IN THE LAND OF LUCK
"Well, here we are in Texas at last."
"And what immense stretches of country there seem to be, Jack. Miles and
miles without a house or any other building."
"You must remember, boys, that Texas is the largest State in the Union,"
came from Dick Rover. "Some of the farms, or ranches, down here cover
thousands of acres."
"How much farther have we to ride?" questioned Randy.
"Ten miles, that's all," replied his uncle.
They had made two changes since leaving New York City, but each stop had
been less than an hour in duration; so to these boys so used to outdoor
activities it felt as if the whole journey had been continuous. They
were bound for a small town which in years gone by had been known as
Steerville, but the name of which since the oil boom had been changed to
Columbina. This, so far as Dick Rover could ascertain, was the nearest
point to where the Lorimer Spell tract was located.
"We'll take a look around Columbina first," Jack's father had said. "I
want to see how that claim looks. Then I'll take a run over to Wichita
Falls and get those documents belonging to Spell from the safe deposit
box in the bank."
"I see an oil well!" shouted Fred presently, and he pointed out of the
car window to where the huge derrick could be seen over a distant rise
of ground.
"There is another! And another!" added Andy, a few minutes later.
"Now we must be coming into the oil fields," announced Dick Rover, and
his face showed that he was just as eager as the boys. "Just think of
how some of these wells have made a great many comparatively poor people
almost millionaires over night!"
"It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it, Dad?" exclaimed Jack. "No
wonder they call this the land of luck."
"But don't forget the disappointments, Son. Many a man has put his all
into sinking a well only to find it absolutely dry."
"And wells cost so much to sink, too!" put in Fred. "Ten to forty
thousand dollars each! It's an awful amount to gamble away."
"Not all of the wells cost that much, Fred. In some places they strike
oil at a distance of a few hundred feet. But here they have to go down
much deeper. Many good wells are down three thousand feet or more."
The train had stopped at one or two towns, and now the porter announced
that the next stop would be Columbina, and he took their suitcases to
the platform for them. Presently they rolled up to a small wooden
station, and the travelers alighted. Then the heavy train rolled
westward.
"Welcome to Columbina!" cried Andy jestingly. "Some big city, I must
declare. I wonder where the Waldorf-Vanderbilt Hotel is located?"
"What's the matter with going to the Ritz-Copley Square?" added his
twin, with a grin.
"Perhaps we'll be thankful to get any kind of a shake-down, boys,"
announced Dick Rover. "This certainly is worse than I anticipated,
although I knew that we couldn't expect much in one of these boom
towns."
To a newcomer Columbina certainly offered no special attractions. Only a
few years before it had been nothing but a point where the ranchmen had
shipped their steers on the railroad, with a tiny stockyard and a small
ranchmen's hotel and saloon combined. Now the boom city, if such it
might be called, consisted of a long straggling main street with a much
dilapidated boardwalk on one side only. In the middle of the street the
mud was all of a foot deep, and through this wagons and automobiles
plowed along as best they could. All of the buildings were of wood, and
none of them more than three stories in height. There were half a dozen
general stores, the same number of eating and drinking places, and two
buildings which were designated as hotels, O'Brian's being one and
Smedley's the other. There was also a long, shed-like moving picture
theater advertised to be open twice a week, in the evening.
"I was advised by a man on the train to try the Smedley Hotel first,"
said Dick Rover. "He thought I'd find a better class of people there
than at the O'Brian place. Wait till I ask the station master where the
hotel is located."
"You can't miss it," said the station man, when applied to. "It's down
at the end of that boardwalk. If you go any further you'll sink into mud
up to your knees," and he smiled feebly.
"Any chance of our getting in there?"
"Just as good a chance as getting in anywhere. They tell me O'Brian's
place is so full they're falling out of the windows," and the station
master chuckled over his little joke.
"Anything in the way of a taxicab around here to take us and our baggage
up there?"
"Taxicab? The last man to run a taxicab was Jim Lumpkins, and now Jim's
struck oil and he's so rich he won't do nothing. If you want to get up
to Smedley's I reckon you'll have to hoof it."
"Come on, Dad, let's walk up there," said Jack.
"But your suitcases are pretty heavy," answered his father, with a
smile.
"Oh, we won't mind those," declared Fred. "We've hiked around with just
as much to carry many times."
"I sha'n't mind it myself," declared his uncle. "Campaigning in France
was a splendid thing to harden one's muscles."
They set off down the one business street of which Columbina boasted.
They had to pick their way carefully along the dilapidated boardwalk. At
one point they came opposite O'Brian's Hotel. Downstairs was a saloon,
and in this a noisy bunch were talking and singing.
"I don't know as I would care to stop there," remarked Randy. "It looks
like rather a tough hole to me."
"You are right," responded Jack. "I'd rather go to some private house,
if I could find one, or else buy a tent and hire a place where we could
pitch it."
