Jack Winters' Campmates Part 13

The big fish was simply elegant. The boys used up all the available adjectives at their command in order to do the subject ample justice.

Never had a fish been better baked. Steve looked as proud as any peac.o.c.k that strutted along a wall in self-admiration. He even promised to repeat the prize supper, if only Toby could duplicate Jack's catch.

Again and again they all pa.s.sed in for more until not only the big fish was utterly gone but serious inroads had been made by them in the other mess.

"You see, I gauged our appet.i.tes fairly well after all," Steve was saying, as if to clear himself of any reproach along the lines of greediness.

At length they one and all declared they were through, whereupon Toby sat up eagerly, and turned an appealing face toward Jack.

"The time has come for you to keep your promise, Jack," he went on to say, considerably to the amazement of Steve. "So please start in and tell us who that man is we saw digging today; what he's after up here in the Pontico Hills; and just who the rich old lady in Chester may be who put up the cash to finance this expedition. The whole story, mind, and nothing held back."

CHAPTER XV

JACK LIFTS THE LID

If Toby's manner was a trifle dictatorial when he made this demand, perhaps he might be excused for feeling so. At least Jack did not seem to mind in the least, if his smile stood for anything.

Toby had waited long, and suffered horribly. Minutes had dragged out in an almost intolerable fashion as he watched the lagging sun creep down the western heavens. But at last his time of triumph had come, when according to the arrangement made between them he could ask Jack to redeem his promise of a full confession.

As for Steve, he was staring as hard as he could, staring with his mouth partly open after a habit he had when astonished. Of course he soon grasped the idea, and across his face there began to creep a broad smile. He gave Toby a grateful look, as though disposed to crown him with a laurel wreath becoming a victor.

"Just as you say, Toby, the time seems to have arrived when you fellows ought to be told the whole story," began Jack, as he settled back into an easier position. "After what you saw today, and the discovery we both made, it would be silly for me to keep you in the dark any longer. I only bound you not to bother me about it until we'd had our supper, when Steve also might hear, and so save me considerable talking.

"Well, first of all I must tell you who the lady in the case is, and how she came to pick me out as the one she thought could best help her. She is a leader in the Red Cross work, and a woman well liked by nearly everybody in Chester. Her name is Miss Priscilla Haydock!"

"Do you know," burst out Toby, "I've been thinking of her ever since you let slip that our backer wasn't a gentleman at all. Why, they say she's got stacks of money, and uses it freely for every good purpose."

"I'm not so very much surprised myself," Steve told them, composedly; "because I know Miss Haydock right well. She often visits at our house; and my folks think a heap of her. But go on, Jack."

"She sent for me one day, and I called at her house, where she told me that she had a strange job for some one to do, and somehow felt that a wideawake boy might answer a whole lot better than a man. She also said a few nice things about having watched me on the baseball field, and how folks seemed to believe I tried pretty hard to _get_ there, whenever I had anything on my hands; but I'll omit the bouquet part of the interview.

"Coming right down to bra.s.s tacks now, Miss Haydock informed me that she owned pretty nearly all this Pontico Hills district up here. She had taken it some years back simply as an investment, and was holding it in hopes that some fine day a projected railroad would go through here, when it must become valuable property.

"Latterly she had been bothered by a nephew of hers, a man from New York City by the name of Mr. Maurice Dangerfield, who had been trying to get her to allow him to have an option on the entire strip of land, under the plea that he believed he had a customer who would purchase.

"As the price he offered was considerably more than what she had paid, Miss Haydock was almost tempted to agree. On thinking the matter over, however, she came to the conclusion not to be too hasty about deciding.

She happened to know this Dangerfield was a clever individual, who had, as a rule, made his living by being smarter than most people. He told her he was in great need, and that the commission he expected to receive, should the deal go through, would save him possibly from becoming a bankrupt. He was working upon her generous nature, you see, boys; but it happened that she knew a number of things not to his credit, and so concluded to go slow about the matter.

"So she wanted me to get a couple of my chums and spend several weeks up in the Pontico Hills camping, the only provision being that we should take a lot of pictures to show her what the country looked like. And I was to keep a sharp eye out for any sign of Mr. Maurice, as well as learn, if I could, just what he was up to.

"She showed me a picture of her smart nephew, and of course as soon as Toby here described the gentleman who came into camp that day, looking so sour, I just knew it must be he.

"Now, when Toby and myself today discovered a man poking about, and using a pickax now and then, as though searching for minerals, I suspected instantly that we were on the verge of a discovery, and it turned out that way. We hid in the bushes, and I even managed to snap off the party, with his pick over his shoulder.

"When he had gone, Steve, we went over to see why he had been scratching the soil as he did, and showing so many evidences of excitement. Well, tell him what we found, Toby."

"Oil!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Toby, theatrically, and Steve almost fell over, such was his astonishment.

"Do you mean petroleum--crude oil?" he gasped.

