"Gosh! look at this, will you?" cried Fred, pointing to the article.

"Two wells just came in, and each of them good for twelve hundred barrels of oil a day! Now that's what I call something like!"

"Wouldn't it be glorious if my dad could strike something like that?"

"I wish we could hit half a dozen wells, then our dads could start The Rover Oil Company. We'd make money hand over fist. Wouldn't that be grand!"

"You keep on and you'll be dreaming of oil," laughed Jack.

"It certainly is the land of luck," returned Randy.

"It doesn't look like the land of luck for this fellow," remarked Fred, pointing to a ragged and unkempt individual who had just entered the reading room of the hotel. The man was about middle age, and had a most decidedly dejected appearance.

"I was wondering if you young gents couldn't aid me a little?" he whined, coming up to Jack and Randy. "I've been playing in mighty hard luck lately. I haven't had a square meal in two days."

"What's the matter--can't you get a job?" asked Jack.

"Job! What do you mean?" questioned the unkempt individual in wonder.

"If you're out of luck, why don't you go to work?"

"Say, maybe you don't know who I am!" exclaimed the man indignantly.

"You're right there. Who are you?"

"I am Wellington Jonkers, the man who opened the Little Kitty and the Fat Herring. You must have heard about those properties. We sold eighty thousand shares of one and sixty thousand shares of the other."

"What at?" questioned Randy. "Two cents a share?"

"No, sir! Those shares went for twenty and twenty-five cents," said the man. And then, lowering his voice to a confidential tone, he continued: "If you young gents can stake me to a hundred or two I can put you wise to the biggest proposition in oil down here--a proposition that is bound to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars three months after it's started. I've got everything fixed to go right ahead. You just put up the two hundred, and I'll show you some facts and figures that will open your eyes. I've got the real dope, and----"

"You poor fish, you!" exclaimed Jack. "What do you take us for, anyhow?"

He and the others had seen this type of oil well community parasite before. In the restaurant attached to the hotel and also at the railroad station and at the shooting gallery they had met more than one slick individual who had wanted to "put them wise to the biggest oil proposition" imaginable, all for the small sum of from two cents to fifty cents per share in oil wells with such fanciful names as Sure Winner, Daylight Luck, and Sunshine Sally.

"Then you don't want to go into a real good thing?" said the man, his face falling.

"Not with you."

The man turned away, but then turned back:

"Say, you couldn't lend me five dollars until to-night, could you? I'm a little short. My pard will be back on the seven-fifteen train, and then I'll be all fixed again."

"I haven't anything for you," answered Jack shortly.

"And neither have I," added Randy. And then, lighting a cigarette, the man shuffled away to see if he could not find some victims elsewhere.

"There's your land of luck from another angle," remarked Jack. "What pests those fellows are."

"Well, I suppose they start in with all sorts of hopes, Jack. And then they sink lower and lower as nothing proves lucky," answered his cousin.

The boys were waiting for the mail, and presently it came in. There were letters for all of them, some from home and others from their chums who were now enjoying themselves in various places. Dan Soppinger had gone to Atlantic City, while Ned Lowe and Walt Baxter were on an island in Cas...o...b..y on the Maine coast. Gif was visiting Spouter and his folks in a camp at Lake George.

"I'll bet they're having a lot of fun at Lake George," remarked Fred, "swimming and motor-boating, and all that."

"Fred is thinking of May," returned Andy, with a grin.

"Aw, you cut that out, Andy!" retorted his cousin, growing slightly red in the face. "You know you'd like to be up there yourself."

One of Jack's letters was from Gif, and in that his chum mentioned the fact that Ruth was still in the care of the eye specialist and that her case was a very serious one. He told Jack much more than Martha had let out, and this news made the oldest Rover boy worry greatly.

"It's a terrible thing," he confided to Randy. "Just suppose poor Ruth should go blind!" and he shuddered.

"Oh, Jack! I don't believe it's as bad as all that," cried his cousin.

"Why, Ruth was almost over it when we came away from school."

"No, she wasn't. That's just the trouble. The doctor up there evidently didn't give her enough care--or, at least, just the right kind of care.

Of course, he did the best he knew how, but he wasn't an expert in that line. After Ruth got home her eyes must have developed some new trouble, all, of course, on account of that pepper Werner threw."

"It was a rotten thing for Werner to do!" declared Randy, his eyes flashing. "Really, do you know, Jack, I think we should have had him arrested for it."

"He'll certainly have to account to the Stevensons if Ruth goes blind--he and his father. I believe the Stevensons could sue Mr. Werner for big damages."

"Of course they could."

"That certainly is a terrible affair," remarked Fred, who had been perusing Gif's letter. "I think we ought to round Werner up and give it to him good and plenty. He deserves the licking of his life."

"The question is--where is Werner?" put in Andy.

"If he is still around Columbina he must be with Nappy and Slugger,"

said Randy. "But it's just possible that he has cleared out, thinking that we might hand him over to the authorities."

"I can't understand what would possess a fellow to do such a dirty thing as that," was Fred's comment. "Why, he might have blinded Jack, as well as Ruth. And, by the way, Jack, how do your eyes feel?"

"They feel just about as usual. At first they felt rather scratchy and watery, but now I haven't noticed anything unusual for some time--in fact, never since we came down to Texas. But, you see, I got very little of the pepper. The most of it went over my shoulder and right into poor Ruth's eyes."

The boys discussed the matter for some time, and then turned to finish the letters they had started to write. Soon the twins and Fred were deep in their writing, but Jack could not settle himself to put down a word.

His mind was with Ruth. What if the girl he thought so much of should go blind? It was a thought that chilled him to the heart.

CHAPTER XXVII

CAUGHT BY THE ENEMY

d.i.c.k Rover did not return to the hotel until late that evening. The boys were waiting for him, and Jack noted that his father's face wore a smile of satisfaction.

"I think I have struck something worth while," said he. "I have been over the Franklin claim very carefully with Nick Ogilvie and the two men he recommended, and as a result I have already telegraphed for Mr. Fitch to come here."