they got into their heads now, and he supposes it's some more of that
whale nonsense.

The boys clam up. They say this is nothing like whales, but a dry-land
proposition too important to talk about; that I've sworn everyone to
secrecy, but he'll see soon enough what it is when the big money begins
to roll in. They don't mind telling him it's an African proposition of
new and nourishing food, a regular godsend to the human race, but they
got to keep quiet until I get my options bought up so I'll have the
cream of the business.

Safety sniffs in a baffled manner and tries to worm out a hint, but they
say it's a thing would go like wildfire once it got known, being so much
tastier than whale meat and easier to handle, and eating almost nothing.

"Whales was pretty good," says Sandy; "but since the boss got a line on
this other animal she's disposed of her whale interests for seventy-three
thousand dollars."

Buck Devine says I showed him the check, that come in yesterday's mail,
and let him hold it a minute so he could say he once held seventy-three
thousand dollars in his hand just like that. And the money was to be put
into this new business, with the boys being let in on the ground floor,
like they had been with the whales. Sandy says that in probably a year
from now, or eighteen months at the most, he won't be a thing but a
dissipated millionaire. Nothing but that!

Safety is peculiar in his mind. If you told him you found a million gold
dollars up in the top of that jack pine he wouldn't believe it, yet still
and all he'd get a real thrill out of it. He certainly does cherish