ll the money, and in that
case Mrs. Evans would probably see not a single cent of it; for Dan
did not care who suffered so long as his own wishes were gratified.
If he stuck to the resolution he had already formed, and went ahead
on his own responsibility, Dan would smash his traps whenever he
happened to find them (he was always roaming about in the woods, and
there was hardly a square rod of ground in the neighborhood that he
did not pass over in the course of a week), and liberate or wring the
necks of the birds that might chance to be in them. He never could
capture so many quails if Dan was resolved to work against him, and
neither could he make his enterprise successful if he allowed him an
interest in it. David did not know what to do.

"I might as well give it up," said he to himself, after a few
minutes' reflection. "I'll go up and tell Don that I can't fill the
order; and while I am about it, I might as well ask him for that
money. Perhaps, if I pay father's debt, Silas Jones will give us
what we need until I can find something to do."

With this thought in his mind, David arose and went into the cabin.
He put on the tattered garment he called a coat, exchanged his
dilapidated hat for another that had not seen quite so hard service,
and bent his steps toward General Gordon's house. While he was
hurrying along, thinking about his troubles and the coming interview
with Don Gordon, and wondering how he could word his request so that
his friend would not feel hard toward him for asking for his money
before it had been earned, he was almost ridden down by a horseman,
who came galloping furiously along the road, and who was close upon
him before David knew there was any one near.

"Get out of the way, there!" shouted the rider. "Are you blind, that
you run right under a fellow's horse that way?"

David sprang quickly to one side, and the horseman drew up his nag
with a jerk and looked down at him. It was Lester Brigham, one of the
neighborhood boys of whom we have never before had occasion to speak.
He was comparatively a new resident in that country. He had been
there only about a year, but during that time he had made himself
heartily detested by almost all the boys about Rochdale. Of course he
had his cronies--every fellow has; but all the best youngsters, like
Don and Bert Gordon and Fred and Joe Packard, would have little to do
with him. He had lived in the North until the close of the war, and
then his fa