Betty Gordon in
the Land of Oil
OR
The Farm That Was Worth a
Fortune
BY
ALICE B. EMERSON
AUTHOR OF "BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM," "BETTY GORDON IN
WASHINGTON," "THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Books for Girls
BY ALICE B. EMERSON
12mo. Cloth. Illustrated.
BETTY GORDON SERIES
BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM
BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON
BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL
RUTH FIELDING SERIES
RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL
RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL
RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP
RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT
RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH
RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND
RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM
RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES
RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES
RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE
RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE
RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS
RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT
RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND
RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST
CUPPLES & LEON CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL
Printed in U. S. A.
[Illustration: CLOVER TOOK THE BIT BETWEEN HER TEETH AND BEGAN TO
RUN. "Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil." Page 100]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BREAKFAST EN ROUTE 1
II THINKING BACKWARD 9
III WHAT BOB HEARD 17
IV BLOCKED TRAFFIC 25
V BETWEEN TRAINS 33
VI QUICK ACTION 41
VII A YANKEE FRIEND 49
VIII FLAME CITY 58
IX OLD INDIAN LORE 67
X BOB LEARNS SOMETHING 74
XI AN OIL FIRE 83
XII IN THE FIELDS 91
XIII THE THREE HILLS 100
XIV TWO INVALIDS 108
XV UNEXPECTED NEWS 117
XVI HOUSEKEEPER AND NURSE 126
XVII SICK FANCIES 134
XVIII STRANGE VISITORS 143
XIX LOOKING BACKWARD 152
XX BETTY IS STOPPED 160
XXI WHERE IS BOB? 169
XXII OFF FOR HELP 177
XXIII SELLING THE FARM 186
XXIV UNCLE DICK'S BUYER 195
XXV HAPPY DAYS 204
BETTY GORDON IN
THE LAND OF OIL
CHAPTER I
BREAKFAST EN ROUTE
"There, Bob, did you see that? Oh, we've passed it, and you were
looking the other way. It was a cowboy. At least he looked just like
the pictures. And he was waving at the train."
Betty Gordon, breakfasting in the dining-car of the Western Limited,
smiled happily at Bob Henderson, seated on the opposite side of the
table. This was her first long train trip, and she meant to enjoy
every angle of it.
"I wonder what kind of cowboy you'd make, Bob?" Betty speculated,
studying the frank, boyish face of her companion. "You'd have to be
taller, I think."
"But not much thinner," observed Bob cheerfully. "Skinny cowboys are
always in demand, Betty. They do more work. Well, what do you know
about that!" He broke off his speech abruptly and stared at the table
directly behind Betty.
Betty paid little attention to his silence. She was busy with her own
thoughts, and now, pouring golden cream into her coffee, voiced one
of them.
"I'm glad we're going to Oklahoma," she announced. "I think it is
heaps more fun to stop before you get to the other side of the
continent. I want to see what is in the middle. The Arnolds, you
know, went direct to California, and now they'll probably never know
what kind of country takes up the space between Pineville and Los
Angeles. Of course they saw some of it from the train, but that isn't
like getting off and _staying_. Is it, Bob?"
"I suppose not," agreed Bob absently. "Betty Gordon," he added with a
change of tone, "is that coffee you're drinking?"
Betty nodded guiltily.
"When I'm traveling," she explained in her defense, "I don't see why
I can't drink coffee for breakfast. And when I'm visiting--that's the
only two times I take it, Bob."
Bob had been minded to read her a lecture on the evils of coffee
drinking for young people, but his gaze wandered again to the table
behind Betty, and his scientific protest remained unspoken.
"For goodness sake, Bob," complained Betty, "what can you be staring
at?"
"Don't turn around," cautioned Bob in a low tone. "When we go back to
our car I'll tell you all about it."
Bob gave his attention more to his breakfast after this, and seemed
anxious to keep Betty from asking any more questions. He noticed a
package of flat envelopes lying under her purse and asked if she had
letters she wished mailed.
"Those aren't letters," answered Betty, taking them out and spreading
them on the cloth for him to see. "They're flower seeds, Bob. Hardy
flowers."
"You haven't planned your garden yet, have you?" cried the astonished
boy. "When you haven't the first idea of the kind of place you're
going to live in? Your uncle wrote, you know, that living in Flame
City was so simplified people didn't take time to look around for
rooms or a house--they took whatever they could get, sure that that
was all there was. How do you know you'll have a place to plant a
garden?"
Betty buttered another roll.
"I'm not planning for a garden," she said mildly. "You're going to
help me plant these seeds, and we're going to do it right after
breakfast--just as soon as we can get out on the observation
platform."
Bob stared in bewilderment.
"I read a story once," said Betty with seeming irrelevance. "It was
about some woman who traveled through a barren country, mile after
mile. She was on an accommodation train, too, or perhaps it was
before they had good railroad service. And every so often her
fellow-passengers saw that she threw something out of the window.
