replied the other, without a second's hesitation. "In
the first place, Bandy-legs, you must understand that nobody could talk
so interestingly on a subject unless he knew a lot about it. He told us
a dozen things about fur farming that I never heard before."

"Huh! and perhaps nobody else ever heard of them either, Max," grunted
the far from satisfied Bandy-legs.

"Nothing will ever satisfy him except he sees those kit foxes with his
own eyes," asserted Steve, almost indignantly, "handles them with his
own paws, and asks every little critter whether he really belongs to
Obed Grimes. Bandy-legs is the worst Doubting Thomas going, when the fit
comes on him."

Even this sort of talk did not convince the objector.

"Say what you will, fellows," Bandy-legs went on, stubbornly, "there's a
wheen of queer things connected with this same Obed Grimes, and I won't
take that back till he shows us his wonderful old farm, where he raises
black foxes for the fur market. Stop and think how mysteriously he
popped in on us, will you? Why, he as much as owned up that he had been
spying on us for a long time. If Toby here hadn't discovered him
peeking, and pointed that way, chances are he wouldn't have shown up at
all. Now, what made him snoop around our camp like that?"

"Say, didn't he explain all that just as straight as a die?" objected
Steve, who seemed to have conceived quite a fancy for Obed Grimes, the
woods boy. "He told us he had reason to fear some unscrupulous fellows
were hanging around this region and meaning to steal his pets when they
got half a chance. That was why he wanted to watch, and make sure we
didn't belong to the same crowd."

"Oh! yes, a likely story, too," continued Bandy-legs, with a sneer. "Why
should anybody want to rob a poor boy who was trying to earn his living
by farming, even if it was furs he raised instead of grain or hogs or
stock?"

"Why, you poor ninny, the reason is as plain as the nose on your face,
Bandy-legs, and that's not invisible by a big sight. When a black fox
pelt will fetch a thousand dollars, more or less, and can't well be
traced once it gets mixed with other pelts, it stands to reason that any
thief would want to steal it. As to your doubting that there are any
other people up in this section, you seem to forget, Bandy-legs, that
around noon today we sighted a plain smoke some miles away, which we
opined must have been made by some advance hunters, waiting for the law
to be o