"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