"I hit the mark when I guessed Obed was smarter than he let on, and
could talk just as well as the next fellow when he chose. He's just
fallen into speaking that way through his association with these rough
people up here, his own folks likely enough. Or else he likes to pull
the wool over our eyes, just for a joke."

Aloud Max continued to reassure the other.

"Then consider it as good as settled, Obed," he said, "that we'll hang
around here a short while. If you think best you can get that Jerry to
come over, and keep his finger on the pulse. Perhaps it might be wise,
too, because he'd know just what to do in case there was any trouble
among the foxes left in the pens; and it is all new to us, remember."

"Yuh've relieved my mind a heap, Max, sure yuh have," Obed told him,
again relapsing into the vernacular that is usually a part of a woods
guide's language. "And tonight I'll set the traps I've got fixed. Mebbe
if so be trespassers come a skulkin' around they might git a little
surprise. But I'll show yuh what I'm mentionin' later on. Jest now I
on'y want to tell yuh I'm mighty glad I dropped into yer camp last
evenin' 'stead o' slippin' away, like I fust thought o' doin'."

"But you don't want me to look on this matter as a secret, do you,
Obed?"

The other started, Max thought, and looked quickly at him.

"Now what might yuh be meanin' by that, Max?" he presently asked, a bit
anxiously.