There was a gasp from Miss Hope, but Bob hurried on, pretending not to hear.

"My father, they think, was killed in a railroad wreck," he said. "At least there was a bad wreck several miles from where they found my mother nearly crazed and with no baggage beyond this little tin box and the clothes she wore. Grief and exposure had driven her almost out of her mind, and in her ravings, they tell me, she talked continuously about 'the brakes' and 'that glaring headlight.' And then, toward the end, she spoke of her husband and said she couldn't wake him up to speak to her. There is small doubt in my mind but that he died in the wreck. Mother died the night I was born, and until I was ten I lived in the poorhouse. Then I was hired out to a farmer, and the third year on his place I met Betty, who came to spend the summer there. An old bookman, investigating a pile of old books and records at the poorhouse, found that Saunders was my mother's maiden name and he traced my relatives for me."

Bob briefly sketched his trip to Washington and his experiences there, and during the recital the aunts learned a great deal about Betty, too. Their first shock at hearing that their sister had died in the poorhouse gradually lessened, but they were still puzzled to account for the three years' silence that had preceded his birth.

"I'll tell you how I think it was," said Bob. "This is only conjecture, mind. I think my father wasn't successful in a business way, and he must have wanted to give my mother comforts and luxuries and a pleasant home. He probably kept thinking that in a few weeks things would be better, and insensibly he persuaded her to put off writing till she could ask you to come to see her. If she had lived after I was born, I am sure she would have written, whether my father prospered or not. But I imagine they were both proud."

"Faith was," assented Miss Hope. "Though dear knows, she needn't have hesitated to have written home for a little help. Father would have been glad to send her money, for he admired David and liked him. He was a fine looking young man, Bob, tall and slender and with such magnificent dark eyes. And Faith was a beautiful girl."

All the rest of that day the aunts kept recalling stories of Bob's mother, and in the attic, just as Betty had known there would be, they opened a trunk that was full of little keepsakes she had treasured as a girl.

Bob handled the things in the little square trunk very tenderly and reverently and tried to picture the young girl who had packed them away so carefully the week before her wedding.

"They're yours, Bob," said Miss Hope. "Faith was going to send for that trunk as soon as she was settled. Of course she never did. The farm will be yours, too, some day; in fact, a third of it's yours now, or will be when you come of age. Father left it that way in his will—to us three daughters share and share alike, and you'll have Faith's share. Poor Father! He was sure that we'd hear from Faith, and he thought he'd left us all quite well off. But we had to put a mortgage on the farm about ten years ago, and every year it's harder and harder to get along. Charity and I are too old—that's the truth. And some stock Father left us we traded off for some paying eight per cent., and that company failed."

"You see," explained Miss Charity in her gentle way, "we don't know anything about business. That man wasn't honest who sold us the stock, but Hope and I thought he couldn't cheat us—he was a friend of Father's."

"Well, don't let any one swindle you again," said Bob, a trifle excitedly. "You don't have to worry about interest and taxes, any more, Aunts. You have a fortune right here in your own dooryard; or if not exactly out by the pump, then very near it!"

The sisters looked bewildered.

"Yes, yes," insisted Betty, as they gazed at her to see if Bob were in earnest. "The farm is worth thousands of dollars."

"Oil!" exploded Bob. "You can lease or sell outright, and there isn't the slightest doubt that there's oil sand on the place. Betty's uncle will know. Uncle Dick is an expert oil man."

Miss Hope shook her head.

"My dear nephew," she urged protestingly, "surely you must be mistaken. Sister and I have seen no evidences of oil. No one has ever mentioned the subject or the possibilities to us. There are no oil wells very near here. Don't you speak unadvisedly?"

"I should say not!" Bob was positive if not as precise as his aunt. "There's oil here, or all the wells in the fields are dry. The farm is a gold mine."

Betty rose hurriedly and pointed toward the window in alarm. They had been sitting in the parlor, and she faced the bar of late afternoon sunlight that lay on the floor.

"I saw the shadow of some one," she whispered in alarm. "It crossed that patch of sunlight. Bob, I am afraid!"



CHAPTER XX

BETTY IS STOPPED

"Doctor Morrison, maybe," said Bob carelessly. "Gee, Betty, you certainly are nervous! I'll run around the house and see if there's any one about."

He dashed out, and though he hunted thoroughly, reported that he could find no one.

"It wasn't the doctor, that's sure," he said. "And the grocer's boy would have gone to the back of the house. Are you sure you saw anything, Betty?"

"I saw a man's shadow," averred Betty positively. "I was sitting facing the window, you know, and watching the million little motes dancing in the shaft of light, when a shadow, full length, fell on the floor. It was for only a second, as though some one had stepped across the porch. Then I told you. Bob, I know I shan't sleep a wink to-night."

"Nonsense," said Bob stoutly. "Who could it have been? Goodness knows, there's nothing worth stealing in the house."

"Those sharpers," whispered Betty. "They might have come back and be hanging around hoping they can make your aunts sell the farm to them."

"I'd like to see them try it," bristled Bob. "Isn't it funny, Betty, we can't make the aunts believe there is oil here? I think Aunt Charity might, but Aunt Hope is so positive she rides right over her. Well, I hope that Uncle Dick comes back from the fields mighty quick and persuades them that they have a fortune ready for the spending."

Despite Bob's assurances that he could find no one, Betty was uneasy, and she passed a restless night. The next day and the next passed without incident, save for a visit from Doctor Morrison in the late afternoon. He did not come every day now, and this call, he announced, was more in the nature of a social call. He had been told of Bob's relationship to the old ladies and was interested and pleased, for he had known them for as long as he had lived in that section. He carried the good news to Grandma Watterby, too, and that kind soul, as an expression of her pleasure, insisted on sending the aunts two of her best braided rugs.

"I have a note for you from your uncle, Betty," said the doctor, after he had delivered the rugs.

People often intrusted him with messages and letters and packages, for his work took him everywhere. He had been to the oil fields and seen Mr. Gordon and had been able to give him a full account of Betty's and Bob's activities. In a postscript Mr. Gordon had added his congratulations and good wishes for "my nephew Bob." The body of the letter, addressed to Betty, praised her for her service to the aunts and said that the writer hoped to get back to the Watterbys within three or four days.

"I'll need a little rest by then," he went on to say, "for I've been in the machine night and day for longer than I care to think about. We're clearing away the debris of the fire, and drilling two new wells."

The doctor was persuaded to stay to supper, which was a meal to be remembered, for Miss Hope was a famous cook and she spared neither eggs nor butter, a liberality which the close-fisted Joseph Peabody would have blamed for her poverty.

There was no mistaking the strained financial circumstances of the two old women. Every day that Bob spent with them disclosed some new makeshift to avoid the expenditure of money, and both house and barns were sadly in need of repairs. Bob himself was able to do many little odd jobs, a nail driven here, a bit of plastering there, that tended to make the premises more habitable, and he worked incessantly and gladly, determined that his aunts should never do another stroke of work outside the house.

