TROUBLE BREWING
NED STOPPED in his work of gathering up his papers and looked
inquiringly at Tom.
“Hankinshaw!” he repeated. “What about him? What have you got against
him outside of his smoking vile tobacco?”
“A good deal,” answered Tom emphatically. “He’s just about as popular
with me as a rattlesnake at a picnic party.”
“Why the snake?” asked Ned quizzically. “I’m not much of an authority on
natural history, but I’d call him an old crab and let it go at that.
What has he done especially that peeves you?”
“Several things,” replied Tom, who did not care to mention Mary’s name
and tell of the annoyance she had experienced. “For one thing, I’m
pretty sure that he was driving a machine last night that nearly sent me
to kingdom come. Hogged the road and made me go into a ditch. Then
grinned like a gargoyle as he whizzed past. I tell you for a minute I
saw red, and it’s a lucky thing for him that I didn’t get my hands on
him.”
“I imagine that’s the type of fellow he is,” said Ned. “I don’t wonder
that you felt like beating him up. Sorry that Thompson or Bragden didn’t
stop over to look after the work instead of him. They may be no better
than he is at heart, but at least they have the manners of gentlemen.
But, after all, it will be for only a few weeks, and we’ll try to make
the best of it.”
The next day Ned telegraphed to the California bank, and to his
satisfaction learned that the check was good.
“It’s all right,” he told Tom.
“Then I’ll go ahead,” said the young inventor. “I’ll start in right away
and order the material we need, and I’ll get busy gathering all the
information on oil-well machinery and trying to improve on it. No more
car rides or airplane spins, or anything else, for a while. Here’s where
I shed my coat and work night and day. Watch my smoke.”
The next week was one of intense energy and application for the young
inventor. He had the gift of losing himself in his work, especially when
that work interested him. And the further he went into the subject the
greater the grip it got upon him. His enthusiasm grew as he plunged into
the fascinating study of the tremendous riches in oil that the earth
held beneath its surface. Soon he was absorbed in it as in a thrilling
romance. He traced the gradual steps by which men of all climes and in
all ages had sought to possess themselves of this marvelous wealth
stored in nature’s caverns and only yielded up reluctantly.
“Do you know,” he said one night to Ned, as they sat discussing the
matter in the office, “that the Chinese were the pioneers in the matter
of oil-well digging?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Ned. “But I’m not surprised. Those old Chinamen
seem to have started most of the things we’ve improved on later. There’s
gunpowder and the compass and a raft of other things.”
“Well, digging for oil was one of them,” said Tom. “And the principles
they applied underlie the methods we’re using to-day. Of course, they
didn’t use steam power, and that’s where we’ve got the bulge on them.
They worked by man power, and that apparatus was laughably crude when
compared with ours, yet their methods were strikingly similar to those
we’re using now or have been using very recently.”
“For instance?” said Ned, with a lifting of the eyebrows.
“Well, take their springboard arrangement,” replied Tom. “The cutting
tool, or bit, was suspended in the hole by means of a rattan cable, and
the required movement was given to it by a springboard. When a coolie
jumped on the board, it raised the bit; when he relieved it of his
weight the bit fell and cut its way downward. A drum with a vertical
shaft, around which oxen traveled in a circle, coiled the cable and
lifted the drill out of the hole when they wanted to bail out the hole
or change tools. The bailer was made of a section of bamboo, and that
material was also used for tubing and casing and pipe lines.
“Now, this springboard was very similar in action and function to the
springpole which we’ve used here in America, chiefly at first for
drilling brine wells. It was used, too, in drilling the first oil well
of the California fields.”
“But they’ve given that up now, haven’t they?” asked Ned.
“Sure they have,” was the answer. “The walking beam, which is the
biggest piece of timber in the present-day drilling rig, has taken its
place. And, of course, that’s now operated by steam instead of manual
labor. But my point is that the old springboard process of the Chinese
and the springpole method that we’ve used till recently are
fundamentally based on the same thing—the percussion process.”
“We’ve got a long way from that now, I imagine,” remarked Ned.
“We have and we haven’t,” replied Tom. “Percussion is still in common
use in a great many wells, especially when they’re not supposed to go
very deep and where the rocks are of comparatively soft stone. But where
these conditions don’t exist, the rotary method is often employed. In
that case two strings of pipe are used, one to wall up the hole, while
the other with the drill attached is rotated inside of it. An important
thing in connection with this method is that a circulation of thick mud
pumped through the drill stem will support the walls of the hole until
the well is completed, provided it isn’t too deep. It’s being used a lot
now in the Texas fields, and I’m looking into it thoroughly. I tell you,
old boy, it’s a fascinating study.”
“That’s the way I like to hear you talk,” said Ned, with a smile. “Once
you get interested in a thing, you’ll never stop until you improve on
it. I’ll bet a year’s salary that before a month’s over, you’ll have
invented something that will set the country talking.”
“Don’t risk your money so recklessly,” laughed Tom.
“I’m not rash,” replied Ned. “As a matter of fact, such a wager wouldn’t
be sportsmanlike, for I’d be betting on a sure thing.”
Although Tom’s time had been taken up so fully day and night with the
contract he had on hand and the new invention he was evolving, he had
not forgotten or neglected the unfortunate airman whom he and his
friends had saved from death.
Several times each week he called up the hospital by telephone to learn
how the patient was progressing. And he had requested Mrs. Baggert, the
housekeeper of the Swift home, to send fruit, jellies and other
delicacies to the sufferer, a task which that warm-hearted woman
undertook gladly.
