Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/384

This page has been validated.
374
JOE WAYRING AT HOME.

but if they had had one when that boy came into camp, he would have saved my master from imposition. As it was, he promised to give him the ten dollars, and before sunset I was brought back. But it had rained buckets during my absence, I was wet inside and out, my master did not know enough to take care of me, and that's how I came to be in this fix. They're coming now, and we are off again, I suppose."

I looked toward the hotel, and there was the young man with the gold eye-glasses, peaked shoes and downy upper lip—the same knowing fellow, who had been foolish enough to take a cheap gun that wasn't warranted, with the expectation that it would do as good work as a Greener.

"We're going up to the pond, and I shall be called upon to fire heavier charges than I can stand at every thing in the shape of a partridge or squirrel that comes in my way," added the double barrel.

"You ought not to be required to shoot those birds at this time of year," said I. "It's against the law."