"That part ain't so hard," he was told. "Fact is I've got him more'n half engaged a'ready. His name is Jerry Stocks, and he's a woods guide. Been a heap interested in this game ever since we started up. Fact is, Jerry has done a heap o' things for me from time to time, 'cause yuh see I couldn't work it all. He lives 'bout 'leven miles off that ways. We've fixed a way to signal to each other by flyin' a little white flag from two low peaks. When I want Jerry I run my flag up, and if he's home, why the next day, or mebbe sooner, he shows up. But shucks! that wouldn't keep me from losin' my stock if there was a real raid." He went on talking further, and the boys picked up considerable more valuable information, for Obed was apparently well posted on the subject, which had occupied his thoughts night and day. So he told them that perhaps, if all went well, he might take up a companion industry, being nothing more nor less than trying to raise mink or otter in captivity. "'Course I know it isn't done to any great extent yet," he explained, "but that's no reason there shouldn't be some ready money picked up in the business. It wouldn't pay anything like the foxes, and for that reason I'd go slow about it. Oh! I've got a heap o' ways for gettin' the ready cash to keep up my share o' the expenses o' the farm here. I've found two bee trees, and sent the honey to market too. Got nigh twenty dollars for the honey. Then I dig ginseng roots times when there's nothing else to do. Come over with me and see my frog pond. Last shipment o' big fat saddles brought me a neat little wad o' money, and they don't cost me a cent, if yuh want to know it." The four boys looked at each other in increased wonderment. What manner of chap was this same Obed, to be able to wrest a living from a bounteous Nature in the clever way he did? Steve in particular was loud in his praise. "Why, Obed, old fellow," he burst out with, "you're just the same kind of an enterprising chap Max here has always been. Why, it was his grand idea about there being mussels aplenty in the Big Sunflower down our way that started us into making a try for fresh-water pearls in the river. We found 'em, too, some thousands of dollars' worth, of them; and when the news leaked out, whee! the farmers, all around, had a tough time getting their harvests home, because every hand was treading for mussels in the creeks and small rivers for thirty miles around Carson. Why, I bet you it'd be as hard to find a fresh-water clam down our way now as a needle in a haystack; they're all cleaned out. You see, Max here had read about pearls being found out in Indiana and other places, and that gave him the big idea; just like you got set on the fur farm business by reading about it." They duly inspected the marsh where Obed hunted his big greenback frogs when he thought the crop warranted a thinning out.