They were normal in health again and Betty had suggested that she go back to the Watterbys. But they looked so stricken at the mention of such a plan, and seemed so genuinely anxious to have her stay, that she promised not to leave till her uncle came for her. Bob, too, was relieved by her decision, for his promise to Mr. Gordon still held good, and yet he felt that his place was with his aunts.

The shades all over the house were up now, and the four bedrooms on the second floor in use once more. They were sparsely furnished, like those downstairs, but everything was neat and clean. Miss Charity confided to Betty that she and her sister had been forced to sell their best furniture, some old-fashioned mahogany pieces included, to meet a note they had given to a neighbor. The two poor sisters seemed to have been the prey of unscrupulous sharpers since the death of their parents, and Betty fervently hoped that Bob would be able to stave off the pseudo real-estate men till her uncle could advise them.

A few days after the doctor's call Betty decided that what she needed was a good gallop on Clover. She had had little time for riding since she had been nurse and housekeeper, and the little horse was becoming restive from too much confinement.

"A ride will do you good," declared Miss Hope, in her eager, positive fashion. "I suppose you'll stop in at Grandma Watterby's? Tell her Charity and I thank her very much for the rugs and for the beef tea she sent us."

The road from the Saunders farm was the main highway to Flame City, and Bob, who in his capacity of guardian felt his responsibility keenly, saw no harm in Betty's riding it alone. It was morning, and she would have lunch with the Watterbys and come back in the early afternoon. Everything looked all right, and he bade her a cheerful good-bye.

"Isn't it great, Clover, to be out for fun?" Betty asked, as the horse snuffed the fresh air in great delight. "I guess you thought you were going to have to stay in the stable, or be turned out to grass like an old lady, for the rest of your life, didn't you?"

Clover snorted, and settled down into her favorite canter. Betty enjoyed the sense of motion and the rush of the wind, and horse and girl had a glorious hour before they drew rein at the Watterby gate.

"Well, bless her heart, did she come to see us at last!" cried Grandma Watterby, hurrying down to greet her. "Emma!" she called. "Emma! Just see who's come to stay with us."

The old woman was greatly disappointed when Betty explained that she must go back after lunch, dinner, as the noon meal was made at the Watterby table, but the girl was not to be persuaded to stay over night. She had promised Bob.

Every one, from Grandma Watterby to the Prices, had an innocent curiosity, wholly friendly, to hear about Bob and his aunts, and Betty was glad to gratify it. She told the whole story, only omitting the portion that dealt with the death of Bob's mother in the poorhouse, rightly reasoning that the Misses Saunders would want to keep this fact from old neighbors and friends. The household rejoiced with Bob that he had found his kindred, and Grandma Watterby expressed the sentiments of all when she said that "Bob will take care of them two old women and be a prop to 'em for their remaining years."

Ki, the Indian, had the fox skin cured, and proudly showed it to Betty. She was delighted with the silky pelt and ran upstairs to put it in her trunk while Ki saddled Clover for the return trip. She knew that a good furrier would make her a stunning neck-piece for the winter from the fur.

It was slightly after half past one when Betty started for the Saunders farm, and as the day was warm and the patches of shade few and far between, she let Clover take her own time. In a lonely stretch of road, out of sight of any house or building, two men stepped quietly from some bushes at the side of the road, and laid hands on Clover's bridle. Betty recognized them as the two men dressed in gray whom Bob had followed on the train, and who had interviewed him while the aunts were ill.

"Don't scream!" warned the man called Blosser. "We don't go to hurt you, and you'll be all right if you don't make trouble. All we want you to do is to answer a few questions."

Betty was trembling, more through nervousness than fright, though she was afraid, too. But she managed to stammer that if she could answer their questions, she would.

"That fresh kid we saw with you the other day, back at the Saunders farm," said Blosser, jerking his thumb in the general direction of the three hills. "Is he going to be there long?"

Betty did not know whether anything she might say would injure Bob or not, and she wisely concluded that the best plan would be to answer as truthfully as possible.

"I suppose he will live there," she said quietly. "He is their nephew, you know."

Fluss looked disgustedly at his companion.

"Can you beat that?" he demanded in an undertone. "The kid has to turn up just when he isn't wanted. The old ladies never had a nephew to my knowledge, and now they allow themselves to be imposed on by——"

A look from Blosser restrained him.

"Well," Fluss addressed himself to Betty, "do you know anything about how the farm was left? Where's the kid's mother? Disinherited? Was the place left to these old maids? It was, wasn't it?"

"What he means," interrupted Blosser, "is, do you know whether this boy would come in for any of the money if some one bought the farm? We've a client who would like to buy and farm it, as I was saying the other day."

"Bob is entitled to one-third," said Betty coolly, having in a measure recovered her composure.

"Oh, he is, is he?" snarled the older man. "I thought he had a good deal to say about the place. Did the old maids get well? Are they up and about?"

"Miss Hope and Miss Charity are much better," answered Betty, flushing indignantly. "And now will you let me go?"

"Not yet," grinned Fluss. "We haven't got this relation business all straightened out. What I want you to tell me——"

But Betty had seen the opportunity for which she had been waiting. Fluss had removed his hand from the bridle for an instant, and Betty pulled back on the reins. Ki had taught Clover to rear at this signal and strike out with her forefeet. She obeyed beautifully, and involuntarily the two men fell back. Betty urged Clover ahead and they dashed down the road.

Betty forced her mount to gallop all the way home and startled Bob by dashing into the yard like a whirlwind. The horse was flecked with foam and Betty was white-faced and wild-eyed.

"Oh, Bob!" she gasped hysterically, tumbling from the saddle, "those sharpers are still here! They stopped me down the road!"



CHAPTER XXI

WHERE IS BOB?

Bob's chief feeling, after hearing the story, was one of intense indignation.

"Pretty cheap, I call it," he growled, "to stop a girl and frighten her. The miserable cowards! Just let me get a crack at them once!"

"Bob Henderson, you stay right on this farm," cried Betty, her alarm returning. "They weren't trying to frighten me—at least, that wasn't their main purpose. They wanted to find out about you. They'll kidnap you, or do something dreadful to you. I wish with all my heart that Uncle Dick would come."

"Well, look here, Betty," argued Bob, impressed in spite of himself by her reasoning, "I'm pretty husky and I might have something to say if they tried to do away with me. Besides, what would be their object?"

Betty admitted that she did not know, unless, she added dismally, they planned to set the house on fire some night and burn up the whole family.

Bob laughed, and refused to consider this seriously. But for the next few days Betty dogged his footsteps like the faithful friend she was, and though the boy found this trying at times he could not find it in his heart to protest.

Miss Hope and Miss Charity were very happy these days. For a while they forgot that the interest was due the next month, that no amount of patient figuring could show them how the year's taxes were to be met, and that the butter and egg money was their sole source of income. Instead, they gave themselves up to the enjoyment of having young folk in the quiet house and to the contemplation of Bob as their nephew. Faith had died, but she had left them a legacy—her son, who would be a prop to them in their old age.