"Why, in some places the ground was just rank with the black-looking stuff," Toby a.s.sured him. "I sniffed it even before we got on the ground; and while I'm not wonderfully bright-witted, I didn't have the least trouble guessing what it was."

"Of course," continued Jack, "we don't know just how this Dangerfield ever got wind of the fact that the big tract of land owned by his aunt showed traces of being an oil district, because there are no such places within fifty miles of here; but he must have scented it out in some way, and then laid all his pipes so as to tie the property up under an option."

"Why, it would be well worth a million, if a cent," said Toby, "in case the wells panned out half-way decent. I've read a heap about this oil business, and how many a poor farmer who had never been able to scratch a decent living from his hundred-acre farm, woke up some fine morning to have speculators pounding on his door, and offering him all kinds of money up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell out to them."

"So that's really all there is to the story," Jack went on to say. "You know as much as I do now. Dangerfield is here on the ground. He's conducting some sort of work over where we heard those explosions, and I think he must be trying to put down an experiment well, so as to convince the men he means to take into the deal with him that it means a fortune for each one of them."

"Yes," Toby went on to say, breathlessly, "and mebbe those dull shocks we heard came from their shooting the well. I understand they have to start things with a blast of dynamite, when the gusher begins to flow."

"That may be the case," Jack admitted, "though I hardly think a shrewd man like Dangerfield would go quite so far until he had actually secured the option from his aunt. It may be he feels certain she will give it to him, and is going ahead on that foundation. No matter, he certainly showed signs of being mighty well pleased at what he saw today, didn't he, Toby?"

"Just what he did, Jack, as happy as a clam at high tide," came the answer. "Why, there was one time I actually thought the gent was getting daffy, for he began to dance about like a darky boy, and slap his thigh again and again. After that he hurried away. I guess if he had any doubts lingering over, what he discovered today did for them."

"As likely as not," mused Jack, "he'll go back to Chester again, and try harder than ever to coax Aunt Priscilla to give him the option, making out that he's doomed to go to prison, and drag the family name in the dust if she refuses. But she told me she was resolved not to take a single step until she had my report."

"Then it's goodbye to all those castles in Spain that Maurice has been building on the strength of deceiving his rich aunt," chuckled Steve, as though highly amused at the way things were turning out, and proud of the part he and his chums had taken in the game.

"Are you satisfied with what you've learned so far, Jack?" Toby wanted to know with an anxious look on his face. "I certainly do hope you won't be wanting to skip out of this the very first thing, and breaking up our vacation camp before we've gotten settled down and hardly more than started enjoying it."

Jack smiled at the earnest manner of the other.

"That would be too cruel, Toby," he a.s.sured him. "If I thought it necessary that Miss Haydock should know what we've learned, why, I'd go myself and tell her, leaving you fellows here to keep camp while I was gone."

Thereupon the cloud gathering on Toby's face was suddenly dissipated, and he grinned happily again.

"Oh! I hope you won't even have to think of doing that, Jack," Steve remarked.

"I don't see any necessity just yet," Jack decided, "and unless some new and very important developments come along I think I can hold off until we all go back home. Besides, I hope to do a little more looking around, and perhaps take more pictures while I'm up here."

"I get you, Jack!" cried the alert Toby. "Chances are that you're making up your mind to drop in and see what they're doing over where those blasts came from. How about that for a guess, Jack?"

"You hit the bull's-eye plum centre that time, Steve," laughed Jack; "because while my plans are not exactly complete, I have that in mind.

But we'll talk it over again. There's no particular hurry, you see, if we expect to stay here ten or twelve days longer. The more time we take to enjoy ourselves the better it would look, in case a spy was hovering about, trying to learn just what we wanted up here."

"One thing sure, Jack, I hardly think we'll be able to do much tomorrow, because all the signs point to our having wet weather," Steve went on to say, with the air of a prophet who could read the signs about as well as the head of the weather bureau at Washington.

"There is a feeling in the air that way," admitted Jack. "I've noticed it myself even if I didn't say anything about it. So I'm glad, Steve, that you proved a good provider while at home today, laying in a fine stock of firewood that ought to last us through a couple of days. It'll come in handy in case we're shut in by the rain."

"Oh! we're well fixed for anything like that, Jack," chuckled the other.

"There's that dandy camp stove we fetched along, and haven't had a chance yet to try out. I made a place in the tent for it, and Mr.

Whitlatch has an asbestos collar to use so that the pipe can't set fire to the canvas, no matter how red-hot it gets. Why, it would be well worth enduring a rainy spell just to see how the thing works."

"And I haven't forgotten either, Steve," spoke up Toby, "that you promised to make a fine batch of biscuits in the oven of that same camp stove the first chance you got. I want to open that bottle of honey, and have been keeping it to go on hot biscuits--of course providing they're a success."

"Now don't you worry about that," said Steve, boldly. "I took lessons from our hired girl, and she said my biscuits were mighty near as good as hers. Why, at the table they were sure enough surprised when she told Mom I'd made the bunch."