“Thar’s something else gone up,” said Godfrey, his anger appeased for the moment by the sight of the ruins of the pitcher. “An’ I haint got no stamps to buy another. Dave, I don’t keer if ye be goin’ to get ten dollars fur it, don’t ye tech that pinter pup ’ceptin’ to tote him back where he belongs. Do ye hear?” “I reckon I do,” replied David. “Wal, be ye goin’ to mind what I say to ye?” “No, I aint.” “Ye haint? I say to ye, boy,” exclaimed Godfrey, raising his hand over the table again, “boy, I say to ye----” “Now, pop, don’t break no more dishes,” interrupted Dan, “’kase if ye do, we’ll have to eat off’n bark plates purty soon, an’ drink out’n gourds. Let Dave break the pinter pup if he wants to. What odds does it make to you?” “It makes a heap of odds, the fust thing ye know,” replied his father. “Kase they’s ’ristocrats, an’ we’ve got just as good a right to have ten dollars to pay somebody fur breakin’ our huntin’ dogs, as they have. An’ ’sides, don’t they make things wuss fur poor folks like us nor they’d oughter? They do, an’ this is the way they go about it: Look at them pack of hound dogs they brought down from Kaintuck last summer! I don’t say nothing about the money they throwed away when they bought ’em, an’ which was more’n enough to keep all our jaws a waggin’ fur one good year, I bet ye, an’ on good grub too, but I jest axes ye, what’s them hound dogs fur? Why just as soon as the leaves begin to fall, them youngsters will take to the swamps, an’ them hound dogs will go a tearin’ an’ a yelpin’ through these woods at sich a rate, that the fust thing we know the game will all be done drove out of the country, an’ we can’t get nu deer nor bar meat fur grub. That’s what makes me ’spise them hound dogs so.” These remarks of his father’s recalled to Dan’s mind an incident that had happened during the previous spring. He brightened up suddenly as if he were thinking of something that afforded him infinite satisfaction. CHAPTER II. GODFREY BUILDS AIR-CASTLES. “Them hound dogs needn’t worry you none,” said Dan. “I’ll take keer of them!” “What be ye goin’ to do?” asked his father. “I’m goin’ to make them two fellers what owns ’em promise to let my things they finds in the woods alone, or----” Here Dan glanced hastily at his brother. David was looking intently at his plate, but the expression on his face told that he was listening with all his ears. So Dan did not finish the sentence, but raised his hand to his face and shut one eye as if he were glancing along the barrel of a rifle. “Goin’ to shoot ’em, be ye?” exclaimed his father. “Wal, say so then, and don’t be afraid. Nobody ain’t agoin’ to harm ye fur it.” “Yes,” said Dan doggedly, seeing that his secret was out. “I’m goin’ to shoot ’em!” “You hadn’t better stay about here after you do it,” said David. “The general will have the law on you.”