Miss Hope and Miss Charity were talking things over one morning when Betty and Bob were out whitewashing the neglected hen house. Though the sisters protested, they insisted on doing some of the most pressing of the heavy tasks long neglected.

"I really do not see," said Miss Hope, "how we are to feed and clothe the child until he is old enough to earn his living. Of course Faith's son must have a good education. Betty tells me he is very anxious to go to school this winter. He is determined to get a job, but of course he is much too young to be self-supporting. If only we hadn't traded that stock!"

"Maybe what he says about the farm being worth a large sum of money is true," said Miss Charity timidly. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if there should be oil here, Sister?"

Miss Hope was a lady, and ladies do not snort, but she came perilously near to it.

"Humph!" she retorted, crushing her twin with a look. "I'm surprised at you, Charity! A woman of your age should have more strength of character than to believe in every fairy tale. Of course Bob and Betty think there is oil on the farm—they believe in rainbows and all the other pretty fancies that you and I have outgrown. Besides, I never did take much stock in this oil talk. I don't think the Lord would put a fortune into any one's hands so easily. It's a lazy man's idea of earning a living."

Miss Charity subsided without another reference to oil. Truth to tell, she did not believe in her heart of hearts that there was oil sand on the old farm, and she and her sister had been out of touch with the outside world so long that to a great extent they were ignorant of the proportions of the oil boom that had struck Flame City.

Bob had the stables in good order soon after his arrival, and a day or so before Mr. Gordon was expected he took it into his head to tinker up the cow stanchions. The two rather scrubby cows were turned out into the near-by pasture, and Bob set valiantly to work.

Betty was helping the aunts in the kitchen that afternoon, and the three were surprised when Bob thrust a worried face in at the door and announced that the black and white cow had disappeared.

"I'm sure I pegged her down tightly," he explained. "That pasture fence is no good at all, and I never trusted to it. I pegged Blossom down with a good long rope, and Daisy, too; and Daisy is gone while Blossom is still eating her head off."

"I'll come and help you hunt," offered Betty. "The last pan of cookies is in the oven, isn't it, Aunt Hope? Wait till I wash my hands, Bob."

Betty now called Bob's aunts as he did, at their own request, and anyway, said Miss Hope, if Betty's uncle could be Bob's, too, why shouldn't she have two aunts as well as he?

"Where do you think she went?" questioned Betty, hurrying off with Bob. "Is the fence broken in any place?"

"One place it looks as though she might have stepped over," said Bob doubtfully. "The whole thing is so old and tottering that a good heavy cow could blow it down by breathing on it! There, see that corner? Daisy might have ambled through there."

"Then you go that way, and I'll work around the other end of the farm," suggested Betty. "In that way, we'll cover every inch. A cow is such a silly creature that you're sure to find her where you'd least expect to. The first one to come back will put one bar down so we'll know and go on up to the house."

Betty went off in one direction and Bob in another, and for a moment she heard his merry whistling. Then all was silent.

Betty, for a little while, enjoyed her search. She had had no time to explore the Saunders farm, and though much of it was of a deadly sameness, the three hills, whose shadows rested always on the fields, were beautiful to see, and the air was wonderfully bracing. Shy jack rabbits dodged back and forth between the bushes as Betty walked, and once, when she investigated a thicket that looked as though it might shelter the truant Daisy, the girl disturbed a guinea hen that flew out with a wild flapping of wings.

"I don't see where that cow can have gone," murmured Betty uneasily. "Bob is never careless, and I'm sure he must have pegged her down carefully. Losing one of the cows is serious, for the aunts count every pint of milk; they have to, poor dears. I wish to goodness they would admit that there might be oil on the farm. I'm sure it irritates Bob to be told so flatly that he is dreaming day-dreams every time he happens to say a word about an oil well."

Betty searched painstakingly, even going out into the road and hunting a short stretch, lest the cow should have strayed out on the highway. The fields through which she tramped were woefully neglected, and more than once she barely saved herself from a turned ankle, for the land was uneven and dead leaves and weeds filled many a hole. Evidently there had been no systematic cultivation of the farm for a number of years.

The sun was low when Betty finally came out in the pasture lot. She glanced toward the bars, saw one down, and sighed with relief. Bob, then, had found the cow, or at least he was at home. She knew that the chances were he had brought Daisy with him, for Bob had the tenacity of a bull-dog and would not easily abandon his hunt.

"Did Bob find her?" demanded Betty, bursting into the kitchen where Miss Hope and Miss Charity were setting the table for supper.

The aunts looked up, smiled at the flushed, eager face, and Miss Charity answered placidly.

"Bob hasn't come back, dearie," she said. "You know how boys are—he'll probably look under every stone for that miserable Daisy. She's a good cow, but to think she would run off!"

"Oh, he's back, I know he is," insisted Betty confidently. "I'll run out to the barn. I guess he is going to do the chores before he comes in."

She thought it odd that Bob had not told his aunts of his return, but she was so sure that he was in the barn that she shouted his name as she entered the door. Clover whinnied, but no voice answered her. Blossom was in her stanchion. Bob had placed her there before setting out to hunt, and everything was just as he had left it, even to his hammer lying on the barn floor.

Betty went into the pig house, the chicken house and yard, and every outbuilding. No Bob was in sight.

"But he put the bar down—that was our signal," she said to herself, over and over.

"Don't fret, dearie. Sit down and eat your supper," counseled Miss Hope placidly, when she had to report that she could not find him. "He may be real late. I'll keep a plate hot for him."

The supper dishes were washed and dried, the table cleared, and a generous portion of biscuits and honey set aside for Bob. Miss Hope put on an old coat and went out with Betty to feed the stock, for it was growing dark and she did not want the boy to have it all to do when he came in tired.

"I'll do the milking," said Betty hurriedly. "I'm not much of a milker, but I guess I can manage. Bob hates to milk when it is dark."

In the girl's heart a definite fear was growing. Something had happened to Bob! Milking, the thought of the sharpers came to her. Oddly enough they had not been in her mind for several days. The bar! Had they anything to do with the one bar being down?

Neither she nor Bob had ever said a word to his aunts on the subject of the two men in gray, arguing that there was no use in making the old ladies nervous. Now that the full responsibility had devolved upon Betty, she was firmly resolved to say no word concerning the men who had stopped her in the road and asked her questions about Bob.

She finished milking Blossom, and fastened the barn door behind her. Glancing toward the house, she saw Miss Hope come flying toward her, wringing her hands.

"Oh, Betty!" she wailed, "something has happened to Bob! I heard a cow low, and I went out front, and there Daisy stood on the lawn. I'm afraid Bob is lying somewhere with a broken leg!"



CHAPTER XXII

OFF FOR HELP

Betty's heart thumped, but she managed to control her voice. She was now convinced that the sharpers had something to do with Bob's disappearance.

Miss Hope was so beside herself with grief and fear that Betty thought, with the practical wisdom that was far beyond her years, that it would be better for her to occupy herself with searching than to remain in the house and let her imagination run riot.

