te game-warden, came panting over the mountain from
Spencers to confer with young Byram, road-master at Foxville, he found
that youthful official reshingling his barn.

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.

"Hello, Byram," he said, at length.

"Is that you?" replied Byram, coldly.

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!"

The warden regarded him with composure.

"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, t