here you can not
understand what people say to you."

No Bob was to be seen when Betty reached her seat, but excited
passengers were apparently trying to fall head-first from the car
windows.

"I think we've run over some one," announced a fussy little man with
a monocle and a flower in his buttonhole.

With a warning toot of the whistle, the train began to move slowly
forward. It went a few feet, apparently hit something solid, and
stopped with a violent jar.

"Oh, my goodness!" wailed a woman who was clearly the wife of the
fussy little man. "Won't some one please go and find out what the
matter is?"

Betty looked toward the car door and saw Bob pushing his way toward
her.

CHAPTER III

WHAT BOB HEARD

When Bob entered the smoking-car he saw the two men he had pointed
out to Betty seated near the door at the further end of the car. The
boy wondered for the first time what he could do that would offer an
excuse for his presence in the car, for of course he had never
smoked. However, walking slowly down the aisle he saw several men
deep in their newspapers and not even pretending to smoke. No one
paid the slightest attention to him. Bob took the seat directly
behind the two men in gray, and, pulling a Chicago paper from his
pocket, bought that morning on the train, buried himself behind it.

The noise made by the train had evidently lulled caution, or else the
suspected sharpers did not care if their plans were overheard. Their
two heads were very close together, and they were talking earnestly,
their harsh voices clearly audible to any one who sat behind them.

"I tell you, Blosser," the older man was saying as Bob unfolded his
paper, "it's the niftiest little proposition I ever saw mapped out.
We can't fail. Best of all, it's within the law--I've been reading
up on the Oklahoma statutes. There's been a lot of new legislation
rushed through since the oil boom struck the State, and we can't get
into trouble. What do you say?"

The man called Blosser flipped his cigar ash into the aisle.

"I don't like giving a lease," he objected. "You know as well as I
do, Jack, that putting anything down in black and white is bound to
be risky. That's what did for Spellman. He had more brains than the
average trader, and what happened? He's serving seven years in an
Ohio prison."

Bob was apparently intensely interested in an advertisement of a new
collar button.

"Spellman was careless," said the gray-hai