THE YOUNG GAME-WARDEN.
"Whoop-pee!" was Dan's mental exclamation. "I've struck a banana. Me
and pap I'll get rich the first thing you know. But what makes old man
Warren come here to tell us about it?"
"I certainly hope you will be able to preserve them this time," said
Joe, who could not see what these expensive birds had to do with the
comfortable home, the unlimited supply of books, and the good living,
of which his visitor had spoken. "It would be a great pity to lose them
after going to so much trouble and paying out so much money for them."
"That's what I think, and it is what Mr. Hallet thinks, also. You know
his wood-lot adjoins mine--there is no fence between them--and he has
turned down the same number."
The eavesdropper fairly gasped for breath when he heard this; but
quickly recovering from his amazement, he raised his hands before his
face, with all the fingers spread out, and began a little problem in
arithmetic.
"That makes--makes--le' me see! By Moses it makes twelve--twelve
hundred dollars' worth of birds. I'm going to sell that old
muzzle-loader of mine the first good chance I get, and buy a
breech-loader, and one of them j'inted fish-poles, and some of them
fine hunting clothes, and--whoop-pee! I've struck two bananas; and
I'll look as spick and span as the best of them city sportsmen by this
time next year. But look a-here, a minute, Dan," he added, to himself,
confidentially, "Don't you say a word to pap about them birds that's
been turned loose on Hallet's place. Them's your'n, and you don't go
halvers with no living person."
"The difficulty in preserving them lies right here," said Mr. Warren.
"Our native birds are protected by law during certain months in the
year, but the law doesn't say a word about imported game. If I catch
a man shooting over my grounds in the close season, I can have him
arrested and fined; but he could shoot these English birds before my
face, and I could not help myself. We hope some day to induce the
Legislature to pass a law protecting imported as well as native game;
but until we can do that, we must protect it ourselves to the best of
our ability. We have men at work now posting our land, and hereafter
any one who sets a foot over my fence or Hallet's will be liable for
trespass.
"I reckon you'll have to catch him before you can prove anything agin
him, won't you?" soliloquized Dan. "But why don't he tell that Joe of
our'n what he wants of him?"
"Of course, Mr. Hallet and myself have enough to do without spending
valuable time in watching these birds," added the visitor, "and so we
have decided to employ game-wardens to do it for us. There will be
two wardens, one for each place, and we shall pay them out of our own
pockets. I have selected you because I believe you to be honest and
faithful, and I know that you are ambitious to better your condition.
I am always on the lookout for such boys, and when I find one I like to
give him a helping hand."
"Then it's mighty strange that you never diskivered me," said Dan,
to himself. "If there's anybody in the world who wants awful bad to
be something better'n the ragged vagabone he is, I am that feller.
Dog-gone such luck as I do have, any way! Why didn't he offer that soft
job to me, instead of giving it to that Joe of our'n? I am older'n
he is, and it would be the properest thing for me to have the first
chance."
"It is worth something to live up there in the woods alone for
eight months--from the first of September to the last of April--but
your surroundings will be as pleasant as they can be made under the
circumstances. In the first place, there is a tight log-house, with a
carpet on the floor, and a lean-to behind it to serve as a wood-shed.
You know that the fierce winter winds drive the snow into pretty
deep drifts up there in the mountains, and if you are as provident
as I think you are, you will keep that shed full. You don't want to
turn out of a stormy morning, when the mercury is below zero, to cut
fire-wood, when you ought to be scattering grain around for the birds
to eat. There is plenty of furniture in the cabin, and all the dishes
you will be likely to need. I have spent a good many months in camp,
first and last, and being posted, I don't think I have forgotten
anything. Your pay, which you can have as often as you want it, will be
fifteen dollars a month," said Mr. Warren in conclusion. "That is as
much as farm-hands command hereabout, and you will be much better off
than a woodchopper, because you will be earning money all the while, no
matter how bad the weather may be. What do you say?"
Dan listened with all his ears to catch his brother's reply, but, to
his great surprise, Joe did not make any reply.
"What's the fool studying about, do you reckon?" was the inquiry which
Dan propounded to himself. "Why don't he speak up and say he'll take
it? If he does, me and pap will have easy times with them birds, 'cause
of course Joe wouldn't be mean enough to pester us. But if he don't
take it, and old man Warren gets somebody else for game-warden, then
the case will be different, and me and pap will have to watch out."
"You don't say anything, Joe," continued Mr. Warren, seeing that the
boy hesitated and hung his head. "If you must work during the coming
winter instead of going to school, I don't think you can find any
employment that will be more to your liking."
