voir from which it had come, how
great the strength of confined gas that sent it heavenward.

For nearly five minutes the spectators sat watching the flow of oil
which told of the value of "The Harnett," until Bob broke the spell that
bound them, by shouting:

"Hurrah for 'The Harnett!' Hurrah for petroleum!"

In an instant all present, even including George, burst into loud shouts
of welcome to the long-confined and valuable product of the earth which
was theirs.

During the thirty minutes that the new well spouted, congratulations
were poured in on Bob from all sides, for through his efforts had this
work been done, and without him it might have been many years before
such a scene would have been witnessed on the Simpson wood-lot.

The partners hardly knew how to express their joy. George was quietly
happy; but the unusual brilliancy of his eyes and the flush on his
cheeks told of the deep but suppressed excitement under which he was
laboring. In that steady upward flow of oil he saw a competency for
himself and his mother, which he had not dreamed he should secure during
many long years of toil, and as he clasped her fervently by the hand,
she knew that it was of the many things this well would produce which
would add to her comfort that he was thinking.

Old Mr. Simpson and his wife stood with clasped hands, looking at the
representation of wealth which was pouring out before them, and in their
eyes, even as they gazed, was a far-away look, as if they were thinking
of their loved ones who, when on this earth, had been deprived of many
of the necessaries of life, while wealth beyond their wildest imaginings
lay beneath their very feet.

Ralph was laboring under the most intense excitement, which he strove
vainly to suppress. He had not, like George, been obliged to battle with
the world for those things which money can buy; but he saw before him a
course already marked out, which he had believed he would be obliged to
struggle very hard to reach.

Now he was rich, and all those things he had desired could be his.

Jim and Dick were loud in their demonstrations of joy that their last
shot had produced such magnificent results; but their old partner, Bob,
outstripped them all in loud rejoicings. He had demonstrated beyond the
possibility of an argument that his location of the oil belt in the
vicinity was correct, and he had done so even as against the theories of
those older and more experienced in the busin