ive
her your shar', if you're fule enough to do it, but mine I'll keep
fur myself. I'll bet you on that."

"_Your_ share?"

"In course."

"I didn't know that you had any share in this business."

"Whoop!" yelled Dan.

He dashed his hat upon the ground, jumped up and knocked his heels
together, coming down with his feet spread out and his clenched hands
hanging by his side, as if he were waiting for an attack from his
brother.

"No, sir," said David, quietly but firmly, "this is my own business.
If you want money, go to work and earn it for yourself. You've got
six dollars and six bits hidden away somewhere that you never offered
to share with me or mother either."

"I know it, kase it is my own. I worked hard fur it too."

"I don't know how, or when you got it," answered David, who little
dreamed that his brother had more ready money than that, and that the
most of it rightfully belonged to himself, "and I have never asked
you for any of it. The money I shall receive for these quails will be
mine, all mine."

Dan uttered another wild Indian yell and once more went through the
process of preparing himself for a fight, leaping high into the air,
knocking his heels together, coming down with his feet spread out and
his hands clenched, and when he was fairly settled on the ground
again, he exclaimed:

"Dave, does you want me to wallop you?"

"No, I don't," was the reply; "but if you do you won't keep me from
doing what I please with my own money."

"But it won't be your own when you get it. I'm older nor you be, an'
now that pap's away I'm the man of the house, I want you to know, an'
it's the properest thing that I should have the handlin' of all the
money that comes into the family. If you don't go 'have yourself it's
likely you won't tech a cent of them fifty dollars when it comes. If
you don't go to crossin' me, I'll give you your shar' an' I'll take
mine; an' we'll get some nice things like Don and Bert Gordon has
got."

"But how does it come that you will have any share in it? That's what
I can't understand."

"Why, I kalkerlate to help you set the traps an' take out the quail
when they're ketched, an' do a heap of sich hard work."

"I intend to do all that myself, and it isn't work either. It's
nothing but fun."

"But I'll have a shar' in it anyhow," said Dan, with a grin, which
showed that he felt sure of his position, "kase look at the boards
I've split out fur you."

David laughed outrigh