"You see it's this way," explained Adrian. "Bones are good to make fertilizer of, and there's a factory over to Tully where they buy 'em. They pay half a cent a pound, and farmers that have lots of bones around send 'em to the factory. But there's plenty of bones lying around loose in the fields, and at the back doors of houses. When I was about ten years old, me and Chot Ramsey used to make a half dollar, easy, gathering up the old bones and selling 'em when the collecting wagon came from Tully. That's what I'm going to do now. But I'm going to do it different. I know a number of women folks that'll save their meat bones for me if I ask 'em, and I'm going to. Besides collecting all I can lying around loose, you see I'll have a sort of private supply to collect from. But maybe you don't want to come along. It's not much fun, but it's not dirty, for the bones are all clean ones." "Of course I'll come along and help," said Roger. "Didn't I say I would?" It was rather a novel idea, this one of Adrian's, so Roger thought. But plenty of country boys know the value of bones, though they may never have taken the trouble to collect and sell them. Roger and Adrian started off over the fields. The country lad seemed to know just where to go, and, before proceeding far, he had come across several big beef bones, clean and white. They were tossed into the bag which the boys carried between them, slung on a long pole. They visited several back-yards of houses, where Adrian knew the people, and, when he had collected all the bones in sight, he asked the women if they wouldn't save any more they might have, as he would be around again in a week. Most of them promised, for they liked the boy, who had often done favors for them. "Just throw 'em in one place always, and I can gather 'em up every week," said Adrian, at house after house. Good luck seemed to be with the boys, for they found more bones than ever Adrian had hoped for. The bag got so heavy they could hardly carry it, and so were forced to make a trip back to the house, to get rid of the load. "We must have fifty pounds there," reckoned Adrian, proudly, as he piled the contents of the bag in a heap back of the barn, "and there's fifty more we can get to-day. Not bad for a start, eh, Roger? One hundred pounds of fertilizer. That's fifty cents." "I call it fine," said Roger. "But of course we can't expect to do as well as this every day." "No, we'll have to tramp farther for our next hundred pounds," agreed Adrian, as they started off on their second trip. They went over the fields and roads. The bag was almost full a second time when Adrian, who had picked up a smooth, round stone to throw, stopped short as it fell in the midst of some corn stubble, with a resounding clang.