If there was any faith to be put in the stories he told, Lester was a hunter and fisherman who had few equals. Before he came to the South, it was his custom, he said, to spend a portion of every winter in the woods in the northern part of Michigan, and many a deer and bear had fallen to his rifle there. He could catch trout and black bass where other fellows would not think of looking for them, and as for quails, it was no trouble at all for him to make a double shot and bag both the birds every time. There were boys in the neighborhood who doubted this. Game of all kinds was abundant, and Lester was given every opportunity to exhibit the skill of which he boasted so loudly, but he was never in the humor to do it. He seldom went hunting, and when he did he always went alone, and no one ever knew how much game he brought home. "Your name is Evans, isn't it?" demanded Lester. David replied that it was. "Are you the fellow who intends to trap fifty dozen quail in this county, and send them up North?" "I am," answered David. "Well, I just rode down here on purpose to tell you that such work as that will not be allowed." "Who will not allow it?" "I will not, for one, and my father for another." "What have you to say about it?" asked David, who did not like the insolent tone assumed by the young horseman. "Do the birds belong to you?" "They are as much mine as they are yours, and if you have a right to trap them and ship them off, I have a right to say that you shan't do it." "Why not? What harm will it do?" "It will do just this much harm: it will make the birds scarce about here, and there are no more than we want to shoot ourselves. O, you needn't laugh about it, I mean just what I say; and if you don't promise that you will let the quail alone, you will see trouble. I am going to get up a Sportsman's Club among the fellows, and then we'll keep such poachers and pot-hunters as you where you belong. No one objects to your shooting the birds over a dog--that's the way to shoot them; but you shan't trap them and send them out of the country. Will you promise that you will give up the idea?" "No, I won't," answered David. "Then you'll find yourself in the hands of the law, the first thing you know," exclaimed Lester, angrily. "We won't stand any such work. Don Gordon ought to be ashamed of himself for what he has done. He's the meanest----" "Hold on, there!" interrupted David, with more spirit than he had yet exhibited. "You don't want to say anything hard about Don while I am around. He's a friend of mine, and I won't hear anybody abuse him. He's the best fellow in the settlement, and so is his brother; and any one who talks against him is just the opposite."