"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