“Why, you poor old dotard, there’s no oil in these specimens.  You can smell ’em yourself if you want to,” he said.  But there was something in his manner of the lady who doth protest too much.

“No, I can’t,” Uncle Henry was swift to deny.  “My smeller’s no good.”  He sniffed comically—­as if that proved his point.

“Let him examine them, then,” suggested Pell, holding the satchel out to Gilbert, who stood on the other side of the table.

But Gilbert said nothing.  It was Uncle Henry who again blurted out: 

“That don’t prove nothin’.  Mebbe he hasn’t found the oil yet.  But it’s here!  If it ain’t, why should you be fightin’ so hard to get this rotten place?  Tell me that, will you?  Nobody else ever wanted it—­except this kindly neighbor of ours!” He glared at Hardy triumphantly.

Pell was silent.  Gilbert came to himself.

“Oil!” he said.  “Then this ranch, instead of being worth nothing, would be worth hundreds of thousand of dollars—­maybe millions!” He had taken the bag from Pell’s extended hand, and now turned in dismay and confusion to the window, and put the bag on a chair.  What a world it was, and how terrible that every other man seemed to be a predatory animal, ready to spring upon his neighbor and wrest anything he had away from him.  What a world, indeed!  No wonder young men lost their faith and courage!

“Millions!” The word caught Uncle Henry’s fancy and imagination.  He rolled it over on his tongue again and again.  “Millions!” He babbled it, he played with it.  “Millions!”

“Yes!” Gilbert said.  “Think of that!” He turned and faced the others once more.

“An’ we’re goin’ to get skinned out of millions!  Oh, my Gawd!” The poor old invalid wailed it out, and rocked himself in his chair.  How he wished he could rise, step out on the floor and knock Pell and Hardy down!  Why didn’t his strong and husky young nephew do it?  What was the matter with the present generation, anyhow?  Wasn’t there any red blood in it?  If he had only been younger, and strong, able to fight for what he knew to be his rights!  But here he was, tied down in a wheel chair, trapped, helpless, impotent.

Pell was getting nervous, “This is nonsense,” he said.  “There’s no oil here.”

During all this long harangue, Lucia had quietly come down the stairs, and now stood directly behind her husband.

“And this is why you were so anxious to come here,” she said, very low; yet everyone heard her statement.  “To dig around, and then, if you found oil, to try to buy this place!  Oh, I thought better of you than that, Morgan!  What a trick—­what a dishonorable trick!” She shuddered away from him.  She almost hated him in this revealing moment.

“And why not?” was all her husband said.  “Hadn’t I a right to look for oil here?  Suppose it was on the place?”

“You wouldn’t have told him if you had found it!  You know you wouldn’t,” his wife shot back at him.