e leash.

"Yes, it looks that way," returned the other, commencing to get upon his
feet, "and I suppose we'd be safe in going on our way again."

"But, Jack, don't you mean to take a peep over there where that chap was
digging so wildly to learn what he was up to?" demanded Toby.

Jack looked at him as though trying to make up his mind.

"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, 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.

CHAPTER 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."

"Then I won't tell Steve a single thing about t