Miss Charity came tremblingly out with a lantern, and after the milk was strained—for the habits of every day living hold even in times of trouble and distress—they set out, an old lady on either side of Betty, who had taken the lantern.

It was a weird performance, that tramp over the uneven fields with a flickering lantern throwing dim shadows before them and the bushes and trees assuming strange and terrifying shapes, fantastic beyond the power of clear daylight to make them. More than once Miss Charity started back in fright, and Miss Hope, who was stronger, shook so with nervousness that she found it difficult to walk. Betty, too, was much overwrought, and it is probable that if either a jack rabbit or a white owl had crossed the path of the three there would have been instant flight. However, they saw nothing more alarming than their own shadows and a few harmless little insects that the glow of the lantern attracted.

"Suppose the poor, dear boy is lying somewhere with a broken leg!" Miss Hope kept repeating. "How would we get a doctor for him? Could we get him back to the house?"

"Think how selfish we were to sit down and eat supper—we ought to have known something was wrong with him," grieved Miss Charity. "I'd rather have lost both cows than have anything happen to Bob."

Betty could not share their fear that Bob was injured. The memory of that one bar down haunted her, though she could give no explanation. Then the cow had come back. Betty had positive proof that the animal had not wandered to the half of the farm she had explored, and Bob's section had been nearer the house. Why had Daisy stayed away till almost dark, when milking time was at half past five? And the cow had been milked! Betty forebore to call the aunts' attention to this, and they were too engrossed in their own conjectures to have noticed the fact.

"Well, he isn't on the farm." Miss Hope made this reluctant admission after they had visited every nook and cranny. "What can have become of him?"

Miss Charity was almost in a state of collapse, and her sister and Betty both saw that she must be taken home. It was hard work, going back without Bob, and once in the kitchen, Miss Charity was hysterical, clinging to her sister and sobbing that first Faith had died and now her boy was missing.

"But we'll find him, dear," urged Miss Hope. "He can't be lost. A strong boy of fourteen can't be lost; can he, Betty?"

"Of course we'll find him," asserted Betty stoutly. "I'm going to ride to the Watterbys in the morning and telephone to Uncle Dick. He will know what to do. You won't mind staying alone for a couple of hours, will you?"

"Not in the daytime," quavered Miss Charity. "But my, I'm glad you're here to-night, Betty. Sister and I never used to be afraid, but you and Bob have spoiled us. We don't like to stay alone."

Betty slept very little that night. Aside from missing Bob's protection—and how much she had relied on him to take care of them she did not realize until she missed him—there were the demands made on her by the old ladies, who both suffered from bad dreams. During much of the night Betty's active mind insisted on going over and over the most trivial points of the day. Always she came back to the two mysteries that she could not discuss with the aunts: Who had put the single bar down, and who had milked the cow?

Breakfast was a sorry pretense the next morning, and Betty was glad to hurry out to the barn and feed and water the stock and milk the two cows. It was hard and heavy work and she was not skilled at it, and so took twice as long a time as Bob usually did. Then, when she had saddled Clover and changed to her riding habit, she sighted the mail car down the road and waited to see if the carrier had brought her any later news of her uncle. The Watterbys promptly sent her any letters that came addressed to her there.

There was no news, but the delay was fifteen minutes or so, and when Betty finally started for the Watterbys it was after nine o'clock. She had no definite plan beyond telephoning to her uncle and imploring him to come and help them hunt for Bob.

"Where could he be?" mourned poor Miss Hope, with maddening persistency. "We looked all over the farm, and yet where could he be? If he went to any of the neighbors to inquire, and was taken sick, he'd send us word. I don't see where he can be!"

Betty hurried Clover along, half-dreading another encounter with the men who had stopped her. She passed the place where she had been stopped, and a bit further on met Doctor Morrison on his way to a case, his car raising an enormous cloud of dust in the roadway. He pulled out to allow her room, recognized her, and waved a friendly hand as he raced by. By this token Betty knew he was in haste, for he always stopped to talk to her and ask after the Saunders sisters.

The Watterby place, when she reached it, seemed deserted. The hospitable front door was closed, and the shining array of milk pans on the back porch was the only evidence that some one had been at work that morning. No Grandma Watterby came smiling down to the gate, no busy Mrs. Will Watterby came to the window with her sleeves rolled high.

"Well, for pity's sake!" gasped Betty, completely astounded. "I never knew them to go off anywhere all at once. Never! Mrs. Watterby is always so busy. I wonder if anything has happened."

"Hello! Hello!" A shout from the roadway made her turn. "You looking for Mr. Watterby?"

"I'm looking for any one of them," explained Betty, smiling at the tow-haired boy who stood grinning at her. "Are they all away?"

"Yep. They're out riding in an automobile," announced the boy importantly. "Grandma Watterby's great-nephew, up to Tippewa, died and left her two thousand dollars. And she says she always wanted a car, and now she's going to have one. A different agent has been here trying to sell her one every week. They took me last time."

In spite of her anxiety, Betty laughed at the picture she had of the hard-working family leaving their cares and toil to go riding about the country in a demonstrator's car. She hoped that Grandma would find a car to her liking, one whose springs would be kind to her rheumatic bones, and that there would be enough left of the little legacy to buy the valiant old lady some of the small luxuries she liked.

"Ki's home," volunteered the boy. "He's working 'way out in the cornfield. Want to see him? I'll call him for you."

"No thanks," said Betty, uncertain what to do next. "I don't suppose there's a telephone at your house, is there?" she asked, smiling.

The urchin shook his head quickly.

"No, we ain't got one," he replied. "Was you wanting to use Mis' Watterby's? It's out of order. Been no good for two days. My ma had to go to Flame City yesterday to telephone my dad."

"I'll have to go to Flame City, too, I think," decided Betty. "I hope you'll take the next automobile ride," she added, mounting Clover.

"Gee, Grandma Watterby says if they buy a car I can have all the rides I want," grinned the towhead engagingly. "You bet I hope they buy!"

All her worry about Bob shut down on Betty again as she urged the horse toward the town. Suppose Uncle Dick were not within reach of the telephone! Suppose he were off on a long inspection trip!

Flame City had not improved, and though Betty could count her visits to it on the fingers of one hand, she thought it looked more unattractive than ever. The streets were dusty and not over clean, and were blocked with trucks and mule teams on their way to the fields with supplies. Here and there a slatternly woman idled at the door of a shop, but for the most part men stood about in groups or waited for trade in the dirty, dark little shops.

"I wonder where the best place to telephone is," said Betty to herself, shrinking from pushing her way through any of the crowds that seemed to surround every doorway. "I'll ask them in the post-office."

The post-office was a yellow-painted building that leaned for support against a blue cigar store. Like the majority of shacks in the town, it boasted of only one story, and a long counter, whittled with the initials of those who had waited for their mail, was its chief adornment.

Betty hitched Clover outside and entered the door to find the postmaster rapidly thumbing over a bunch of letters while a tall man in a pepper-and-salt suit waited, his back to the room.

"Can you tell me where to find a public telephone?" asked Betty, and at the sound of her voice, the man turned.

