"I've had breakfast, Jud. I've come to talk with you and to ask something from you and Ira."
"Ira's afield. Call him in if'n you like."
"That isn't necessary. You can tell him. I'm trying to do something in my swamp. Now—"
Andy described his project. He spoke of the muskrats he had already liberated, and of the increase in them. He told of the twenty pairs that were due in a few days. If the plan worked, Andy said, it would work very well—so well, in fact, that he would need help. Therefore, he would share with any hillman who cared to join him. He himself must retain complete control and he would say how many muskrats might be taken from any one section of the swamp. It would be the trapper's job to take the muskrats, pelt them and stretch the pelts. For so doing, he would receive half the value of such pelts as he handled and Andy would do the marketing.
Jud listened in attentive silence. When Andy was finished, he spoke. "What you want of Ira'n me?"
"A chance," Andy said frankly, "and nothing more. The best way I can figure it, there won't even be an adequate breeding stock next spring. There can't possibly be any trapping; maybe there can't even be any the following spring. But we should be able to start the spring following that. All I want from you, or anyone, is to leave the muskrats alone until the time is right."
"Me'n Ira got no call to pester 'em."
"Thanks, Jud."
"M-mm. You're gittin' twenty mo' these mushrats?"
"Forty. Twenty mated pairs."