RAD TURNS UP
“YOU INVENTED it yourself?” cried Mr. Blythe. “And you’ve dug this well
in a third of the time that the ordinary drill requires? Why, Mr. Swift,
do you know that you have made one of the most important inventions of
this century? Where is the drill? Can I look at it? Have you patented
it? Is it for sale? Are you open to a proposition?”
The questions came tumbling from him one after the other in a way that
showed plainly how this astute business man had been shaken out of his
customary calm.
His agitation helped to confirm Tom’s own conviction that he possessed a
fortune in his drill. And since he had it, he was in no haste to let it
go to the first bidder. Others would want it too, and he had determined
to let them bid against each other. He was not to be rushed off his
feet.
“I can’t go into that now, Mr. Blythe,” he said. “In the first place, I
have my hands full in arranging to get my oil to market. Then, in such
an important thing as the sale of my patent, if I should determine to
sell it, I must think things over carefully.”
Mr. Blythe urged and argued, but Tom was not to be shaken.
“Promise me this then,” said Mr. Blythe at last. “Promise that you won’t
make any disposition of it until I have had a chance to get in touch
with my company and they have had an opportunity to make you an offer.”
“I can’t make promises,” replied Tom.
“Not if I pay you a handsome sum down for your promise to wait three
days before you commit yourself to any one else?” asked Mr. Blythe,
drawing out his checkbook from his pocket. “That doesn’t put you under
any obligation to accept our offer. You can refuse that offer if you
like. It simply gives us three days’ time to get in a bid.”
“Put up your checkbook, Mr. Blythe,” replied Tom, with a friendly smile.
“I don’t want to be bound in any way. You’ve got the telegraph and the
long distance telephone at your disposal, and you can communicate with
your New York office. When I have your actual offer in my hand, if your
people choose to make one, I promise to give it fair and careful
consideration. Further than that I can’t go.”
Baffled for the moment, Mr. Blythe bade Tom a hasty farewell, jumped
into his car, and put off toward Copperhead at a speed that threatened
to break the laws. Tom looked after him with a smile, and then turned to
matters that claimed his immediate attention.
Ned and Mr. Damon were interested and amused when Tom told them that
night of his interview with Mr. Blythe.
“Bless my prophetic powers!” cried Mr. Damon. “I told you they’d all be
crazy to get hold of it.”
“Let them worry,” said Ned, with a grin. “It will be good for their
souls.”
Later Tom gave them a bit of news.
“I’m expecting Rad down here to-morrow or next day,” he remarked. “It
looks as though we’d be in this part of the country for quite a time
now, and I thought I might as well let him come along. In the last
letter I had from Dad, he said that Rad seemed miserable and didn’t know
what to do with himself. Said he was making a nuisance of himself about
the house. So I wrote and told him to send him down.”
Sure enough, the following day the old negro arrived at the farm. Tom
had looked for him by a later train, and so there was no one to meet Rad
and he had walked the four miles from the station. He was overjoyed at
seeing Tom, and showed every tooth in a glistening smile as his young
master met him at the gate.
“Dis sho’ am a sight fo’ sore eyes, Marse Tom, it sho’ am! Seemed lak Ah
wouldn’t nebber git here, and den some fool niggah down in de town give
me de wrong directions, an’ Ah thought Ah nebber would arrive.”
“Well, I’m mighty glad that you are here, Rad. I felt sure that you’d
like this better than loafing around back home. How do you like the
little you’ve seen of this oil country?”
“Cain’t say dat Ah t’inks much of it,” he replied, with a gloomy shake
of his kinky head. “It seems powerful hilly and all dat, but Ah reckon
it cain’t be helped.”
“No,” laughed Tom. “These hills look as though they had been put here to
stay. But there’s plenty to eat, and Mr. Goby’s daughter is a good
housekeeper and has a fine cook, so possibly you’ll come to like it
better after awhile.”
“Dere’s nothin’ like havin’ plenty to eat,” declared Rad, while his
glistening countenance assumed its usual happy expression. “Pears to me
Ah feels a bit hungry right now,” and he looked hopefully at Tom.
“I imagine dinner will be ready in about an hour, if you think you can
survive that long,” Tom informed him.
“Reckon Ah’ll have to stick it out some way,” answered the colored man
resignedly. “Wharat am dis yere oil well, Marse Tom? Does you let a
bucket down into it an’ tote up some oil when you needs it?”
“Not exactly,” answered Tom, with a grin. “The hard thing to do with
this well is to keep the oil in. For some reason or other, it seems very
anxious to escape. It was spouting up a hundred feet into the air the
day we tapped it.”
Rad rolled his eyes in astonishment, but was too overcome to make any
remark. When Tom showed him the capped well he was visibly disappointed.
It is hard to say what he expected to see, but evidently the quiet
appearance of the well did not impress him much.
“Ah thought dat dis yere well would be raisin’ all kinds o’ ructions,
but it looks jest as peaceable as kin be,” he observed. “A fool niggah
down at de depot tole me it made a noise dat a feller could heah fo’
miles and miles, but Ah doan heah even a whispah fum it. Reckon dat man
mus’ have been jest a plain, ornary prevasticator.”
“The trouble is, you arrived too late, Rad. You should have been here
the day the well started. But don’t let that worry you. There’s apt to
be plenty of noise and excitement around here before we see Shopton once
more. I heard to-day that the Hankinshaw crowd is out after our scalps,
and we may have our hands full with them before long.”
That Koku and Rad were glad to be reunited goes without saying, though
they were soon engaged as lustily as ever in their vociferous but
harmless verbal battles.
Tom had received word that morning from a friend in Copperhead that the
Hankinshaw gang were furious over the news of his successful strike, and
had sworn to get even by hook or crook. Tom was not sure that this
warning should be taken seriously, and yet it might be well to be on his
guard, so that afternoon he and Mr. Damon and Ned had a conference to
discuss the matter. They decided that about all they could do was to
keep a wary eye out for the first hostile move of their enemies, and
trust to outwitting them if they could.
“I don’t exactly see what they could do,” mused Ned thoughtfully.
“Of course, there’s always the possibility of personal violence,”
returned Tom. “I know that Hankinshaw hates me like poison and he
wouldn’t weep any bitter tears if something happened to me. But I’ve
handled him before and I can handle him again if he starts anything.”
“I know,” faltered Ned. “But he’s slippery and underhanded, and——”
“He might not face you in the open,” put in Mr. Damon anxiously. “There
are a lot of desperate characters hanging around every new oil field,
and he might hire some of them to do what he wouldn’t dare to do
himself. Be on your guard, my boy. Hankinshaw is a man to be reckoned
with.”