"Betty!" he ejaculated. "My dear child, how glad I am to see you!"

Mr. Gordon took the package of mail the postmaster handed him and thrust it into his coat pocket.

"The old car is outside," he assured his niece. "Let's go out and begin to get acquainted again."

Betty, beyond a radiant smile and a furtive hug, had said nothing, and when Mr. Gordon saw her in the sunlight he scrutinized her sharply.

"Everything all right, Betty?" he demanded, keeping his voice low so that the loungers should not overhear. "I'd rather you didn't come over to town like this. And where is Bob?"

"Oh, Uncle Dick!" The words came with a rush. "That's why I'm here. Bob has disappeared! We can't find him anywhere, and I'm afraid those awful men have carried him off."

Mr. Gordon stared at her in astonishment. In a few words she managed to outline for him her fears and what had taken place the day before. Mr. Gordon had made up his mind as she talked.

"We'll leave Clover at the hotel stable. It won't kill her for a few hours," he observed. "You and I can make better time in the car, rickety as it is. Hop in, Betty, for we're going to find Bob. Not a doubt of it. It's all over but the shouting."



CHAPTER XXIII

SELLING THE FARM

"Don't you think those sharpers carried off Bob?" urged Betty, bracing herself as the car dipped into a rut and out again.

"Every indication of it," agreed her uncle, swerving sharply to avoid a delivery car.

"But where could they have taken him?" speculated Betty, clinging to the rim of the side door. "How will you know where to look?"

"I think he is right on the farm," answered Mr. Gordon. "In fact, I shall be very much surprised if we have to go off the place to discover him. I'm heading for the farm on that supposition."

"But, Uncle Dick," Betty raised her voice, for the much-abused car could not run silently, "I can't see why they would carry Bob off, anyway. Of course I know they don't like him, and I do believe they recognized him as the boy who sat behind them on the train, though Bob laughs and says he isn't so handsome that people remember his face; but I don't understand what good it would do them to kidnap him. The aunts are too poor to pay any money for him, that's certain."

"Well, now, Betty, I'm rather surprised at you," Mr. Gordon teased her. "For a bright girl, you seem to have been slow on this point. What do these sharpers want of the aunts, anyway?"

"The farm," answered Betty promptly. "They know there is oil there and they want to buy it for almost nothing and make their fortunes."

"At the expense of two innocent old ladies," added Mr. Gordon.

"But, Uncle Dick, Bob doesn't own the farm. Only his mother's share. And the aunts would be his guardians, he says, so his consent isn't necessary for a sale. You see, I do know a lot about business." And Betty glanced triumphantly at her uncle.

He smiled good-humoredly, and let the car out another notch.

"Has it ever occurred to you, my dear," he said casually, "that, if Bob were out of the way, the aunts might be persuaded to sell their farm for an absurdly small sum? A convincing talker might make any argument seem plausible, and neither Miss Hope nor Miss Charity are business women. They are utterly unversed in business methods or terms, and are the type of women who obediently sign any paper without reading it. I intend to see that you grow up with a knowledge of legal terms and forms that will at least protect you when you're placed in the position the Saunders women are."

"Miss Hope said once her father attended to everything for them," mused Betty, "and I suppose when he died they just had to guess. Oh!" a sudden light seemed to break over her. "Oh, Uncle Dick! do you suppose those men may be there now trying to get them to sell the farm?"

"Of course I don't know that they were on the place when you left," said her uncle. "But allowing them half an hour to reach there, I am reasonably certain that they are sitting in the parlor this minute, talking to the aunts. I only hope they haven't an agreement with them, or, if they have, that the pen and ink is where Miss Hope can't put her hands on it."

"Do you think there really is oil there?" asked Betty hurriedly, for another turn would bring them in sight of the farm. "Can you tell for sure, Uncle Dick?"

Mr. Gordon regarded her whimsically.

"Oil wells are seldom 'sure,'" he replied cautiously. "But if I had my doubts, they'd be clinched by what you tell me of these men. No Easterner with a delicate daughter was ever so anxious to buy a run-down place—not with a whole county to chose from. Also, as far as I can tell, judging from the location, which is all I've had to go by, I should say we were safe in saying there is oil sand there. In fact, I've already taken it up with the company, Betty, and they're inclined to think this whole section may be a find."

Betty hardly waited for the automobile to stop before she was out and up the front steps of the farmhouse, Mr. Gordon close behind her.

"I hear voices in the parlor," whispered Betty, "Oh, hurry!"

"All cash, you see," a voice that Betty recognized as Blosser's was saying persuasively. "Nothing to wait for, absolutely no delay."

Mr. Gordon put a restraining hand on Betty's arm, and motioned to her to keep still.

"But my sister and I should like to talk it over, for a day or so," quavered Miss Hope. "We're upset because our nephew is missing, as we have explained, and I don't think we should decide hastily."

"I don't like to hurry you," struck in another voice, Fluss's, Betty was sure, "but I tell you frankly, Madam, a cash offer doesn't require consideration. All you have to do, you and your sister, is to sign this paper, and we'll count the money right into your hand. Could anything be fairer?"

"It's a big offer, too," said Blosser. "A run-down place like this isn't attractive, and you're likely to go years before you get another bid. Our client wants to get his daughter out into this air, and he has money to spend fixing up. I tell you what we'll do—we'll pay this year's taxes—include them in the sale price. Why, ladies, you'll have a thousand dollars in cash!"

Betty could picture Miss Hope's eyes at the thought of a thousand dollars.

"Well, Sister, perhaps we had better take it," suggested Miss Charity timidly. "We can do sewing or something like that, and that money will put Bob through school."

"Come on, here's where we put a spoke in the wheel," whispered Mr. Gordon, beckoning Betty to follow him and striding down the hall.

"Why, Betty!" Miss Hope rose hastily and kissed her. "Sister and I had begun to worry about you."

"This is my uncle, Mr. Gordon, Miss Hope," said Betty. "I found him in Flame City. Has Bob come back?"

Miss Hope, much flustered by the presence of another stranger, said that Bob had not returned, and presented Mr. Gordon to her sister.

"These gentlemen, Mr. Snead and Mr. Elmer,"—she consulted the cards in her hand—"have called to see us about selling our farm."

Mr. Gordon nodded curtly to the pair whose faces were as black as a thunder-cloud at the interruption.

"I'm sure Mr. Gordon will excuse us if we go on with the business," said Blosser smoothly. "You have a dining-room, perhaps, or some other room where we could finish this matter quietly?"

Miss Hope glanced about her helplessly. Betty noticed that there was pen and ink and a package of bills of large denomination on the table. Evidently they had reached the farm just in time.

"Why, it happens that I'm interested in a way in your farm, if it is for sale," announced Mr. Gordon leisurely.

He selected a comfortable chair, and leaned back in it with the air of a man who is not to be hurried. A look of relief came into Miss Hope's face, and her nervous tension perceptibly relaxed.

"This farm is sold," declared Blosser truculently. "My partner and I have bought it for a client of ours."

