THE YOUNG MAGICIAN

The more Max listened to Obed talk on the one subject that seemed to be his pet hobby, that of raising valuable fur-bearing animals for the market, the deeper grew his conviction that the woods boy was well worth studying.

He might talk after the manner of an uneducated boy, but Max knew that this could not be the case. Even though the main lot of numerous "Grimeses" were following the humble occupation of guides amidst the extensive stretches of the Adirondacks, and possibly many of them would be found to be boors, save along the line of woodcraft, Obed had managed to pick up considerable knowledge, somehow or other.

When trying to explain how this idea of successfully raising "silver" black foxes took such a main grip on his imagination, he brought out a batch of clippings which he had managed to get hold of in some manner, Max could not even guess how.

Some of these were fantastic in their revelations, while others were authentic interviews with parties who for years had been secretly engaged in the business of fur farming. This was away up on Prince Edward Island beyond Nova Scotia, said to be the place best situated geographically for the purpose, as these animals require a severe climate in order that their pelt assumes its richest and heaviest crop. A black fox farm started down in Florida would not produce furs worth offering for sale.

Max was intensely interested with one account in particular connected with the extensive pioneer silver fox ranch. He even asked the privilege of copying the same for future reference, because he knew that statements he might make later on would be skeptically received by many people who had never dreamed that any species of furs were so valuable that young pups could be worth more than their weight in gold.

That the boy reader of this story may also stock up with information that will better enable him to understand what enterprising Obed Grimes was trying to do on a small scale, I am tempted to give the main items in this newspaper article, every word of which is said to be literally true.

Since this account was first printed some years ago, other farms along similar lines have been started away up near Calgary, in the Canadian Province of Alberta, and are said to be doing excellently, one ranch near Midnapore reporting a start with twelve pair, and the pack now counting thirty-seven in all.

But here is the main part of the clipping, well worth reading:

There is something novel about a ranch which consists of spaces covering 150 feet of ground. Chappell, now president of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, Nova Scotia, owns seventy pairs of silver black foxes, and his ranch is split up into small inclosures of that size, covered with wire on four sides, the wire being buried four feet under ground, attached to a concrete base, and turned in several feet. The silver black fox tries to root its way to freedom, and this is the way the breeder prevents his escape.

When the foxes mate we also mate a pair of black cats of the ordinary domestic variety. As soon as the young are born, we take the fox pups away from the mother fox, and the kittens away from the mother cat, and make the cat foster-mother to the fox cubs. In this way we are able to rear a more domesticated breed of foxes.

For twenty years this business of raising foxes of the silver black species was really kept under cover, because of its great possibilities for making big money. With the last four or five years the business has become organized, and today many millions of dollars are invested in it.

The last lot of animals slaughtered was in 1910. There were forty-three pelts sent to London at that time. They brought as high as $3,800, the average fetching $1,500. Silver black fox is the rarest fur utilized by man. The Russian sable, otter, and South Sea seal are practically eliminated for commercial purposes, due to international laws which prohibit the killing of these animals for the next ten or fifteen years, so as to give them a chance to increase.

Only 800 pairs of live foxes were placed on sale last year. Fewer than 50 of that number were killed and their fur sold. The rest went for breeding purposes, because fur farms are starting up in many favorable places. The men who raise silver foxes on Prince Edward Island know the game. They started in it as boys many years ago.

"In the provinces of Prince Edward, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, men and women interested in breeding foxes have been made wealthy. They were poor people ten years ago. Today they live in town houses, own their own automobiles, and yet continue to give the strictest attention to all the details connected with their singular farming industry."

Obed was extremely modest in what he told concerning his own small beginning. Max, having also read in one of the clippings that a pair of gilt-edged silver black foxes were worth all the way up to $30,000, was, of course, doubly curious to learn whether those with which Obed started could be the genuine article, and if so, how had he managed to obtain them.

It seemed to be only a game in which rich persons could enter. Obed understood just what must be passing in the mind of the other, and at the first opportunity he hastened to explain.