"Gee, that's an idea!" cried Andy. "I'd much rather go camping out and
do my own cooking than put up with just any old thing."
At length they came to Smedley's Hotel. It was a new building, three
stories in height, with a restaurant occupying one-half of the lower
floor. Half a dozen men were occupying chairs on the front piazza, and
they eyed the newcomers curiously.
"Looks fairly clean, anyway," whispered Fred to his cousins. "I wouldn't
want to get into some old ranch that was full of bugs."
The office of the hotel was about twelve feet square, with a sanded
floor. On one side was a plain wooden settee, and on the other an
equally plain counter on which rested a register and a bell. Behind the
counter was a tall, freckle-faced man with a shock of red hair.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said hospitably. "What can I do for
you?"
"We want to know if we can be accommodated here," answered Dick Rover.
"There are five of us."
"How long do you want to stay?"
"I don't know exactly. Several days at least, and maybe a week or two."
"I see." The hotel proprietor scratched his head thoughtfully. "I've got
one big room left and one small room directly opposite. The small room
has only a single bed in it, but the other room has a double bed and I
could easily put two cots in there besides that."
"Would you mind showing us the quarters?" questioned Jack's father.
Experience had taught him when in out-of-the-way places not to accept
hotel accommodations until he had inspected them.
"Sure thing, Brother. Just follow me."
The boys waited below while Dick Rover and the hotel man went upstairs.
A minute later they came down, and then Jack's father registered for the
entire crowd.
"You pay for your meals in the restaurant when you get 'em," announced
the hotel man. "The rooms are separate. Three dollars each per day."
The rooms to which they had been assigned were on the third floor of the
hotel. One was amply large for all of the boys, and the other, while
much smaller, had good ventilation and Dick Rover said it would suit him
very well.
"The whole outfit is better than I was afraid it might be," he
announced. "Some of these boom towns have wretched quarters for
newcomers. In fact, I've read in the newspapers that in many places the
newcomers had to roll themselves in blankets and sleep out in the
fields."
"I was reading about one place where they set up cots on the floor of a
general store at night and sold the right to sleep on a cot until seven
o'clock in the morning for one dollar," said Randy.
There was no running water, but each room was supplied with a bowl and
pitcher, and after the extra cots were placed in the larger apartment an
extra bucket of water was also brought up by a maid.
Although they did not know it, the Rovers had no sooner disappeared
upstairs than two of the men sitting on the veranda of the hotel came
into the office and looked over the register.
"Five Rovers, and all from New York City," muttered one of the men, and
gazed knowingly at his companion.
"Four of them were nothing but kids," returned the other. "It's only the
man who counts, and his name seems to be Richard Rover."
"Do you think he is the same Rover?"
"I shouldn't wonder, Tate. That name isn't a common one. However, we had
better make sure before we make another move."
Andy and Fred were the first to get through washing up, and then they
came downstairs to take a look around before going into the dining-room
with the others for supper. They came out on the hotel porch, and were
surveying the scene before them when the two men who had inspected the
hotel register lounged up to them.
"Well, what do you think of our town?" questioned one of them
pleasantly.
"I haven't seen enough of it to form an opinion," answered Fred.
"It will take us a week or two, I suppose, to take in all the sights,"
came from Andy, with a grin.
"It might take you a week or two if you went on foot through the mud,"
answered the second man. And then he continued: "I suppose you came from
a distance, eh?"
"We came from New York."
"Going to invest in some oil wells, I suppose?" remarked the first man
who had spoken, and he smiled broadly.
"That depends on how we find things here," answered Fred. "You see, my
uncle is interested in a tract of land they say has oil on it. Of course
he'll want to make an investigation before he goes ahead."
"Is that man who is with you your uncle?"
"Yes."
"Is the tract of land he is interested in near here?" questioned the
second man.
"I don't know how close it is to this town."
"What's the tract called? If you don't know exactly where it is, perhaps
we can help you locate it."
"It's the Lorimer Spell tract," answered Fred innocently. He thought the
men were just asking out of idle curiosity.
"Oh, I see." The man frowned and looked at his companion.
"Do you know anything about that tract?"
"Oh, I've heard of it. It's up on the north side of the town. I
understand Spell was shot during the war," the man continued, looking at
the boys.
"He was," answered Andy. "And he left all his property to my Uncle Dick,
who once saved his life."
"Oh, that's it, is it!" cried one of the men. "Seems to me I heard
something about that. Your uncle played the regular hero act."
"As I said before, he saved Lorimer Spell's life, and did it at the risk
of his own. It was in the midst of one of the fiercest fights."
At this moment Jack and Randy came rushing down the stairs and out on
the porch of the hotel in great excitement.
"We just saw somebody up the street!" exclaimed Jack. "And who do you
think it was? Gabe Werner!"