"Any signatures passed?" said Mr. Gordon lazily.

"Miss Hope will sign right here," said Blosser, hastily unfolding a sheet of foolscap. "She was about to do so when you came in."

Miss Hope automatically took up the pen.

"Have you read that agreement?" demanded Mr. Gordon sharply. "Do you know what you are signing? I'd like to know the purchase price. I'm representing Bob's interest."

"Oh, Bob!" Miss Hope and Miss Charity both turned from the paper toward the speaker. "We think the money will put Bob through school—a whole thousand dollars, Mr. Gordon, and the taxes paid. We can't run the farm any longer. We can't afford to hire help."

"No farm is sold without a little more trouble than this," announced Mr. Gordon pleasantly. "You don't mind If I ask you a few questions?"

"We're in a hurry," broke in Fluss. "Sign this, ladies, and my partner and I will pay you the cash and get on to the next town. You can answer this gentleman's questions after we're gone."

"I suppose there is a mortgage?" asked Mr. Gordon, ignoring Fluss altogether.

"Five hundred dollars," answered Miss Hope. "We had to give a mortgage to get along after Father died."

"So they've offered you fifteen hundred dollars for an oil farm," said Mr. Gordon contemptuously. "Well, don't take it."

"Bob said there was oil here!" cried Miss Charity.

"That's a lie!" snarled Blosser furiously. "You're out of the oil section by a good many miles. Are you going to turn down a cash offer for this forsaken dump, simply because a stranger happens along and tells you there may be oil on it? Bah!"

"Keep your temper," counseled Fluss in a low tone. "Well, rather than see two ladies lose a sale," he said with forced cheerfulness, "we will make you an offer of three thousand dollars. Money talks louder than fair words."

"I'll give you five thousand, cash," Mr. Gordon spoke quietly, but Betty bounced about on the sofa in delight.

Fluss leaped to his feet and brought his fist smashing down on the table.

"Six thousand!" he cried fiercely. "We're buying this farm. We'll give you six thousand dollars, ladies."

"Seven thousand," said Mr. Gordon conversationally. He did not shift his position, but his keen eyes followed every movement of the rascally pair. He said afterward that he was afraid of gun play.

"Oh—oh, my goodness!" stammered Miss Hope. "I can't seem to think."

"You don't have to, Madam," Fluss assured her, his immaculate gray tie under one ear and his clothing rumpled from the heat and excitement. "Sell us your farm. We'll give you ten thousand dollars. That's the last word. Ten thousand for this mud hole. Here's a pen—sign this!"

"Drop that pen!" thundered Mr. Gordon, and Miss Hope let it fall as though it had burned her fingers. "I'll give you fifteen thousand dollars," he said more gently.

Fluss looked at Blosser who nodded.

"Seventeen thousand," he shrieked, as though the sisters were deaf. "Seventeen I tell you, seventeen thousand!"

"Twenty," said Mr. Gordon cheerfully.

Miss Charity suddenly found her voice.

"I think we'd better sell to Mr. Gordon," she announced quietly.



CHAPTER XXIV

UNCLE DICK'S BUYER

Miss Hope, who had been wringing her hands, bewildered and hopelessly at sea, hailed this concrete suggestion with visible relief.

"All right, Sister, I think so, too," she agreed, glad for once not to have to make the decision. "You're sure you are not cheating yourself, Mr. Gordon, by paying us twenty thousand dollars?"

Mr. Gordon, who had strolled over to the door leading into the hall, assured her that he was well-satisfied with his bargain.

"Well, we'll be going," muttered Blosser. "All this comes from trying to do business with women. You had as good as passed us your word that you'd sell to us, and see what's happened. However, women don't know nothing about ethics. Come on, Fluss."

He was too disappointed and angry to notice the slip of his tongue, but Fluss flushed a brick red.

"Just one minute," said Mr. Richard Gordon, blocking the doorway. "You don't leave this place until you promise to produce that boy."

Blosser feigned ignorance, but the attempt deceived no one.

"What boy?" he blustered. "You seem bent on stirring up trouble, Stranger."

"You know very well what boy," retorted Mr. Gordon evenly. "You'll stir up something more than mere trouble if he isn't brought here within a few minutes, or information given where we may find him. Where is Bob Henderson?"

"Here, sir!" a blithe voice announced, and the door leading into a communicating room was jerked open.

Bob, his clothing a bit the worse for wear, but apparently sound and whole, stood there, brandishing a stout club.

"Oh, Bob!" Betty's cry quite drowned the exclamation of the aunts, but Bob had no eye for any one but Blosser and Fluss, who were making a wild attempt to get past Mr. Gordon.

"Have they bought the farm?" demanded the boy excitedly. "Did they get my aunts to sign anything for them?"

"I'm your new landlord, Bob," announced Mr. Gordon, patting himself on the chest. "Don't think you can put me off when the rent comes due."

"So that's all right," said Bob, with manifest relief. "As for those two scamps, who nearly choked me, well, let me get at them once."

Whirling his club he charged upon the pair who squealed in terror and tore past Mr. Gordon, down the hall and out into the yard, Bob in pursuit. Miss Hope and Miss Charity ran to the windows, and Betty and her uncle watched from the porch (Betty was going to follow Bob as a matter of course, but Mr. Gordon held her back) as the boy continued the chase. Fluss and Blosser presented a ludicrous sight as they ran heavily, their coats flapping in the wind and their hats jammed low over their eyes. Bob did not try to catch up with them, but contented himself with shouting loudly and swishing his heavy club through the air, while he kept just close enough to their heels to warn them that it was not safe to slacken speed. In a few minutes the watchers saw him coming back, walking, a broad grin on his face.

"Good little Marathon, wasn't it?" he called from the road. "Did you hear me yelling like an Indian? I chased them as far as the boundary line, and when I saw them they were still running. Gee, Mr. Gordon, I mean Uncle Dick, you got back from the oil fields just in time."

He came up on the steps and shook hands with Mr. Gordon, and submitted to a hug from each aunt.

"Have you really bought the farm?" he asked curiously. "Or was that just a blind?"

Miss Hope and Miss Charity looked anxiously at Mr. Gordon. They had planned exactly what to do with that twenty thousand dollars.

"We haven't signed an agreement," admitted the successful bidder, "but the farm is sold, all right. I'll give this check to Miss Hope now—" he hastily filled out a blank slip from his book—"as an evidence of good faith. Then I want to hear Bob's tale, and then I must do a bit of telephoning. And to-morrow morning, good people, I promise you the surprise of your lives."

Miss Hope glanced at the check he gave her, gasped, and opened her mouth to speak.

"Sh!" warned Mr. Gordon. "Dear lady, I've set my heart on staging a little climax; don't spoil it. To-morrow morning at eleven o'clock we'll have all the explanations. Now, Bob, what happened to you? I hear you nearly frightened your aunts into hysterics, to say nothing of Betty, whom I found tearing around Flame City hunting for a telephone."

