ply wonderful, all of the eager listeners thought. Max could
hardly believe his ears, and yet so far as he could make out Obed seemed
in dead earnest. Besides, he had the documents to prove the truth of his
story, he said, which he would spread before them a little later on.

As for that skeptic, Bandy-legs, he rolled his eyes up many times while
listening, and seemed to be swallowing it with considerable difficulty.
Toby and Steve never questioned the veracity of the narrator; they were
simply amazed at the immensity of the enterprise that had sprung up
almost like a mushroom, over night. Millions on millions of dollars
invested in artificial fur farming, and the general public utterly in
the dark concerning the facts until recently, when its scope could no
longer be concealed, like a light hidden under a bushel.

"And now that you've kinder got an idea of what a big fur farm might be
like," the singular woods boy went on to say, rising as he spoke,
"s'pose yuh meander out and take a look at my humble beginnin'. I surely
hope yuh won't run down my efforts, 'cause o' course things ain't got to
runnin' full swing yet. But the cubs are nigh big enough to be taken to
market."

"How many have you got, Obed?" asked Max, following the other out of the
cabin.

"One pair nearly grown, and another just two months old. I've been
mighty lucky in not losing a single pup so far," came the reply over
Obed's shoulder; and he might be pardoned for putting just a mite of
pride in his tones, for he had accomplished something worth while for a
new beginner at the business.

"But if you expect to keep in this line," said Bandy-legs quickly, as
though he voiced a suspicion that kept cropping up in his mind, "why do
you want to dispose of that first pair of pups?"

Obed laughed good-naturedly.

"I'll tell yuh, Bandy-legs," he said, confidentially. "In the first
place breeders like to change their stock, so as to bring new blood into
the pens. Then again, why, I happens to need the money that's comin' to
me for my share. A fellow has got to live up here in the mountains, and
grub costs a wheen o' hard cash, 'specially when yuh got a good
appetite, which seems to fit me all right. But if I get what I'm hopin'
for it'll be all right, and I reckons thar'll come some years before we
let more foxes get away from this same farm."

So he took them to where he had his main enclosure, in which the boys
found the parent foxes. They may have be