t."

"Well, we've got to take what comes. You must remember this is the land
of luck--good or bad."

At last Ogilvie announced that they were getting to the point where the
first well would soon be shot off. There were some indications of oil,
although not as strong as Mr. Fitch had hoped. The oil expert had put up
his five thousand dollars in the company which had been formed, so he
was almost as anxious as those who had larger sums invested.

"Here's news for you!" shouted Andy, bursting in on the others the next
noon. "What do you know about this? Say, I guess those fellows are going
to catch it all right enough!" and he began to dance around the floor.

"What are you talking about, Andy?" demanded his brother.

"They say the well on the Lorimer Spell claim has run dry!"

"Run dry!" came from the others.

"Yes, run dry--or next door to it! They got only fifteen barrels the day
before yesterday, and yesterday they got not more than three."

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Jack. "Who told you this?"

"One of the men who worked there. Carson Davenport was so mad that when
the man said something to him about it he fired him. The man said he was
coming over here to look for a job--that he was sure the whole thing was
petering out."

The news soon circulated, and Dick Rover was so interested that he went
off the next day to Columbina to ascertain the truth.

"It's so, all right enough," he said, on returning. "They didn't get
more than a barrel or so to-day. It has certainly gone back on them. Of
course, they can bore the well deeper. But I guess Mr. Fitch was right.
He said that there was more or less surface oil--that they hadn't tapped
any real vein or pocket."

The day before the first of the wells on the Franklin farm was to be
shot off the Rover boys went to Columbina on an errand to one of the
stores. Just as they were coming out of this establishment they saw an
automobile dash through the mud on the way to the railroad station.
Behind it came another automobile filled with a number of men, all
yelling wildly for those in the first automobile to stop.

"Hello, something is going on!" exclaimed Jack.

"Let's go after them and see what's doing," suggested Fred.

The others were willing, and all set off on a run down the main
thoroughfare of the town. As they ran they heard the distant whistle of
a locomotive.

"I guess the crowd in the first auto want to catch that three-o'clock
express," remarked F