Bob was in a fever of curiosity to know about the farm, whether Mr. Gordon thought there was a good prospect of oil or not, but Uncle Dick was not the kind of man to have his decisions debated. Bob wisely concluded to wait with what patience he could until the proper time. He turned to Betty.

"You know when we separated to hunt for Daisy?" he said. "Well, I went through the first field all right, but when I was passing those two old apple trees that have grown together, Fluss and Blosser jumped out and one of 'em threw a coat over my head so I couldn't shout. They downed me, and then Fluss stuffed his handkerchief in my mouth while Blosser tied my hands and feet. Daisy was behind the tree. I figured out they had come and got her, and I was mighty glad we had agreed to separate. I don't doubt they would have bound and gagged you, too, Betty, if you had been with me. They wouldn't stop at anything.

"They carried me to the barn loft——" Betty jumped a little. "Yes, I was up there when you were milking. Awfully hot up there in the hay it was, too. They were hiding near us when we planned to drop the bar as a signal, and I heard them laughing over that trick half the night. They slept up there with me—I was nearly dead for a drink of water—and once during the night Fluss did go down to the pump and bring me a drink, standing over me with that big club in case I should cry out when they took out the gag.

"This morning they watched and saw you ride off on Clover. They were in a panic for fear you would come back with some one before they could persuade the aunts to sell. I wish you could have seen them brushing each other off and shining their shoes on a horse blanket. They wanted to look stylish and as though they had just come from town instead of sleeping in a hayloft all night."

"They said they had stayed in Flame City over night," said Miss Hope indignantly. "The idea!"

"They had several," grinned Bob. "I certainly put in an anxious hour up there after they had gone down the ladder. You see, I didn't know Betty was going for Uncle Dick, and I didn't know that any one else would say there was oil on the place. Fluss had a roll of bills as big as your arm, and I pictured him flashing that and Aunt Hope so anxious to send me to school that she wouldn't leave a margin for herself and Aunt Charity to live on. If I had known that Uncle Dick was coming, I'd have saved myself a heap of worry."

"If I had had to telephone to him, it would have been too late," said Betty. "I just happened to find him in the post-office; didn't I, Uncle Dick?"

"I'd just got back from the fields and was after mail," Mr. Gordon explained. "I meant to stop and get directions from the Watterbys how to find the Saunders farm. Well, as it happened, everything was planned for the best."

"How did you get down from the loft, Bob?" Betty asked curiously.

"Cut the string that tied my wrists on a rusty scythe I found as I was crawling over the floor," said Bob. "Then, of course, I could pull out that nasty gag and untie my feet. I was a bit stiff at first, and I guess I fell down the hayloft ladder, but I was in such a hurry I'm not sure. The sharpers had left their club, and I brought that along for good luck. And, Aunt Hope, I'm starving to death!"

"Bless your heart, of course you are!" And Miss Hope hurried out to the kitchen, tucking Mr. Gordon's check into her apron pocket as she went. "I'll stir up some waffles, I think," she murmured, reaching for the egg bowl.

Mr. Gordon would not stay for dinner, for he was anxious, he said, to get to a telephone. He would spend the night with the Watterbys and be back the next morning with "an important some one."

"I'm so excited I can't walk straight," declared Betty, skipping between table and stove in an effort to help Aunt Hope with the dinner. "Goodness, it seems forever till to-morrow morning!"

Miss Hope and Miss Charity went about the rest of the day in a daze, and Bob and Betty, who could not settle down to any task, went out to the barn and enacted the scene of Bob's imprisonment all over again.

They were up at daybreak the next morning, and Miss Hope insisted on dusting and sweeping the whole house, though, as Bob said, it was hardly likely that their visitors would insist on seeing the attic.

"It isn't the house Mr. Gordon is interested in," the boy maintained sagaciously. "There's oil here, Aunt Hope," and this time Miss Hope did not contradict him.

At ten minutes to eleven Mr. Gordon drove up with a small, sandy-haired man who wore large horn-rimmed spectacles. He was introduced to Miss Hope and her sister as Mr. Lindley Vernet, and then the four went into the parlor and closed the door.

"Children not wanted," said Mr. Gordon, grinning over his shoulder at Bob and Betty, left sitting on the porch.

"Children!" snorted Betty, shaking an indignant fist in pretended anger. "If it hadn't been for us, or rather for you, Bob, this farm would have been sold for next to nothing."

"If it hadn't been for you, you mean," retorted Bob. "Who was it went and brought back Uncle Dick? I might have shouted myself hoarse, but those rascals would have beaten me somehow. Do you suppose this Mr. Vernet is going to buy the place?"

"I think he is the head of Uncle Dick's firm," said Betty cautiously. "At least I've heard him speak of a Lindley Vernet. But I thought Uncle Dick offered a lot of money, didn't you, Bob? How many acres are there?"

"Ninety," announced Bob briefly. "What's that? The door opened, so they must be through. No, it's only Aunt Charity."

But such a transformed Miss Charity! Her gentle dark eyes were shining, her cheeks were faintly pink, and she smiled at Betty and Bob as though something wonderful had happened.

"I came out to tell you," she said mysteriously, sitting down on the top step between them and putting an arm around each. "The farm is sold, my darlings. Can you guess for how much?"

"More than twenty thousand?" asked Betty. "Oh—twenty-five?"

"Thirty?" hazarded Bob, seeing that Betty had not guessed it.

Miss Charity laughed excitedly and hugged them with all her frail strength.

"Mr. Vernet is going to pay us ninety thousand dollars!"



CHAPTER XXV

HAPPY DAYS

"Ninety thousand dollars!" repeated Bob incredulously. "Why, that is a thousand dollars an acre!"

"He is sure they will drill many paying wells," said Miss Charity. "To think that this fortune should come in our old age! You can go to school and college, Bob, and Sister and I will never be a burden on you. Isn't it just wonderful!"

She went off into a happy little day-dream, and presently the conference broke up, and Miss Hope and the two men came out on the porch. Mr. Vernet proved to be a jolly kind of person, intensely interested in oil and oil prospects, and evidently completely satisfied with his purchase.

"Here's the young man I have to thank," he commented, shaking hands with Bob. "If those sharpers had got hold of the place, they would have forced me to buy at more than a fair risk, or else sold the land in small holdings and we should have had that abomination, close drilling. I'm grateful to you, my lad, for outwitting those slick schemers."

Miss Hope persuaded the two men to stay to dinner, and she and Miss Charity fairly outdid themselves in their cooking. Afterward Mr. Gordon took Mr. Vernet back to the oil fields, depositing in the Flame City bank for Miss Hope the check for twenty-five thousand dollars he had given her the day before, and the larger check she had received that morning.

"We're rich, Sister, rich!" said Miss Charity, drying the dinner dishes and so overcome that she dropped a china cup which crashed into tiny pieces on the floor.

"Well, don't break all the dishes," advised Miss Hope, with dry practicality. "You can't buy a pretty cup in Flame City if you are a millionaire."

Bob's head was full of plans for his education, and in the days that followed he often spoke of his future. Mr. Gordon listened and advised him frequently, and Bob grew fonder of him all the time.