"I was just chock full o' this business," he went on to say, "when I ran across Mr. Coombs. Yuh remember I told yuh about how that came about, and that he seemed to think I'd saved his life." Well, he and me kept house together here for some months, and then one day thar come the biggest surprise I ever had. He fetched a crate along up from town in a wagon he hired; and say, inside the same was the finest pair o' silver blacks I ever saw. Then some more wagons begun to show up fetchin' rolls of wire netting, and bags o' cement to make concrete with. Mr. Coombs had gone into the fur raisin' business for keeps, and I was to have an interest in the game. He had an agreement all written out that both o' us signed before a justice, which fixed things up. Half the proceeds o' the fur farm was to come to me, while I stayed here to look after things.

"Well, sir, we worked like fun to git the stockade built 'cording to form; and our mated pair o' foxes planted in the same. Since then I've fixed three more enclosures, ready for an increase o' stock. Mr. Coombs, he called this the Lone Lodge Black Fox Farm, and I guess the name will stick even after I get to selling off some o' the product."

It was simply 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 become somewhat accustomed to seeing Obed, and hearing the sound of his coaxing voice, for even the most timid of wild animals in the process of time comes to recognize the one who supplies their wants along the line of daily food. But possibly Bandy-legs or Steve chanced to laugh, or speak out loud, for the old foxes took the alarm; and it was only after constant efforts on the part of Obed, with his familiar call to dinner, that caused them to show themselves at all.

They were certainly beauties. Max wondered more than ever at the nerve of Obed in trying to start a silver black fox farm in this section, with no one save himself apparently in charge. He feared that the enterprise would be doomed to certain disaster. The smart woods boy might be successful in raising a crop of valuable youngsters in the fox line; but sooner or later some unscrupulous men, guides out of a job perhaps, and loaded with strong drink, would try to make a secret raid on his preserves, and clean him out in a single night. Fox pelts worth thousands of dollars must tempt some men beyond their fears, or power of resistance.

Max made up his mind he would talk about this with Obed before he left. He wondered at the short-sighted policy of the executor of Mr. Coombs' estate in allowing so much money to be tied up in this property without proper safeguards. If it was intended to continue the fox farm now that it gave all evidences of possible success surely the boy should have an assistant, some strong woodsman who could by his presence and readiness to do battle awe any intended transgressors.

They next visited the enclosure where the two pair of little foxes played and slept and ate their fill, daily increasing in size and value. They were also timid, though in due time Obed managed to get them to show themselves; for hunger is a powerful inducement, and the smell of favorite food a lure difficult to resist.

"Of course," explained the young fur farmer, while they were watching the inmates of the second enclosure, "I don't have black cats up here yet to carry out them directions exactly; but I'm aiming to do that also pretty soon. Yep, and after this set o' pups has been sold, if they fetch all I count on, I'm goin' to have a talk with the lawyer that looks after Mr. Coombs' estate. He promised to come up and see what could be done about extendin' the farm. And then I guess it's goin' to be time to hire a helper, seein' I can't do everything by myself."

"That was just what I meant to speak to you about, Obed!" exclaimed Max. "You oughtn't to try to stay here another winter all by yourself. Besides, some unscrupulous men might raid your enclosures while you were off hunting, or fishing, and break up your business. It isn't safe, Obed; and I know from what you said before about suspecting strangers were around here right now, that you're getting anxious yourself."

The boy drew a long breath, and nodded his head. Into his eyes crept a look quite the opposite of that merry gleam usually nestling there. Yes, plainly Obed was worried over something; and Max believed he had put his finger directly on the sore spot when he spoke of a possible raid on the fur product of the singular farm.

"Can you find just such a reliable man as you want, Obed?" asked Steve.

"That part ain't so hard," he was told. "Fact is I've got him more'n half engaged a'ready. His name is Jerry Stocks, and he's a woods guide. Been a heap interested in this game ever since we started up. Fact is, Jerry has done a heap o' things for me from time to time, 'cause yuh see I couldn't work it all. He lives 'bout 'leven miles off that ways. We've fixed a way to signal to each other by flyin' a little white flag from two low peaks. When I want Jerry I run my flag up, and if he's home, why the next day, or mebbe sooner, he shows up. But shucks! that wouldn't keep me from losin' my stock if there was a real raid."

