But before he could speak, Jim and Dick came up, panting, but triumphant.
"That's the biggest thing I ever saw!" said Jim, as he wiped the perspiration from his face, and then turning to Mr. Simpson, he added, "That wood-lot is worth about a thousand times as much as you got for it."
"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.