ure to die
before they grow up."

"Professor Forsythe doesn't think so," replied Horace.

"Well, I'm glad I saw them," said the dealer. "If I can hear of a
buyer for you I'll send him along, but you'll have to come away down on
your prices. You might let me have your address, in case I hear of
anything."

"It doesn't look as if we were going to sell them!" said Fred, who was
not used to shrewd business dealing. "Perhaps we can't get any price
at all."

Horace laughed.

"Oh, that was all bluff. I saw the fellow's eyes light up when he saw
these black beauties. He'll be back to see us within a day or two."

Sure enough, the man did come back. He scarcely mentioned the foxes
this time, but took the boys out motoring. As they were parting he
said carelessly, "I think I might get you a buyer for your foxes, but
he couldn't pay over fifteen thousand."

"No use in our talking to him then," replied Horace, with equal
indifference.

That was the beginning of a series of negotiations that ran through
fully a week. It was interspersed with motor rides, dinner parties,
and other amusements to which the parties treated one another
alternately. The Prince Edward Island man brought himself to make a
proposal of twenty thousand, and Horace came down to thirty-five
thousand, and there they stuck. Finally Horace came down to thirty.

"I'll give you twenty-five," said the furbreeder at last, "but I think
I'll be losing money at that."

"I'll meet you halfway," replied Horace. "Split the difference. Make
it twenty-seven thousand, five hundred."

Both parties were well wearied with bargaining by this time, and the
buyer gave in.

"All right!" he agreed. "You'll make your fortune, young man, if you
keep on, for you 're the hardest customer to deal with that I've met
this year."

The dealer went back next day to the east, taking the foxes with him,
and leaving with the boys a certified check for $27,500. It was not as
much as they had hoped to clear, but it was a small fortune after all.

"Comes to nearly seven thousand apiece," Fred remarked.

"Not at all," remonstrated Maurice. "I don't see where I have any
share in it."

"Oh, come! We're rolling in money. You must have something out of it.
Mustn't he, Horace?"

They knew that Maurice really needed the money, and it was not by his
own will that he had failed to go with the expedition. In the end he
was persuaded to accept the odd five hundred dollar