I'll guarantee the seepage to last for a month, even if he has the well bailed out every day, and the creek will carry oil for half a mile." "Would your one-lunged friend know how to play in ?" "_Would_ he?
It was his idea, and all that kept us off of it last year was the fact that the oil would have to be hauled about thirty miles, and we didn't have the price between us to hire a truck." For some time the trio discussed the various angles of Stoner's proposition, endeavoring if possible to devise some natural way of intriguing the interest of Henry Nelson.

On this score McWade had fewer apprehensions than did his companions, his contention being that it mattered not how the matter was brought to the banker's attention so long as the property would stand investigation.

Nelson was bound to be suspicious, anyhow, and a sale depended entirely upon the character of the oil showing.

McWade's coolness toward the enterprise, it transpired, was occasioned not by a loftier sense of rectitude than his associates displayed, but by lingering doubts as to the profits involved.
Not until Brick declared that his tubercular friend would accede to any arrangement he saw fit to make did the junior partner fall in with the proposal.

"If it's a fair, square deal all around, I'm for it," the latter finally agreed.