The real estate agent, he smiled awful sly like, and wunk. "Mebbe," he says. Later on, I seen the gent that was stoppin' at the hotel. He was tonier'n the other. Wore one of them knee coats that's got a wedge outen it, right in front, and two buttons fastened in the small of the back. He was walkin' up and down the porch and smokin' a seegar. Rich? Wal, I guess! Had the finest room in the house, and et three six-bit meals a day! About fifty, he was, and kinda porky; not a tub, y' savvy, but plenty fat. That same day, a new _Tarantula_ come out. In it was a piece haided "_More Capital Fer Goldstone._" It went on like this: "_Our City has lately acquired four new citizens whose confidence and belief in her future 'd put some of the old hangers-on and whiners to the blush if they faces wasn't made of brass, and didn't know how to blush. Wake up,_" goes on the _Tarantula, "wake up, Goldstone, and shake you'self. And gents, here's a hearty welcome! Give us you' paw!_" Goldstone was woke up, all right, all right. She was as lively and _ex_cited as a chicken with its haid cut off. That real-estate feller 'd bought up two big tracts just north of town, gittin' 'em cheap a-course; _awful_ cheap, in fact, 'cause no one 'd smelt a boom when he first showed up. (Wal, _first_ come, first _served_.) Porky 'd bought, too, and owned some lots 'twixt them tracts and the post-office. To the east, right where the nicest houses is, the parson was plannin' to import his fambly. More'n that, them four gun-shy gents stood ready to buy all the time. And Goldstone fellers that would 'a' swapped they lots fer a yalla dawg, and then shot the dawg, was holdin' out fer fifty plunks. Wal, I had that three hunderd. But I helt back. What I wanted to know was _the why behind the boom._ I just kinda happened past that real-estate corn-crib. The land-agent was to home, and I ast him to come over and have one with me. He said O. K., that suited _him_. So we greased our hollers a few times. And, when he was feelin' so good that he could make out to talk, I drawed from him that Goldstone was likely to stand 'way up yonder at the haid of her class account of "natu'al developments." "Natu'al developments," I says. "Wal, pardner, when it comes to them big, dictionary words, I shore am a slouch. And you got me all twisted up in my picket-rope." But I had to spend another dollar 'fore he'd talk some more. Then he begun, _turrible_ confidential: "I been sayin' nothin' and sawin' wood, Lloyd. I ain't let _no_ man git information outen _me_. But I like you, Lloyd, and, say! I'm a-goin' to tell you. Natu'al developments is _coal_ and _oil_ and _gas._" Same as the Tusla country! Wal, I was plumb crazy. "Blamed if it ain't _likely,_" I says to myself. "Wal, that settles things fer _me._"