OBED GRIMES BOBS UP

"Howdy, strangers!" said the other, as he slowly approached the spot where Max and his three chums still sat around the fire, feasting on their spread. "I happened to see yer blaze, and guessed I'd drop in to see who yah might be. 'Taint often anybody comes up this way, though to be sure thar was two gentlemen fishin' hereabouts last summer."

Somehow Max liked his manner of speech. He also thought he could detect something like a love for humor in those sparkling eyes.

"Sit down, and have a bite with us, won't you?" he remarked, making a suggestive movement with his hand, as though calling attention to the fact that there was still plenty of room on the log which he and Toby Jucklin had occupied in common. "Sorry the trout's given out, but we've got plenty of other grub, and be sure you're welcome."

The sturdy woods boy was looking them over. Bandy-legs, suspicious as usual, rather took umbrage at this action. He eyed the newcomer as though not yet quite willing to echo the warm invitation accorded him by Max. But Steve was already getting an extra tin-cup for coffee; and fortunately there still remained an abundant supply of the amber fluid in the capacious pot.

Apparently the newcomer had determined that it would be prudent for him to comply with the invitation thus cordially given. So he sat down and made himself at home. Up there in the woods there exists a genuine hospitality that never hesitates to extend the right hand of fellowship to any straggler who chances to enter the camp. There seems to be something in the healthy ozone of the wilderness that makes all men comrades for the time being. The latchstring is always out in camp; and never does an appeal for help go disregarded.

Max proceeded to immediately introduce himself and his three chums by name. He of course mentioned the fact that they came from a town named Carson, situated far away from that region; but then of course the woods boy could never have heard of such a place before. Still, his eyebrows arched, and he seemed to once again observe his entertainers with fresh interest; but then when Max Hastings chose to exert himself to make a favorable impression every one fell under his spell.

And when Bandy-legs, Toby and Steve noticed that Max did not think fit to say a single word about the queer mission which had brought them to the mountains they too concluded that it would be just as well not to be too hasty about telling all their business to a stranger. A little later on, perhaps, when they came to become better acquainted with the other, they might ply him with questions in order to find out if he chanced to know such a weakly looking fellow as Roland Chase.

Of course after that it was up to the other to tell them whom he was. He did not have any hesitation, from which Steve concluded there could be no reason for keeping his identity a secret.

"Course I got a name, too, even if it ain't quite so scrumptuous as yours. But Obed Grimes suits me just as well, and it ain't never kept me from eatin' three square meals a day—when I could get 'em," he told them, soberly, though that odd little gleam in his eyes mystified Max somewhat.

"I suppose you live around this section, then, Obed?" he remarked, as he cleaned out the frying-pan that had contained the ham and eggs—the latter having been carried all the way from the last small village they passed through, and which supply would doubtless be the last they might enjoy for a long time to come.

"Oh! yes, thar's a plenty of Grimeses up this way," the other replied, promptly. "Fact is, the Grimeses are a big family, all told. Thar's Grandad Grimes to start with, and he's going on ninety now; then there's Uncle Hiram, Uncle Silas, Uncle Job, Uncle Sephus, Uncle Nicodemus, and a whole lot more; besides Aunt Rebecca, Aunt Sophia, Aunt Hetebel, and—glory to goodness, I could sit here for ten minutes and string out the names of the grimeses there are in the mountains; but say I'm awful hungry, and you'll excuse me if I get busy with this fine grub. The other names will keep till next time, I reckon."

"Whew! it must feel funny to belong to such a big family," remarked Steve, who did not happen to have any close relatives himself.

"Oh! shucks! none of 'em ever bother about me any," said the boy, as well as he could with his mouth stuffed of the ham and bread, which he presently washed down with a copious draught of hot coffee. "They just know that Obed he c'n take good care o' hisself."

Bandy-legs began to show a rising interest in the other. His suspicions were beginning to give way under the genial ways of the said Obed. That smile on the dusky face of the visitor in the camp had commenced to get its work in. By degrees perhaps Bandy-legs might even come to like Obed Grimes; though, truth to tell, he had always despised that last name, for a boy answering to it had once treated Bandy-legs in a most humiliating fashion, and this still rankled in his memory, although years had fled since the occurrence.

"Do you mean from that, Obed," he went on to remark "that you're all alone up here in the woods near old Mount Tom? Haven't you any of the other Grimeses along with you?"

The boy shook his head in the negative, and grinned again. Max was trying to study him, and he found the task one well worthy of his best efforts. In the beginning he determined that Obed was no ordinary chap, but possessed of sterling characteristics. He waited for the conversation to get further along, confident that the other had a surprise up his sleeve which he might condescend to share with them, after he had become fully satisfied they were to be trusted, and that he could look upon them in the light of friends.

"Nary a Grimes 'cept me inside o' twenty miles o' here, and that's a fact," he assured Bandy-legs, after finishing his drinking. "Fact is, most o' the family don't know jest where I'm at; and say, between us, I ain't a carin' about tellin' 'em."

