Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/133

Rh Betty said no, and the horses being brought round by Ki, who had insisted on saddling them, she and Bob rode off. It was faintly dusk, and a new moon hung low in the sky.

"Isn't it lovely?" sighed Betty. "In spite of sickness and danger and selfish people, I love this country on an evening like this. What do you think we ought to do about telling your aunts. Bob? I knew Grandma would ask that question."

"Why, if they're sick, I think it would be utterly foolish to mention a nephew to 'em," said Bob cheerfully. "They probably are blissfully unaware that I'm alive, and trying to explain to them would likely bring on an attack of brain fever. I'm just a neighbor dropped in to help while they're laid up."

Betty could not bring herself to speak of the evident poverty of the lonely Saunders home. She had built so many bright castles for Bob, and the dilapidated house and buildings she had left that afternoon quite failed to fit into any of the pictures. However, she remembered happily, there was always the prospect of oil.

"It can't be out of the fields," she argued to herself. "Just suppose oil should be discovered in that section! Bob might easily be a millionaire!"

Bob was silent, too, but his thoughts were not