"I know I couldn't, sir," replied Joe, quickly; "but that isn't what I
am thinking about. The fact is--you see--"
The boy paused and looked down at the ground again. He knew that his
own father was more to blame than any one else for the loss of the
birds that had been "turned down" in Mr. Warren's wood-lot two years
before, and it was not quite clear to Joe how his wealthy visitor could
have so much confidence in him. Why should he wish to employ the son of
the man who had robbed him, to keep trespassers off his grounds, and
exercise supervision over the new supply of game he had just purchased?
And there was another thing that came into his mind:
Silas Morgan and Dan were two of the most notorious poachers in the
county, and Joe knew that when the grouse season opened, they would
be the very first to shoulder their guns, call their dogs to heel and
start for Mr. Warren's woods.
If he accepted the position offered him, it would be his duty to order
them off. They wouldn't go, of course, and the next thing would be to
report them to Mr. Warren, who, beyond a doubt, would have warrants
issued for their arrest.
That would be bad indeed, Joe told himself; but would it cause him any
more sorrow than he felt whenever he saw his mother setting out on
one of those long fatiguing walks to the house of a neighbor, where
she earned the pitiful sum of a dollar by doing a hard day's work at
washing or scrubbing? The money he could give her every month would
save her all that, and provide her with many things that were necessary
to her comfort.
When Joe thought of his mother, his hesitation vanished.
"I'll take it, Mr. Warren," said he, with an air of resolution, "and
I am very grateful indeed to you for offering it to me. Now, will you
tell me when you want me to go up there, and just what you expect me
to?"
To Dan's great disappointment and disgust, Mr. Warren took Joe by the
arm, and led him away out of earshot; but he heard him say something
about shooting all the stray dogs that came into the woods, because
they would do more damage among the few deer that were left, than so
many wolves, and that was all he learned that day regarding Joe's
instructions.
"Luck has come my way at last!" exclaimed Dan, who, for some reason or
other seemed to be highly excited. "I can't hardly hold myself on the
ground. I'll go down to old man Hallet's this very minute, and tell him
that if he's needing a game-warden, I'm the chap he's waiting for. Then
mebbe I won't have a nice little house all to myself, and good grub to
grow fat on, as well as that Joe of our'n. I won't do no shooting,
'cause that would make too much noise, and give me away to old man
Hallet; but I'll do a heap of trapping and snaring, I bet you. Hallo!
who's them fellers?"
Dan had just caught sight of a large party of men, who were coming
along the road which led from the ferry to the Beach.
Believing that they were about to cross the river, and that there was
another hard pull in prospect with no money (for him) behind it, Dan
was about to take to his heels, when some words that came to his ears
arrested his footsteps.
The new-comers were the road commissioner and his party. They did not
look toward Dan at all, and neither did they take the least pains to
conceal the object of their visit from him.
"This is the place for the new bridge," said the surveyor. "It will
cost the town a good deal less money to fix up the old log road in good
shape, than it will to cut out and grade a new highway."
"And when the bridge is up, we shall be well rid of two
nuisances--Hobson's grog-shop and Morgan's ferry, neither of which
ought to have been tolerated as long as they have been," remarked one
of the twelve freeholders, who had been summoned by the commissioner to
determine where the bridge and the new road should be located. "When
the other bridge is demolished, and the lower road shut up, the travel
will have to come this way."
When Dan heard this, he felt like throwing his hat into the air. He
hated the tooting of that horn, which was kept hung up on the limb of a
tree on the other side of the river, as he hated no other sound in the
world; and he was glad to know that he would soon hear it for the last
time.
He did not make any demonstrations of delight, however, but stole
silently away to carry the news to his father.
Joe's good fortune, and his own bright dreams of becoming Mr. Hallet's
game-warden, at fifteen dollars a month, and the best kind of food
thrown in, were uppermost in his mind, and they were the first things
he intended to speak about when his father admitted him into the
cabin; but he was so long in coming to the point that Silas grew
impatient, and did not give him an opportunity to mention his own
affairs at all.
"No matter; they'll keep," thought the boy, as the ferryman put on his
hat and went out to talk to Hobson. "Now I wish old Warren would hurry
up and go about his business, so't I can find out what 'rangements he's
made with that Joe of our'n."
Dan had not long to wait. Even while he was communing with himself in
this way, Mr. Warren took his leave, first shaking Joe warmly by the
hand, and Dan lost no time in stepping to his brother's side.