“Forget it. It’s all a pipe dream, I tell you.”
But Lawrence did not forget Smokey Joe’s blue bears, nor, in the end, did Johnny.
CHAPTER VII
A STRANGE BATTLE
Shortly after noon of that same day a slim, bright-eyed man in a huge beaver overcoat drove up to the Lawson cabin. Johnny and Lawrence, who were about to go back to their wood cutting, stared at him.
“Hello, boys,” was his surprising greeting. “I hear you bring ’em back alive.”
“Why, yes, we—Sometimes we do,” Johnny replied in confusion.
“Blackie Dawson told me about you.”
“Oh, Blackie.” Johnny’s face brightened.
“I am in the animal business,” the man explained, alighting from his hired sled and allowing Lawrence to lead his horse away. “I thought you boys might help me a little.”
“Help you? Oh, sure!” Things were looking better and better. “Here’s where we get a start,” Johnny was thinking.