shoulder so often.”

Bob Henderson’s boyish face sobered and unconsciously his chin hardened a little, a sure sign that he was a bit worried.

“I don’t know whether you noticed them or not,” he began. “They went out of the diner a few minutes ahead of us. One is tall with gray hair and wears glasses, and the other is thin, too, but short and has very dark eyes. No glasses. They’re both dressed in gray—hats, suits, socks, ties—everything.”

“No, I didn’t notice them,” said Betty dryly. “But you seem to have done so.”

“I couldn’t help hearing what they said,” explained Bob. “I was up early this morning, trying to read, and they were talking in their berths. And when I was getting my shoes shined before breakfast, they were awaiting their turn, and they kept it right up. I suppose because I’m only a boy they think it isn’t worth while to be careful.”

“But what have they done?” urged Betty impatiently.

“I don’t know what they’ve done,” admitted Bob. “I’ll tell you what I think, though. I think they’re a pair of sharpers, and out to take any money they can find that doesn’t have to be earned.”

“Why, Bob Henderson, how you do talk!” Betty reproached him reprovingly. “Do you mean to say they would rob anybody?”

“Well, probably not through a picked lock, or a window in the dead of night,” answered Bob. “But taking money that isn’t rightfully yours can not be called by a very pleasant name, you know. Mind you, I don’t say these men are dishonest, but judging from what I overheard they lack only the opportunity.

“They’re going to Oklahoma, too, and that’s what interested me when I first heard them,” he went on. “The name attracted my attention, and then the older one went on to talk about their chances of getting the best of some one in the oil fields.

“‘The way to work it,’ he said, ‘is to get hold of a woman farm-owner; some one who hasn’t any men folks to advise her or meddle with her property. Ten to one she won’t have heard of the oil boom, or if she has, it’s easy enough to pose as a government expert and tell her her land is worthless for oil. We’ll offer her a good price for it for straight farming, and we’ll have the old lady grateful to us the rest of her life.’

“If that doesn’t sound like the scheming of a couple of rascals, I miss my guess,” concluded Bob. “You see the trick, don’t you, Betty? They’ll take care to find a farm that’s right in the oil section, and then they’ll bully and persuade some timid old woman into selling her farm to them for a fraction of its worth.”

“Can’t you expose ’em?” said Betty vigorously. “Tell the oil men about them! I guess there must be people who would know how to keep such men from doing business. What are you going to do about it, Bob?”

The boy looked at her in admiration.

“You believe in action, don’t you?” he returned. “You see, we can’t really do anything yet, because, so far as we know, the men have merely talked their scheme over. If people were arrested for merely plotting, the world might be saved a lot of trouble, but free speech would be a thing of the past. As long as they only talk, Betty, we can’t do a thing.”

“Here those men come now, down the aisle,” whispered Betty excitedly. “Don’t look up—pretend to be fixing the camera.”

Bob obediently fumbled with the box, while Betty gazed detachedly across the aisle. The two men glanced casually at them as they passed, opened the door of the car, and went on into the next coach.

“They’re going to the smoker,” guessed Bob, correctly as it proved. “I’m going to follow them, Betty, and see if I can hear any more. Perhaps there will be something definite to report to the proper authorities. From what Mr. Littell told us, the oil field promoters would like all the crooks rounded up. They’re the ones that hurt the name of reputable oil stocks. You don’t care if I go, do you?”

“I did want you to help me scatter seeds,” confessed Betty candidly. “However, go ahead, and I’ll do it myself. Lend me the camera, and I’ll take my sweater and stay out a while. If I’m not here when you come back, look for me out on the observation platform.”

Bob hurried after the two possible sharpers, and Betty went through the train till she came to the last platform, railed in and offering the comforts of a porch to those passengers who did not mind the breeze. This morning it was deserted, and Betty was glad, for she wanted a little time to herself.

CHAPTER II

THINKING BACKWARD

Betty leaned over the rail, flinging the contents of the seed packets into the air and breathing a little prayer that the wind might carry them far and that none might “fall on stony ground.”

“If I never see the flowers, some one else may,” she thought. “I remember that old lady who lived in Pineville, poor blind Mrs. Tompkins. She was always telling about the pear orchard she and her husband planted the first year of their married life out in Ohio. Then they moved East, and she never saw the trees. ‘But somebody has been eating the pears these twenty years,’ she used to say. I hope my flowers grow for some one to see.”

When she had tossed all the seeds away, Betty snuggled into one of the comfortable reed chairs and gave herself up to her own thoughts. Since leaving Washington, the novelty and excitement of the trip had thoroughly occupied her mind, and there had been little time for retrospection.

This bright morning, as the prairie land slipped past the train, Betty Gordon’s mind swiftly reviewed the incidents of the last few months and marveled at the changes brought about in a comparatively short time. She was an orphan, this dark-eyed girl of thirteen, and, having lost her mother two years after her father’s death, had turned to her only remaining relative, an uncle, Richard Gordon. How he came to her in the little town of Pineville, her mother’s girlhood home, and arranged to send her to spend the summer on a farm with an old school friend of his has been told in the first volume of this series, entitled “Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm; or, The Mystery of a Nobody.” At Bramble Farm Betty had met Bob Henderson, a lad a year or so older than herself and a ward from the county poorhouse. The girl and boy had become fast friends, and when Bob learned enough of his mother’s family to make him want to know all and in pursuit of that knowledge had fled to Washington, it seemed providential that Betty’s uncle should also be in the capital so that she, too, might journey there.

That had been her first “real traveling,” mused Betty, recalling her eagerness to discover new worlds. Bob had been the first to leave the farm, and Betty had made the trip to Washington alone. This morning she vividly remembered every detail of the day-long journey and especially of the warm reception that awaited her at the Union Station. This has been described in the second book of this series, entitled “Betty Gordon in Washington; or, Strange Adventures in a Great City.” If Betty should live to be an old lady she would probably never cease to recall the peculiar circumstances under which she made friends with the three Littell girls and their cousin from Vermont and came to spend several delightful weeks at the hospitable mansion of Fairfields. The Littell family had grown to be very fond of Betty and of Bob, whose fortunes