BANDY-LEGS SUSPECTS

Max Hastings smiled. He at the same time drew a breath of relief, satisfied to know that his first impression of the sturdy looking young chap was confirmed, and convinced that the said Obed Grimes must be the right sort of fellow.

Steve and Bandy-legs fairly gasped, as though they had received a real shock. At the same time the eyes of the former glistened with newly-awakened interest.

"A fur farmer, do you say, Obed? And raising foxes for the market, are you?" he burst out with, delightedly. "Now, I've read a heap about that sort of thing in the papers and magazines, but I never thought I'd actually run across anybody that had the nerve and confidence to go into it as a business. And you say you're making good, are you, Obed? That's fine!"

"I've turned my 'tention to raisin' real black foxes, first thing," explained the other, with a touch of genuine pride in his manner, Max could easily see; "and if the try turns out as profitable as I reckon she promises to be, why, then, I'm figgerin' on tryin' to raise mink and marten and sech other furs as fetch top-notch prices."

"Then I guess you must have trapped all sorts of wild animals before now, Obed?" suggested Steve, eagerly, "so you know their habits to a fraction; because, of course, only one who is posted in that direction could ever hope to make a success of a fur farm."

Obed grinned and nodded his head.

"Oh! I reckon I'm up a little bit in all sech things," he said airily enough. "And after all, it ain't so very hard to raise foxes. I was afraid fust off it might be what they told me, that blacks ain't to be relied on to breed true to strain, but shucks! I've got some cubs that are dandies. Wait till you see 'em, boys."

That sounded as though, sooner or later, Obed meant to have them visit his fur farm, and see with their own eyes what he had been doing. Bandy-legs, skeptical once more, told himself he only hoped the whole thing might not turn out to be a myth, and that the said Obed himself prove to be a deception and a fraud.

"I understand that the pelts of black foxes are worth a whole lot of money," remarked Steve; "fact is, we know that to be so, because we once had such a skin given to us by a man who made a business of trapping."

"It all depends on the quality of the pelt," explained Obed. "Some ain't worth as much as three hundred dollars, because they've got defects, yuh see. Then again a real fine skin has fetched as much as thirty-six hundred dollars in London markets."

Evidently, Obed was well posted, at any rate, whether he really had such a fur farm of his own or not, Bandy-legs concluded. And then he again allowed himself to give imagination free rein, and for a time even looked on Obed as the essence of truth, doubly distilled.

Sitting there by the fire, which one of he boys replenished every little while, Obed told them many very interesting things connected with that strange farm of his. All this in his odd vernacular which Max tried to get the hang of, in order to judge whether it signified that the country boy lacked an education or not. He continued to be more or less mystified, however, though concluding that Obed was just one of those customary country boys often run across on farms who take especial delight in joking and playing little tricks which they consider humorous.

"But he isn't at all bad, I'll stake everything on that" Max also told himself, as he sat and listened to the really interesting descriptions given by the other of his successes, and first failures along the difficult line of breeding foxes in captivity, with scores of things against him, which had to be overcome.

An hour passed by in this manner. When Max saw their visitor showing signs as if he meant to leave them, he took a hand in the conversation, which up to then had been almost wholly monopolized by Bandy-legs, Steve and the woods boy.

"It's very kind of you to invite us over to inspect this wonderful little fur farm of yours, Obed," he went on to say; "but you'll have to give us directions how we can get there, unless you mean to accept our offer of a blanket by the fire here tonight, when we could go along with you in the morning."

Obed looked sober.

"I'd like to stay longer with you, boys," he hastened to say, as though he really meant it, "but I ought tuh be gettin' back home. Thar's some duties waitin' for me to look after. And then I ain't quite easy in my mind 'bout them two fellers that's up here in the woods. They ain't meanin' to do any shootin', even if they have got Lem Scott along as a guide, and he the meanest skunk in the hull county, lots o' folks do say, and a poacher in the bargain that the wardens are layin' to grab one o' these fine days. Now I'll jest up and tell yuh how to get to my place. It's as easy as water runnin' down-hill."

He entered into explicit directions, and Max pinned them in his memory. In fact, Obed simply told them to follow the stream up three miles until they came to a bunch of seven birch trees on the right-hand bank. There they were to pick up a trail they would find, follow it half a mile, and at that they would see a cabin under the hemlocks and pines, which would be his humble home woods.

"We've got it all down pat, Obed," said Steve, "and like as not you'll see the bunch of us trailing along there some time tomorrow morning. I've always been crazy to see a fur farm, after reading so much about them, and you bet I don't mean to let this chance slip by me."

Max now thought it time to make a few inquiries himself. He wanted to ask Obed whether he had ever run across a boy by the name of Roland Chase, a sickly looking chap in the bargain. It might possible to pick up a clue in this way; and they had reached a point where they could not afford to let any opportunity for acquiring information get past them.

In order to pursue this course, however, Max realized that it would be necessary to enter into some sort of explanation concerning the nature of the peculiar errand that had tempted them to come to the Adirondacks.

"I want to ask you a question or two, Obed," he began, "but first of all I ought to tell you what brings us here."