Clover was brought back from the Flame City stable where Betty had left her, and they resumed their riding, Mr. Gordon hiring a horse and often accompanying them.

"You know, the aunts have never seen the oil fields," said Betty one day, as they were slowly riding home from the fields where they had seen the largest new well in operation for the first time. "Don't you think they would be interested, especially as their own farm will be an oil field next year?"

"We'll take them on a sightseeing trip," promised Mr. Gordon instantly. "If I can get a comfortable car, I'll come for you all to-morrow morning. They'll enjoy having dinner at the bunk house, and we'll show them the workings of the whole place. Imagine a person who has lived in this oil country and hasn't seen a well!"

The program was carried out, and the Misses Saunders thoroughly enjoyed the long day spent among the wells. They thought the machinery wonderful, as indeed it was, and marveled at the miles of pipe line.

Grandma Watterby, as might be expected, was delighted with the turn of events, and Betty and Bob spent a day with her, telling her all that had happened.

"It's better than a book," she sighed contentedly. "If Emma would only go around more, I'm sure she could find interesting things to tell me. 'Fore I was crippled with rheumatism, I used to know all that was goin' on."

The Watterbys had bought a car, and Bob was eager for his aunts to have one. They preferred to wait until it was decided where they were to spend the winter, and in this Mr. Gordon concurred. He had been made, at the request of the two old ladies and backed by the old country lawyer who had known their father, the guardian of Bob, who would not inherit his share of the ninety thousand dollars, of course, until he was twenty-one. Bob himself was very much pleased to be a ward of Betty's uncle, feeling that now he "really belonged," as he happily said.

"Who do you suppose this is from?" asked Betty, waving a letter at Bob one morning not long after their visit to the oil fields with the aunts. "You'll never guess!"

Bob looked up from his book. He was luxuriously stretched under a tree, reading.

"From Bobby Littell?" he ventured.

"Bob Henderson, can you read the postmark from where you are?" Betty looked disappointed for a moment. "Oh, well, I might have known you would have guessed it. It is from Bobby. Want to hear a little bit?"

"I don't mind," conceded Bob graciously, keeping a finger in his book.

"She says they've been to Atlantic City for a month," explained Betty. "That is, Bobby, Esther, Louise and Mrs. Littell. Mr. Littell could spend only a week with them. And now the girls are going to boarding school. Listen.

"'Louise and I are going away to school this fall, and though Esther is crazy to go, too, Dad says he must have one of us at home, so I think she will have to wait a year or two. Louise and I have been to Miss Graham's for three years, and I don't see why it isn't good enough for Esther till she is as old as we are. But you know she always wants to do everything we do. Oh, Betty, wouldn't it be too lovely for words if you should come to boarding school with us? Please ask your uncle, do. You can't spend the winter in Oklahoma, can you? And if you are going to school I know you would like the one we're going to. It is so highly recommended, and Mother personally knows the principal. I tell you—I'll see that a catalogue is sent to you, and you show it to your uncle. Libbie thinks maybe she will go.'

"And she winds up by saying that her father and mother send their love, and they all want to know how you are and if you found your aunts," concluded Betty, folding the letter. "I must write to Bobby and tell her your good luck."

"Do you want to go to boarding school?" asked Bob. "Where is this place she's so crazy about—in Washington?"

"I don't know just where, but I don't think it is very near Washington," answered Betty carelessly. "Of course I'd love to go to boarding school. Do you suppose Uncle Dick would be willing?"

Mr. Gordon, when consulted, promised to "think it over," and as Betty knew that none of his plans for the next few weeks were definitely settled and that the Littell girls would not go off to school before the middle of October, she was content to wait.

"Your education and Bob's are matters for serious thought," he told them more than once. "In some ways I think you are further advanced than most girls and boys of your age, but in other branches you will have to work hard to make up, Bob especially, for rather desultory training. I'll have a long talk with you both just as soon as I get some business matters straightened out."

So Bob and Betty put the school question aside for serious discussion, and proceeded to enjoy the days that followed. If any one is interested to know whether Betty did go to boarding school with the Littell girls and how Bob went about getting the education so long unfairly denied him, the answer may be found in the next volume of this series.

Mr. Gordon was still obliged to be away for several days at a time, and Betty and Bob continued to stay with Bob's aunts. They made very little change in their mode of living, Miss Hope remarking that she "never was one to spend money; she liked to know it was in the bank, in case of need, but the older I get, the less I want." As for help, there was none to be had for any amount of money, so Bob took care of the live stock till it should be sold. The oil company was to take over the farm the first of October.

"What a perfectly grand time we have had after all," remarked Betty to Bob one day, after a ride into the country.

"Yes, everything seems to be coming our way," said the boy, with satisfaction. "Gee, I never dreamed I'd be so rich!"

"Oh, you'll be richer some day, Bob. And wiser, too. Now you've got the chance for an education I hope to see you a great lawyer or a doctor or an engineer—or something or other like that," and Betty gazed at him hopefully.

"All right, Betty," he answered promptly. "If you say so, it goes—so there!"

And here let us leave Betty Gordon and say good-bye.

THE END



THE BETTY GORDON SERIES

BY ALICE B. EMERSON

12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors

Price per volume, 65 cents, postpaid

1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM or The Mystery of a Nobody

At twelve Betty is left an orphan.

2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON or Strange Adventures in a Great City

Betty goes to the National Capitol to find her uncle and has several unusual adventures.

3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL or The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune

From Washington the scene is shifted to the great oil fields of our country. A splendid picture of the oil field operations of to-day.

4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL or The Treasure of Indian Chasm

Seeking treasures of Indian Chasm makes interesting reading.

5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP or The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne

At Mountain Camp Betty found herself in the midst of a mystery involving a girl whom she had previously met in Washington.

6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK or School Chums on the Boardwalk

A glorious outing that Betty and her chums never forgot.

7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS or Bringing the Rebels to Terms

Rebellious students, disliked teachers and mysterious robberies make a fascinating story.

8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH or Cowboy Joe's Secret

Betty and her chums have a grand time in the saddle.

9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS or The Secret of the Mountains

Betty receives a fake telegram and finds both Bob and herself held for ransom in a mountain cave.

10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARL or A Mystery of the Seaside

Betty and her chums go to the ocean shore for a vacation and there Betty becomes involved in the disappearance of a string of pearls worth a fortune.

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THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES

BY ALICE B. EMERSON

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Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every reader.

Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction.

1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL 2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL 3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP 4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT 5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH 6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND 7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM 8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES 9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES 10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE 11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE 12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE 13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS 14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT 15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND 16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST 17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST 18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE 19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING 20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH 21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS 22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA 23. RUTH FIELDING AND HER GREAT SCENARIO

CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, Publishers New York



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Minor changes have been made to correct obvious typesetter errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.

2. In the advertising pages at the end of this book, the book titles and the publisher's name were set in bold font face; this has been noted by a = beginning and ending the heavy font.