hat reason he did something which may have an
important bearing on my future business dealings," answered Dick Rover.
"He said he had no relatives of any kind, and he then and there made a
will whereby if anything happened to him all that he possessed in this
world should go to me."

"And then he was killed?" questioned Mrs. Rover.

"Yes. Just two days after his return to duty we were making another
advance. Spell was in one part of the field while I was in another.
Suddenly I saw him running off to a place just in front of where our
squad was located. Then he made a turn as if to come toward us, and just
at that instant he threw up his hands and fell forward on his face."

Here Dick Rover paused and dropped his eyes. No one cared to speak, and
for an instant there was utter silence.

"When the skirmish was over we had gained our position, and a few hours
later the body of Lorimer Spell was picked up and carried to the rear,"
went on Jack's father. "A bullet had struck him in the back of the head,
and death must have been instantaneous.

"I confess that I felt pretty bad. A number of the company knew of the
will Spell had made, and two of them were witnesses to the crude
document he had drawn up. As a consequence, Spell's personal effects
were turned over to me. They included a small amount of money, a ring, a
wrist watch, and a number of papers, including an order for a box in a
safe deposit vault in a bank in Wichita Falls, Texas."

"Poor fellow, it's too bad he couldn't have lived to enjoy himself now
the war is at an end," remarked Mrs. Sam Rover.

"Were any of his papers of value?" questioned Jack curiously.

"That remains to be found out, Jack. His papers spoke of a valuable
tract of oil land in Texas close to the boundary line between that State
and Oklahoma."

"Oil lands!" exclaimed Randy. "Why, they may be worth a fortune, Uncle
Dick! They are making immense strikes in oil down in that territory."

"I know that, Randy. Some of the wells are worth a fortune. But, on the
other hand, you must remember that many of the tracts that are supposed
to have oil on them have so far proved to be utterly dry. Men spend ten
to forty thousand dollars in sinking a well only to find in the end that
they have had their labor for their pains."

"Did Lorimer Spell say that his land had oil on it?" questioned Fred.

"From the way his papers and letters read one would think so, Fred. But,
as I said before, Spell was a v