He went on talking further, and the boys picked up considerable more valuable information, for Obed was apparently well posted on the subject, which had occupied his thoughts night and day.

So he told them that perhaps, if all went well, he might take up a companion industry, being nothing more nor less than trying to raise mink or otter in captivity.

"'Course I know it isn't done to any great extent yet," he explained, "but that's no reason there shouldn't be some ready money picked up in the business. It wouldn't pay anything like the foxes, and for that reason I'd go slow about it. Oh! I've got a heap o' ways for gettin' the ready cash to keep up my share o' the expenses o' the farm here. I've found two bee trees, and sent the honey to market too. Got nigh twenty dollars for the honey. Then I dig ginseng roots times when there's nothing else to do. Come over with me and see my frog pond. Last shipment o' big fat saddles brought me a neat little wad o' money, and they don't cost me a cent, if yuh want to know it."

The four boys looked at each other in increased wonderment. What manner of chap was this same Obed, to be able to wrest a living from a bounteous Nature in the clever way he did? Steve in particular was loud in his praise.

"Why, Obed, old fellow," he burst out with, "you're just the same kind of an enterprising chap Max here has always been. Why, it was his grand idea about there being mussels aplenty in the Big Sunflower down our way that started us into making a try for fresh-water pearls in the river. We found 'em, too, some thousands of dollars' worth, of them; and when the news leaked out, whee! the farmers, all around, had a tough time getting their harvests home, because every hand was treading for mussels in the creeks and small rivers for thirty miles around Carson. Why, I bet you it'd be as hard to find a fresh-water clam down our way now as a needle in a haystack; they're all cleaned out. You see, Max here had read about pearls being found out in Indiana and other places, and that gave him the big idea; just like you got set on the fur farm business by reading about it."

They duly inspected the marsh where Obed hunted his big greenback frogs when he thought the crop warranted a thinning out.

"They're always in demand down New York ways, whar they fetch a dollar a pound for the saddles," he explained; "and let me tell yuh it doesn't take a great many o' them to weigh that much. I've got some granddaddy bouncers here that'd make you stare to see 'em; but they don't show up much at this time o' day."

"And how do you get them by the wholesale when you want to market any?" asked Steve. "I've shot many a one with a small Flobert rifle; or else caught them with a piece of red flannel fixed on a small hook, attached by a short cord to a stout pole."

"Well, men in the regular frog-raising business couldn't go about it as slow as that," said the other, "though I have shot a few o' the big uns that way, 'cause they was too tricky to be grabbed with my hand net. If you stay with me a spell we'll get more'n one mess o' frog legs, if yuh likes them."

Bandy-legs was seen to work his lips as though his month fairly watered at the pleasing prospect; for those who are fond of the dish say that frogs' legs are more delicate than the best spring chicken, with just a little taste of fish about them that rather adds to the piquancy.

Having by this time exhausted about all the sights of the wonderful farm the boys headed back again toward the cabin. Max could not but notice that Obed showed signs of uneasiness while away, and cast frequent glances in the direction where under those whispering pines and the dark green hemlocks his lone lodge stood.

Therefore Max was not very much surprised when, as he and Obed strolled along in the rear of the other three, who were chatting, and arguing about certain matters, the young fur farmer pressed his arm confidentially, and went on to say:

"I'd like to tell yuh something, Max, 'cause I own up it's gettin' on my nerves. I thought nothin' could bother me any, but now that the time is so close at hand when I mean tuh sell that pair o' grown pups, and get the money I need so bad, why, things look kinder different. Fact is, Max," he went on, allowing his voice to sink into a mysterious stage whisper, "somebody was lookin' around in my cabin while I was down at your camp last evenin'. I know this because things was more or less upset; and I reckon my comin' back scared the man away, whoever he may have been!"