“Come along, Ned,” said Tom one afternoon. “Let’s jump into the roadster
and go up to the hospital. I want to see for myself how the poor fellow
is getting along. Those ’phone calls are usually answered by the
secretary, and she’s rather hazy in her reports. I want to have a talk
with Doctor Sherwood himself. Nothing like going right to headquarters.”
Ned looked rather dubiously at a pile of papers on his desk.
“I’d like to,” he said, “but——”
Tom laughed, picked up Ned’s hat, jammed it on his friend’s head, and
yanked him out of his office chair.
“You’ve got such winning ways, I can’t resist you,” observed Ned,
surrendering with a grin.
In a few minutes they were at the hospital. In the hall they met Dr.
Sherwood, who was just coming out of one of the wards. He greeted them
heartily.
“I can guess what you’ve come for,” he remarked. “I wish I had more
cheerful news for you about that poor fellow you brought here. But it’s
proved to be a more serious case than I thought at first it would be.
The fractured leg is mending all right, but his head’s in a bad way.
It’s a case of brain concussion. He must have hit his head pretty hard
when he dived into the tree. Most of the time he’s unconscious or
semi-conscious, and his temperature stays high.”
“You don’t think he’ll die, do you?” asked Tom anxiously.
“No-o,” replied the doctor slowly, “I hardly think so. Still, you can’t
tell. He’s a mighty sick man. But come along with me and you can see
him.”
They followed him on tiptoe into one of the rooms. But they did not need
to be so careful, for the young man with flushed face and disordered
hair who lay on the cot was wholly oblivious to their presence. He was
babbling in delirium, and there was no intelligence in the eyes whose
restless glances passed over the visitors as though they were not there.
It was a saddening sight, and as the boys could be of no service they
quickly took their leave.
“No clue to his identity yet?” asked Tom of the doctor, who had
accompanied them out on the steps of the hospital.
“No,” was the reply. “Lots of people have looked at him without
recognizing him. We’ve had many letters from all parts of the country
from people who had read of the accident and thought the young fellow
might be a missing son or some other relative. But he doesn’t answer to
any of the descriptions given. And he himself hasn’t been in a condition
to tell us who he is.”
“That young fellow certainly got a rough deal,” remarked Ned, as he and
Tom walked away. “Think of his suffering like that and being all
alone—I mean as far as his folks are concerned.”
“Yes, Ned, and think of his folks, if he has any. How they must be
worrying about him.”
“Queer he didn’t have some sort of tag on his clothing. Most aviators
wear them.”
“So they do. But fellows get careless. I suppose he forgot all about
it.”
The next week was a busy one for Tom. During the evenings he was
engrossed in the study of everything he could find that bore in the most
remote degree on the subject of oil and oil wells. He had already a very
extensive scientific and mechanical library, but in addition he wrote
and wired to learned societies and Government bureaus for their latest
bulletins and reports. These were soon coming in to him by every mail,
and he devoured them with an insatiable appetite. Any one looking over
from the house could see the light burning in his office till long after
midnight.
And every night when Tom at last put out the light and stepped outside,
he saw either a very slight or a very massive figure waiting to
accompany him over the short distance that lay between the office and
the house. One night it would be Rad and the next night Koku. Those two
had had many wrangles on the subject of who should guard their idolized
master, and had finally compromised on taking turns.
Tom at first had laughed and then scolded, but to no purpose.
“You nebber kin tell, Marse Tom,” Rad had said, shaking his woolly head,
when Tom remonstrated with him, “w’en somebuddy might cum nosin’ an
spifflicatin’ roun’ here w’en you’s busy wid yo’ wuk; an’ ef dey does,
dey’s goin’ to fin’ ’Radicate Sampson right on de job. Nussah, nussah,
Marse Tom, dey ain’t no use argifyin’. Ah stays heah while you stays
heah.”
Koku was less voluble, but no less devoted.
“Me sleep when you sleep,” he said simply.
Faced with such loyalty, Tom could do nothing but surrender.
The days were no less busy than the nights, though in another way. Tom
spent hours with Garret Jackson, the manager of the mechanical
department of the works. He was a first-class mechanic, clear-headed and
forward looking, and had been with the Swift Construction Company for
years. Tom had not only the greatest respect for his ability, but also
implicit confidence in his discretion. Again and again it had been
necessary for Tom to entrust him with secrets of his inventions while he
was having special machinery made, and he had never betrayed his trust.
Repeatedly Tom thanked his stars that he had two such faithful coworkers
as Ned Newton in the financial end and Garret Jackson in the mechanical
part of his business.
As a result of his conferences with Jackson, it was not long before a
high fence began to be constructed in a rather remote section of the
plant. Many curious glances were cast at it as it went up, enclosing an
area of about a hundred feet square. What it was intended for only a few
knew, and the cold stare of Jackson when any one hinted at a question
soon discouraged the inquisitive.
It was just verging on dusk one night, when Tom, coming back from the
post-office, passed the one large confectionery store which the town of
Shopton possessed. He glanced carelessly through the window and saw that
the store contained two customers, a man and a girl. The latter, who was
a trifle out of the direct line of Tom’s vision, was edging away from
the man, who seemed to be annoying her. The man followed and laid his
hand on her arm.
The girl threw it off and faced him indignantly. As she did so, Tom saw
that it was Mary!
In a flash he was in the store.