“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?”