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!”

CHAPTER IV

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!”