negative side of coil should be one of the wires that goes to the pickup in the distributor, and should be hot unless there is a better ground than your test-light (like through the contacts if it had contacts),
The other wires (that also go to the electric lock-off if it has one one might also go to the pickup in the distributor), should be on the same side of the coil as the wire from the key switch. the "trigger" of the coil is when the negative side of the coil opens, (breaks continuity to negative) and that is when you get your spark. if you don't get a spark when you take b- away from coil- and you have b+ on the other side of the coil, you have a bad coil (maybe in this case, a bad resistor? or just the wires wrong on the coil?)