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?" Obed laughed good-naturedly. "I'll tell yuh, Bandy-legs," he said, confidentially. "In the first place breeders like to change their stock, so as to bring new blood into the pens. Then again, why, I happens to need the money that's comin' to me for my share. A fellow has got to live up here in the mountains, and grub costs a wheen o' hard cash, 'specially when yuh got a good appetite, which seems to fit me all right. But if I get what I'm hopin' for it'll be all right, and I reckons thar'll come some years before we let more foxes get away from this same farm." So he took them to where he had his main enclosure, in which the boys found the parent foxes. They may have become somewhat accustomed to seeing Obed, and hearing the sound of his coaxing voice, for even the most timid of wild animals in the process of time comes to recognize the one who supplies their wants along the line of daily food. But possibly Bandy-legs or Steve chanced to laugh, or speak out loud, for the old foxes took the alarm; and it was only after constant efforts on the part of Obed, with his familiar call to dinner, that caused them to show themselves at all.