That looked a bit singular, Bandy-legs thought. His suspicions returned again, though with diminished force; for somehow he could not look into that frank and even merry face of the woods boy and actually believe he was "off-color" in any way.

"But what do you do with yourself all alone, I'd like to know?" burst out impetuous Steve. "Are you making a living playing at guide for parties of tourists, or fishermen and hunters? And, say, you don't mean to tell me you stay all alone up in this wilderness right through the winter?"

Obed Grimes nodded his head cheerfully.

"I ain't got any choice in the matter, yuh see," he told them, mysteriously; "just got to stay. Why, it would bust the hull business to smash if I 'lowed myself to skip out, even for a week or two. I'm tied down to it, that's right."

Bandy-legs exchanged a significant look Toby Jucklin. He scratched his head with the air of one who found himself up against a hard, knotty problem. Apparently, if the stranger in camp was trying to mystify them, he had already succeeded in tangling up the wits of Bandy-legs completely.

Max continued to sit there and take it all in. There was no need of his saying anything so long as the other fellows had embarked on the task of drawing Obed out and learning just what he was doing to keep him marooned up there summer and winter, like a regular old recluse, or woodchuck.

"But there must be heaps and heaps of snow here winters," suggested Steve; "and I'd think you'd find it pretty hard getting about."

"Oh! not so bad when you have snow-shoes" Obed told him, with a shrug of his shoulders, and another attack on the contents of his tin panninkin.

"'Course not," Steve hastened to say, as though he had guessed that this would be the answer. "But when the law is on the deer and partridges it must be hard to keep to a regular diet of trout. I c'n stand them for a while; but in the end I'd get sick of the smell of 'em cooking."

"Oh! I have plenty of good grub along," chuckled Obed. "I was on my way home at the time I glimpsed your fire; and bein' full o' wonder concernin' who could be around these diggings right now I crept up to spy on ye. But say, soon's I glimpsed your crowd, and saw that you was only a bunch o' boys, why I felt easier, 'cause I knew then you couldn't mean to bother me any."

Now that sounded queer again, Bandy-legs thought. Why should any one take the trouble to "bother" Obed Grimes, unless, indeed, he had been doing something that he hadn't ought to, and hence expected to be visited sooner or later by emissaries of the law, possibly in the shape of angry game wardens?

All sorts of strange thoughts flashed through that active brain of the boy with the bowed legs. He wondered whether Obed could be a desperate young criminal. Had his family, those excellent Grimes of whom he had spoken in such proud accents, cast him out as altogether beyond hope? Bandy-legs could hardly think this when he looked again into that face, and caught the gleam of those merry orbs. No, Obed might be a peculiar sort of fellow, but really there did not seem to be much of guile in his make-up; if it turned out to be so, then he, Bandy-legs, was ready to call himself a mighty poor reader of character.

So he, too, relapsed into temporary silence and let Steve carry on the interrogations; which the said Steve considered himself very well qualified to do since he aspired in his secret soul to some fine day study to be a lawyer.

"But why should anybody want to bother you, Obed?" he asked. "To hear you talk in that way a fellow would think you had a lot of enemies hanging around, trying the best they knew how to give you trouble."

"Well, I ain't had any mix-up ever since I've been here," admitted the other, with a slight frown crossing his face; "but lately I got wind o' some news that's worried me a heap. Fact is, I'm afraid I'm goin' to be right smart bothered with a bunch o' thieves who'd like to steal my outfit from me!"

Steve fairly gasped. He could not make head or tail of what the other was so deliberately telling him. Max, listening, and watching that expressive face of Obed, secretly believed the newcomer was purposely drawing Steve on, meaning to surprise him when finally he chose to explain it all. So Max did not attempt to interfere, but let things go on as they were doing, satisfied that the answer to the conundrum would soon come.

"Steal your outfit from you?" echoed Steve, when he could catch his breath; "do you mean that you're carrying on some sort of business, then, up here in the woods?"

"Reckon that's about right, Steve," Obed replied, and his familiar use of the other's name could be easily explained by that spirit of "free masonry" that exists among all boys. "I've got a business, which looks like it was goin' to pan out right decent, and make me some money in the bargain. That's why they're meanin' to rob me, I guess; anyhow, it hinges on that same thing. And I thought you might be that crowd first, but I soon saw I was mistaken, and that you'd be my friend."

"But what sort of business is it you're in, Obed?" asked Steve, boldly.

"Me? Oh! I'm only a farmer," confessed the other, chuckling as he spoke.

"A farmer!" echoed Steve, looking blank; "but how could anybody steal your ground away, or carry off your crops, I'd like to know?"

"Why, yuh don't jest understand, Steve. I ain't no regular hayseed. I'm a fur farmer, you see; and you could carry my crop of fox pelts away easy enough on your own back!"