounded the lot, assisted
him to climb over it, and left him there in the bushes, while he
returned to the bench after his rifle and bundles. These secured, he
climbed the fence himself, picked up the rope and hurried into the
woods, the pointer trotting along contentedly by his side.

Dan thought he knew just where to go to find his father. The latter
would, of course, be on the lookout f