All sorts of strange thoughts flashed through that active brain of the boy with the bowed legs. He wondered whether Obed could be a desperate young criminal. Had his family, those excellent Grimes of whom he had spoken in such proud accents, cast him out as altogether beyond hope? Bandy-legs could hardly think this when he looked again into that face, and caught the gleam of those merry orbs. No, Obed might be a _peculiar_ sort of fellow, but really there did not seem to be much of guile in his make-up; if it turned out to be so, then he, Bandy-legs, was ready to call himself a mighty poor reader of character. 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