"Eh? What's that?" asked the old man, with his hand to his ear, as if distrustful that it had performed its duty correctly. "Why, Bob has found the oil." "Yes," added Dick, "and it shows up better than anything I ever saw around here." "It is true, Mr. Simpson," said Ralph, as the old man still looked incredulous. "Bob found signs of oil this morning, which he says are wonderfully good. I don't wonder that you can't believe it, for I haven't succeeded yet, and I was with Bob when he found it." "Oil on the wood-lot!" repeated Mr. Simpson, in a dazed sort of way. "Yes, sir, and tanks of it!" replied Jim. "I am more glad than I can say," replied the old man, fervently, "for now you and Mr. Harnett will be rewarded for your generosity to an old man whom you hardly knew or cared for. It was not to be that I should have it, and it wouldn't have done me much good if I had, for mother an' I are most ready to leave this world, an' we haven't a child or a chick to be gladdened by the money. Why, Mr. Gurney, I'm as pleased for you as if it was all mine." And Mr. Simpson shook the boy by the hand in a hearty way that left no doubt of the truth of what he said. "But if there is oil there, Mr. Simpson, you own as much as George and I do, for we settled on that yesterday." "No, no!" and the old man shook his head decidedly. "When I sold the land, I believed I was getting the full value for it, and you didn't care whether it was worth what you paid or not. What you bought is yours, and there's no gainsaying that. I suspected there was somethin' more'n wood on that land when I went to pay Massie the money, for when he found that I had the full amount, he offered to pay me my price for the wood-lot, and when I told him I'd sold it, he offered to give me the whole mortgage just for that piece of land." "There!" exclaimed Ralph, as if Mr. Simpson had just told him something which it was to his advantage to hear. "Now you can see why we should give you one-third of the land. If you had come to us then, and told us that you had a better offer for it, we should have been only too well pleased to give it up. Now, if what Bob says is true, you shall still own a third of the lot." Mr. Simpson shook his head, to show he would not permit of such generosity, and Ralph did not care to discuss the matter any further, for he and George had already decided what to do. "If what Bob says is true!" cried Jim. "Why, there's no question about it, for there the oil is where you can see it for yourself." "Still, it may not turn out as he expects," objected Ralph, as if determined not to believe in his good fortune; and the moonlighters, really angry at such obstinacy, refused to argue with him any longer. They insisted that Mr. Simpson should go with them to see the fortune that had been his, without his being aware of the fact, and while they were away Bob returned.