“Well, it has to come some time,” he remarked, as if to himself, “and I suppose it’s hardly right to keep you in the dark much longer, now that you’ve seen as much as you have. So come along, Toby, and we’ll investigate.”
They were quickly on the spot. Here and there could be seen evidences of the man’s digging, 114 though he had hardly more than turned over the upper crust of earth and rocks. So far as Toby could see there was not the first sign of quartz, or anything else that, as he understood it, had to do with mining. Indeed, just in that particular place the earth looked unusually grimy and moist and oozy, a fact that struck Toby as surprising. Then he commenced sniffing the air more and more vigorously, while over his face crept a smile that kept growing broader and broader, as though the light of a great discovery had burst upon him like a dazzling comet.
115CHAPTER XIV
WHEN THE SUN STOOD STILL
“I smell oil!” exclaimed Toby, “and that’s what’s oozing out of the ground right here where the man was grubbing with his tool! Jack, that was what he was looking for, wasn’t it? And you must have known something about it right along, now I stop to think of a whole lot of things that have happened.”
Jack was busy bending down and examining the oil-soaked earth. He even went to the trouble of taking some of it and wrapping it in a piece of waterproof paper he was carrying in his pocket; just as though he had prepared himself for just such an occasion, the observing Toby thought.
“I know you’re burning with curiosity to know what it means, Toby,” he went on to say, “and I’ve finally made up my mind to explain the solution of all this mystery, as well as tell you who and what that man is. But you’ll have to content yourself with figuring out as many explanations as you please between now and tonight, for I don’t want to say a word until Steve is also present. I take it you’ve got head enough to reason things out after a fashion, and grasp the answer. So don’t ask me any questions, because I won’t answer until after supper.”
116“Then I won’t tell Steve a single thing about this affair,” Toby went on to say, although he looked a bit disappointed, because with noon still an hour away it would be a terribly long time until they had seen the sun go down, and eaten their evening meal.
“I think it would be best not to get him excited in the bargain,” advised Jack. “It’s going to be a great surprise to Steve, too, because he hasn’t been as keen as you on the scent, and is more in the dark.”
“And seeing this monster bass will be all the excitement he can stand at a time,” chuckled Toby, beginning to make the best of the situation, for he was usually an easy fellow to get along with, and Jack knew how to handle him splendidly.