several well-proprietors and the commercial firm
in whose behalf I was engaged, and who had
purchased my patent of a new process for
refining the crude petroleum. When able to walk
tolerably, I had not neglected this duty, and had
concluded a bargain with Elder Rutherford for
the delivery of a certain quantity of coarse oil
at specified periods. With Deacon Boone I
was unable to come to terms, and I should have
left Sparta but for my interest in Joe, and my
wish to serve him if I could, were it only by
keeping him from drubbing Mr. Tapper, and
incurring the risk of crushing damages at law.
Joe's position with respect to Deacon Boone
and his daughter was, of course, well known
throughout that small community, and much
sympathy was expressed for the young woodsman.

On the evening of the day when the well-
digger had ceased operations, I had taken a
short stroll among the wooded spurs of the hills
which belt in the rich alluvial meadows, with no
other companion than a stout hickory walking-
stick. Rather tired, I was glad to sit down
under a giant black walnut, whose spreading
boughs hummed pleasantly overhead as the wind
waved them, and I lazily watched the wild
pigeons winging their way home towards the
forests.

Presently a dead branch crackled under a
heavy listless tread, and Joe came striding down
the path, with his rifle cast into the hollow of
his left arm, his hat pulled over his eyes, and a
sullen desperate look that it was painful to mark.

I was on the point of rising to accost him,
when something rustled briskly through the
scrubby ravine to my left, and a low voice called
out,

"Joe! hist! Joe Mallory!"

"Who calls?" answered the young man,
stopping short.

"A friend, I guess!" answered the same
low hissing voice. And out from among the
shrubs glided a lean figure, with a broad straw
hat and a suit of yellowish jean—Elder Hiram
Rutherford.

"I've no humour to talk much to-night,
mister; I'm best by myself, jest now," said
Joe, roughly. The elder laughed a little
hoarse laugh, with malice and craft in the ring
of it, but his voice was not unkindly toned as
he said,

"Silly boy, don't you go blockin' your own
light. You jest listen to me, on'y five minutes,
and then cut up rough and shirk my cumpny,
if ye like."

Without awaiting a reply, the shrewd old man
caught Joe by the arm, and walked by his side,
talking fast but low, with upraised forefinger,
but evidently with earnest emphasis quite foreign
to his usual sneering manner. Even had I been
disposed to turn eavesdropper, not a word could
I have caught. I got quietly up from my resting-
place, and limped home.

Miss Esther was vexed that evening, for Joe
was late, and the tea grew black and bitter, the
cakes cold, and the spruce beer flat, with long
waiting. But when her nephew did return, he
wore a strangely flushed and excited aspect, and
there was a glow on his cheek, and an elasticity
in his step. And yet, though evidently in high
spirits, there was something odd about Joe. He
avoided meeting my gaze, or his aunt's gaze,
whenever he could. He shuffled about, turning
his shoulder on the company. He ate and drank
and laughed in a boisterous way, but as if his
thoughts were busy elsewhere.

That night, Joe's chamber being next to mine,
I could have sworn I heard his window stealthily
opened an hour after midnight, and a dull sound
as of a big man squeezing himself through a
casement almost too narrow to give him egress.
Then followed the cautious tread of a heavy foot
on the garden paths. Though why Joe, as
master of the house and of himself, should choose
to slip out like a truant schoolboy was beyond
my comprehension. Next night the same sound
was audible at the same hour. Nay more, I
looked from my little window, and caught the
gleam of a dark lantern in the garden, passing
rapidly on.

But the morning after a surprise occurred
which put these nocturnal sights and sounds out
of my head.

A new flowing well of oil had been discovered,
and, wonder of wonders, it was not only on Joe's
land, but it had burst forth from the very
excavation he had caused to be made! A cowboy
passing with his herd along the lane had first
seen the jet and heard the splash of the spouting
petroleum, and the news had spread like
wildfire over the village.

Before breakfast nine-tenths of the people of
Sparta, men, women, and children, had gathered
in a ring to gaze, open-mouthed and open-eyed,
at the portent. There was no mistake about the
matter. The tawny liquid, like thick dirty
water, leaping up in a thick pillar of fluid,
and arching over as it poured its spray into
a little pool of oil, was genuine petroleum,
and the quantity was considerable.
Fortune had knocked at my host's door while
he slept, or at any rate while he was supposed
to sleep.

Bating a little not unnatural envy, the impulse
of the neighbours was to be sincerely glad.
Next to having such an outcrop of luck within
his own bounds, every man present would have
selected Joe as the best recipient for such a
boon. In elder times and elder countries, the
windfall might have been assigned to the bounty
of the fairies; but, as it was, more than one
man, and many women, loudly declared the
appearance of the oil a "dispensatory" in Joe's
favour.

"What will Deacon Boone say to 't?" was the
general cry.

Meanwhile I was standing among the rest,
sorely puzzled. My professional knowledge
made me suspect that some subterranean flow
of the petroleum had taken place, and that in
all probability Elder Rutherford's well would be
a loser by as much as Joe's gained. But, beyond
the fence of partition, I could see the elder's