“How’ll he find out who done it, I’d like to know?” snapped his brother. “An’, ’sides, hain’t I got jest as much right to spile his things as his boys have to spile mine? Didn’t I meet ’em one day last spring as they were ridin’ out of the woods on them circus hosses of their’n, an’ didn’t they tell me that they’d pulled down more’n a dozen turkey traps they’d found among the hills, kase it was agin the law, or, if it wasn’t it had oughter be, to ketch turkeys at that time of the year? An’ didn’t I go straight to the woods when I left them, an’ didn’t I find that it was my own traps they had pulled down? You’re right I did; an’ I said then that I’d get even with ’em some day fur that same piece of work. You want to keep a close eye on that pinter pup,” he added shaking a warning finger at his brother. “I believe you,” answered David. “A fellow who will take revenge on a dumb brute for something his owner did to him, is mean enough for anything, and perhaps I had better take good care of myself, too. If you intend to hurt the dog say so, and I will take him back where he belongs.” “Wal, seein’ it’s you, I wont tech him,” said Dan, with more eagerness and haste than the circumstances seemed to warrant. “But arter his owner gets him in his hands, he wants to watch out. Now, pop,” added Dan, seeing that his father was about to speak, “don’t you go to raisin’ a row. Let Dave break the dog, if he wants to. It don’t cost you nothing. What did you mean when you said a little while ago that things is a goin’ to change with us?” Godfrey’s face lost its angry scowl and brightened at once. “I meant something that’ll extonish ye when ye hear it--the hul on ye,” he replied, with a cheerful wink at his hopeful son, “an’ it won’t take me long to tell it, nuther. You remember that when the war fust broke out, Gen’ral Gordon, knowin’ which side of his bread had the butter onto it, got all his money changed into gold and silver, and brought it here to his house an’ hid it, don’t ye?” Of course the family all remembered it. The incident had offered gossip for the neighborhood for months after it happened. “Wal,” continued Godfrey, “when the Yanks come in here, them gold and silver dollars, an’ all the watches belongin’ to the family, an’ all the silver an’ chiny dishes, an’ them gold things Mrs. Gordon an’ her gals wore around their wrists, was done took an’ hid. They was buried in the ground, some in one place an’ some in another, so’t the Yanks couldn’t find ’em. Mrs. Gordon an’ her gals buried some of ’em with their own hands, among the flower-beds in front of the place whar the house then stood, an’ one of the niggers, ole Jordan--ye remember him, I reckon--done buried the rest. I know, kase Jordan told me so hisself. Jordan, ye know, was raised by the gen’ral’s father from the time he was a picaninny, an’ bein’ as honest as a nigger ever gets to be, his missus she sot a heap of store by him, an’ said thar wasn’t no better servant a goin’.