The two men observed each other warily for a moment; Byram jingled the shingle-nails in his apron-pocket; Dingman, the game-warden, took a brief but intelligent survey of the premises, which included an unpainted house, a hen-yard, and the newly shingled barn.
He was a law-abiding young man; he had not shot a bird out of season for three years.
After a pause the game-warden said, "Ain't you a-comin' down off'n that ridge-pole?"
"I'm a-comin' down when I quit shinglin'," replied the road-master, cautiously. Dingman waited; Byram fitted a shingle, fished out a nail from his apron-pocket, and drove it with unnecessary noise.
The encircling forest re-echoed the hammer strokes; a squirrel scolded from the orchard.
"Didn't I hear a gun go off in them alder bushes this morning?" inquired the game-warden. Byram made no reply, but hammered violently. "Anybody got a ice-house 'round here?" persisted the game-warden.
Byram turned a non-committal eye on the warden.
"I quit that business three years ago, an' you know it," he said. "I 'ain't got no ice-house for to hide no pa'tridges, an' I ain't a-shootin' out o' season for the Saratogy market!"
"Who said _you_ was shootin' pa'tridges?" he asked. But Byram broke in:
"What would I go shootin' them birds for when I 'ain't got no ice-box?"
"Who says _you_ got a ice-box?" replied the warden, calmly. "There is other folks in Foxville, ain't there?"
Byram grew angrier. "If you want to stop this shootin' out o' season," he said, "you go to them rich hotel men in Saratogy. Are you afraid jest because they've got a pull with them politicians that makes the game-laws and then pays the hotel men to serve 'em game out o' season an' reason? Them's the men to ketch; them's the men that set the poor men to vi'latin' the law. Folks here 'ain't got no money to buy powder 'n' shot for to shoot nothin'. But when them Saratogy men offers two dollars a bird for pa'tridge out o' season, what d'ye think is bound to happen?"
"Shootin'," said the warden, sententiously. "An' it's been did, too. An' I'm here for to find out who done that shootin' in them alders."
"Well, why don't you find out, then?" sneered young Byram from his perch on the ridge-pole.
"That's it," said the warden, bitterly; "all you folks hang together like bees in a swarm-bunch. You're nuthin' but a passel o' critters that digs ginseng for them Chinese an' goes gunnin' for pa'tridges out o' season--"