They couldn't see what it was, and she never told them. But the next
year, when some of these same passengers made that trip again, the
train rolled through acres and acres of the most gorgeous red
poppies. The woman had been scattering the seed. She said, whether
she ever rode over that ground again or not, she was sure some of the
seeds would sprout and make the waste places beautiful for
travelers."
"I should think it would take a lot of seed," said the practical Bob,
his eyes following two men who were leaving the dining-car. "Did you
get poppies, too?"
"Yellow and red ones," declared Betty. "The dealer said they were
very hardy, and, anyway, I do want to try, Bob. We've been through
such miles of prairie, and it's so deadly monotonous. Even if none of
my seed grows near the railroad, the wind may carry some off to some
lonely farm home and then they'll give the farmer's wife a gay
surprise. Let's fling the seed from the observation car, shall we?"
"All right; though I must say I don't think a bit of it will grow,"
said Bob. "But first, come back into our coach with me; I want to
tell you about those two men who sat back of you."
"Is that what you were staring about?" demanded Betty, as they found
their seats and Bob picked up his camera preparatory to putting in a
new roll of film. "I wondered why you persisted in looking over my
shoulder so often."
Bob Henderson's boyish face sobered and unconsciously his chin
hardened a little, a sure sign that he was a bit worried.
"I don't know whether you noticed them or not," he began. "They went
out of the diner a few minutes ahead of us. One is tall with gray
hair and wears glasses, and the other is thin, too, but short and has
very dark eyes. No glasses. They're both dressed in gray--hats,
suits, socks, ties--everything."
"No, I didn't notice them," said Betty dryly. "But you seem to have
done so."
"I couldn't help hearing what they said," explained Bob. "I was up
early this morning, trying to read, and they were talking in their
berths. And when I was getting my shoes shined before breakfast, they
were awaiting their turn, and they kept it right up. I suppose
because I'm only a boy they think it isn't worth while to be
careful."
"But what have they done?" urged Betty impatiently.
"I don't know what they've done," admitted Bob. "I'll tell you what I
think, though. I think they're a pair of sharpers, and out to take
any money they can find that doesn't have to be earned."
"Why, Bob Henderson, how you do talk!" Betty reproached him
reprovingly. "Do you mean to say they would rob anybody?"
"Well, probably not through a picked lock, or a window in the dead of
night," answered Bob. "But taking money that isn't rightfully yours
can not be called by a very pleasant name, you know. Mind you, I
don't say these men are dishonest, but judging from what I overheard
they lack only the opportunity.
"They're going to Oklahoma, too, and that's what interested me when I
first heard them," he went on. "The name attracted my attention, and
then the older one went on to talk about their chances of getting the
best of some one in the oil fields.
"'The way to work it,' he said, 'is to get hold of a woman
farm-owner; some one who hasn't any men folks to advise her or meddle
with her property. Ten to one she won't have heard of the oil boom,
or if she has, it's easy enough to pose as a government expert and
tell her her land is worthless for oil. We'll offer her a good price
for it for straight farming, and we'll have the old lady grateful to
us the rest of her life.'
"If that doesn't sound like the scheming of a couple of rascals, I
miss my guess," concluded Bob. "You see the trick, don't you, Betty?
They'll take care to find a farm that's right in the oil section, and
then they'll bully and persuade some timid old woman into selling her
farm to them for a fraction of its worth."
"Can't you expose 'em?" said Betty vigorously. "Tell the oil men
about them! I guess there must be people who would know how to keep
such men from doing business. What are you going to do about it,
Bob?"
The boy looked at her in admiration.
"You believe in action, don't you?" he returned. "You see, we can't
really do anything yet, because, so far as we know, the men have
merely talked their scheme over. If people were arrested for merely
plotting, the world might be saved a lot of trouble, but free speech
would be a thing of the past. As long as they only talk, Betty, we
can't do a thing."
"Here those men come now, down the aisle," whispered Betty excitedly.
"Don't look up--pretend to be fixing the camera."
Bob obediently fumbled with the box, while Betty gazed detachedly
across the aisle. The two men glanced casually at them as they
passed, opened the door of the car, and went on into the next coach.
"They're going to the smoker," guessed Bob, correctly as it proved.
"I'm going to follow them, Betty, and see if I can hear any more.
Perhaps there will be something definite to report to the proper
authorities. From what Mr. Littell told us, the oil field promoters
would like all the crooks rounded up. They're the ones that hurt the
name of reputable oil stocks. You don't care if I go, do you?"
"I did want you to help me scatter seeds," confessed Betty candidly.
"However, go ahead, and I'll do it myself. Lend me the camera, and
I'll take my sweater and stay out a while. If I'm not here when you
come back, look for me out on the observation platform."
Bob hurried after the two possible sharpers, and Betty went through
the train till she came to the last platform, railed in and offering
the comforts of a porch to those passengers who did not mind the
breeze. This morning it was deserted, and Betty was glad, for she
wanted a little time to herself.