"I told him the price was fifty cents per cubic yard in the pit, but we would let him pay for it in work, if his prices for the work were not too high, so he's going to make up a figure and come back and see us. I told him I thought you'd be willing to let him have the timber from the mill if he would take off the boards and two by fours and haul them over to the sand pit for us. You know, Uncle Joe, these will come in handy for us to build a shed when we start to make fence posts and other things there." "But will he need enough sand to pay for all this work, Bob?" asked his uncle, now greatly excited. "Yes, I'm sure he'll need more, for he seemed to be anxious to buy the pit outright." "He did!" "Yes, he did, but I told him we were not willing to sell it, Uncle Joe; that we expected to put up a lot of concrete buildings on the farm besides building some concrete roads and making a lot of concrete fence posts." "Well, Bob, I guess you did a good half day's work all right," said his uncle, "and to show you that I appreciate the way you've handled this matter, I'll let you make the deal with Brady when he comes back." They didn't have long to wait, for about three o'clock that afternoon a big gray touring car came snorting up the steep hill back of the barn and stopped near where they were loading manure. The driver of the car got out and came over to them. "This is the Uncle Joe, I was telling you about, Mr. Brady," said Bob, by way of introduction, as the contractor came up to them. "Glad to know you, Mr. Williams. I came up to see you about buying your sand pit. What will you take for it in cash? I haven't a great deal of time to lose, so I brought the money with me," and he drew from his pocket the largest roll of bills that Bob had ever seen in his life. "You'll have to--to--talk it over with Bob," hesitated Bob's uncle, for at the sight of so much ready money he began to waver in his resolutions to let Bob handle the matter. "We don't want to sell it, Mr. Brady," spoke up Bob quickly. "We want to control the pit ourselves and have sand and gravel for our own use." "Oh, that's all right. I'll let you have all you want for your own use, free of cost, too," said Mr. Brady quickly. "No," said Bob. "This is the only sand and gravel pit around here, and, when they start building concrete roads in this county, which they may do any time now, this pit will be valuable." "Say, son," said the contractor, "you're wasting your time on a farm. You ought to be with me in the contracting business. Who's been telling you about this new county road work?" "No one's been telling me," said Bob, "but everyone can see it doesn't pay to haul heavy loads over rough roads to market your crops, and as for farming," he added," it's a good business, too, Mr. Brady, especially if you have a good sand pit on the place," he added laughing. [Illustration: "WELL, SON, LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS. I SEE YOU'RE WISE ALL RIGHT TO THE VALUE OF THAT PIT"]