"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 didn't belong to the same crowd." "Oh! yes, a likely story, too," continued Bandy-legs, with a sneer. "Why should anybody want to rob a poor boy who was trying to earn his living by farming, even if it was furs he raised instead of grain or hogs or stock?" "Why, you poor ninny, the reason is as plain as the nose on your face, Bandy-legs, and that's not invisible by a big sight. When a black fox pelt will fetch a thousand dollars, more or less, and can't well be traced once it gets mixed with other pelts, it stands to reason that any thief would want to steal it. As to your doubting that there are any other people up in this section, you seem to forget, Bandy-legs, that around noon today we sighted a plain smoke some miles away, which we opined must have been made by some advance hunters, waiting for the law to be off deer. Well, why couldn't it have been the people Obed says he fears, who made that smoke? Now, for my part, I believe every word Obed Grimes said. He's the straight goods every time, and you can see it in his eye, for he looks you direct in the face." Thereupon, Bandy-legs, as though realizing that he had raised a hornet's nest about his ears, deemed it the part of discretion to shrug his shoulders after the manner of one who, "convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." "We'll let the subject drop, Steve," he said, hastily. "It ain't worth quarreling over. The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it; and tomorrow we'll _know_ what's what. But remember, if it turns out that we've been bamboozled, don't blame me, because I've warned you all."