Accordingly, Max proceeded to explain how the school had be closed for two or more weeks in early October, and what a singular thing came about to tempt them into taking an outing. He was watching the woods boy at the time he first mentioned Mrs. Hopewell, and spoke the name of Roland Chase; but if the other gave any unusual signs of interest, Max failed to catch the same. Still, Obed was listening with all his might, and it seemed as though the unusual story of the inheritance that was to be given to the said Roland in case he made good, interested him.

Max in this manner explained just why he and his three chums had accepted the generous offer of the elderly lady, so deeply concerned over the welfare of her nephew Boland, that she was ready to spend almost any reasonable sum in order to at least learn that the poor boy was alive, and in fairly decent health.

They had been told to assure him, in case they ever managed to locate the elusive Roland, that he should not worry because of not being able to comply with the absurd conditions of Uncle Jerry's ridiculous will; because she had enough of this world's goods for both, and she meant to leave it all to him, Roland; so she begged him to come back to her, and live his own life again, even though he had spent the last penny of his two-thousand-dollar legacy, and was as poor as Job's turkey.

All this made an interesting story, and must have amused the woods boy more or less, because Max knew how to put considerable pathos in it. Obed sat there shading his eyes with his hand to keep the glow of the fire from dazzling him. Occasionally he would interrupt to ask some natural question, which made Max think he was taking a fair amount of interest in the account.

"What I wanted to ask you," concluded Max, "was whether you'd ever happened to run across this same Roland Chase in the mountains. We heard about a fellow answering his description who was seen in company with a dissipated guide named Shanks. I thought perhaps you might help us out, Obed."

Obed looked him straight in the face.

"So far as I knows on, Max," he went on to say, seriously, "I ain't never met any feller like yuh say face to face. About that man Shanks, I know he's said to be a tough un. I saw him some months back down at Sawyer's Forks, and by hokey! now that you mention it, thar was a sickly lookin' young feller along with him then; but say, his name was Bob Jenks, or somethin' like that, and not Roland Chase."

"Oh! well, so far as that goes," said Max, "he may have changed his name. Some people think nothing of sailing under false colors; and if it turns out that Roland has taken up with such a disreputable character as this drunken guide seems to be, I don't wonder at him wanting to hide his identity. So you think you must be going home, do you, Obed?"

"Yep," the other observed, gaining his feet. "And I wanter to thank all o' ye for givin' me sech a pleasant evenin'. I ain't had sech a good time this long while back. But then the Grimeses all are 'customed to roughin' it. Granddad used to be away all by hisself for as much as two years, trappin' up in Canada. It's in the blood, I reckon. Now, yuh mean to drop in, and visit me, don't ye? I'll be expectin' yuh, and have something to eat awarmin', though course I ain't a good cook like you fellers, as has had so much experience. So long, boys!"

He waved them a cheerful goodbye, once more smiled at each in turn, whirled on his heel, and was gone, seeming to vanish in the shadows of the nearby woods like "a wisp of smoke when the wind strikes it," as Steve remarked.

After the departure of their guest, it was only natural that he should be the subject of conversation about the fire as the four chums lay there taking things easy.

"Max, honest to goodness now," Bandy-legs remarked, "do you really take any stock in that fairy story he told us about an imaginary fur farm? It struck me Obed is givin to yarnin' just for the love of it. All that stuff about his relatives may have been true, and again only nonsense. It's my opinion there isn't any Granddad Grimes, or Uncle Hiram, Nicodemus and so forth. He grinned like everything when he was reeling those names off so slick. Yes, he was stringing us, I bet you."

"W-w-why," burst out Toby just then, "who wouldn't have to s-s-snicker when he had a w-w-whole lot of relations with such f-f-funny names! It'd make me grin from ear to ear every time I h-h-happened to think of 'em. You're the greatest hand to s-s-suspect anybody I ever s-s-saw, Bandy-legs. Now, I want you to k-k-know that I think Obed the s-s-straight g-g-goods, and I'm taking a heap of s-s-stock in seeing that bully f-f-fur f-f-farm of his tomorrow; ain't you, Max?"

"Certainly I am," 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 off deer. Well, why couldn't it have been the people Obed says he fears, who made that smoke? Now, for my part, I believe every word Obed Grimes said. He's the straight goods every time, and you can see it in his eye, for he looks you direct in the face."

Thereupon, Bandy-legs, as though realizing that he had raised a hornet's nest about his ears, deemed it the part of discretion to shrug his shoulders after the manner of one who, "convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."

"We'll let the subject drop, Steve," he said, hastily. "It ain't worth quarreling over. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it; and tomorrow we'll know what's what. But remember, if it turns out that we've been bamboozled, don't blame me, because I've warned you all."

"If we had a chill from every warning you've sprung on us, Bandy-legs," Steve told him, witheringly, "why, say, we'd have gone all to pieces long before now. You're a regular old bad-weather prognosticator, that's what you are."

"That's right, get to calling names. It's a habit with people who know they are in the wrong," grumbled Bandy-legs; but, nevertheless, he "drew within his shell," and said nothing further about Obed Grimes or his suspicions concerning the same.