"I can send him some next week," was the answer. "There's a dozen mink and a dozen otter out in the shed now, an' a lot o' beavers an' martens, and four fine foxes. Did they say anything about Ethan Allen, Jack?" "They said he was down at Bennington. My, but that bacon smells good! They had corn-cake and molasses down at Dutton's, and I ate so much I didn't think I'd ever be hungry again, but I am all right now." Peter Jones, the trapper, laughed. "I never saw the time when you and Sam wasn't ready for food." Sam came in soon, like a bear-cub scenting food, and the three had supper and then made things snug for the night. The weather was growing colder. Peter, taking a squint at the sky, allowed that he thought the lake would be frozen clear across by morning. They brought in a good stock of wood and built up the fire, and then sat down in front of it to hear what Jack had to tell them of the news at Dutton's trading-post. At that time, in 1774, there was a great dispute between the two colonies of New Hampshire and New York as to which owned the country of the Green Mountains. New York stretched way up on the west shore of Lake Champlain, and New Hampshire extended from the northern boundary of Massachusetts up along the eastern shore of the Connecticut River. Now Massachusetts reached as far west as a line drawn south from Lake Champlain, and the governor of New Hampshire claimed that his colony extended as far west as Massachusetts. He quoted his colony's grant from the king of England to prove his claim, and he sent word to Governor Clinton of New York that he meant to settle the great Green Mountain tract that lay between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain. Governor Clinton sent back word to Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire that the province of New York claimed all that land under the charter of King Charles II to his brother the Duke of York. New Hampshire settlers, however, went into this debatable land and built homes and began to farm there. Governor Wentworth granted lands, known as the New Hampshire Grants, to any who would settle there, and a township was organized west of the Connecticut River, and was named Bennington. The country was very fertile, the woods and rivers were full of game, and it was a tempting land to take. But the New Yorkers looked on the land as greedily as did the men from New Hampshire, and soon both provinces were sending their sheriffs and other officers to enforce their own laws there.