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RALPH GURNEY'S OIL
SPECULATION
By JAMES OTIS
Author of "The Cruise of the Sprite," "The Clown's Protege,"
"Roy Barton's Adventures on the Mexican Border," Etc.
[Illustration]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright 1883
BY JAMES ELVERSON
RALPH GURNEY'S OIL SPECULATION
Renewal Granted to JAMES OTIS KALER, 1911
RALPH GURNEY'S OIL SPECULATION.
CHAPTER I.
THE "CHUMS."
The puffing, panting engine that dragged the long train of heavy cars
into the busy little city of Bradford, in the State of Pennsylvania, one
day last summer, witnessed through its one white, staring eye, sometimes
called the head-light, many happy meetings between waiting and coming
friends; but none was more hearty than that between two college
mates--one who had graduated the year previous, and the other who hoped
to carry off the honors at the close of the next term.
"Here at last!" exclaimed George Harnett, as he met his old chum with a
hearty clasp of the hand. "In this case, if the hope had been much
longer deferred, the heart would indeed have been sick."
"It was thoughtless in me, old fellow, not to have sent you word when I
concluded to remain at home two days longer, but the fact of the matter
is that I did not think you would be at the depot to meet me, but would
let me hunt you up, for I suppose you do have some kind of an office."
"Yes," laughed the young man, "I have an office; but since my work just
now is several miles from here, I am seldom at home, and was obliged to
come for you, or run the chance of having you spend a good portion of
your vacation hunting for me."
"And are you sorry yet that you chose civil engineering for a
profession?"
"Sorry! Not a bit of it! Up here there is more excitement to it than you
are aware of, and before you have finished your vacation, you will say
that the life of a civil engineer in the oil fields of Pennsylvania is
not by any means monotonous. But come this way. My team is here, and
while we are talking we may as well be riding, for we have quite a
little journey yet before us, over roads so bad, that you can form no
idea of them by even the most vivid description."
"But I thought you lived here in Bradford."
"I live where my work is, my boy, and since it happens just now to be
out of town, my home, for the time being, is in as old and comfortable a
farm-house as city-weary mortals could ask for."
"Well, I can't say that I shall be sorry to live in the country--for
awhile, at least."
"Sorry! Well, I hardly think you will be, when you learn what I have to
offer you in the way of enjoyment. I am locating some oil-producing
lands, in a valley where game is abundant, where the fish prefer an
artificial fly to a natural one, and where the moonlighter revels with
his harmless-looking but decidedly dangerous nitro-glycerine
cartridge."
"What do you mean by moonlighter?" asked Ralph, as he seated himself in
the mud-bespattered carriage which George pointed out as his.
"A moonlighter is one who shoots an oil well regardless of patent rights
or those owning them, save when, by chance, he finds himself gathered in
by the strong arm of the law."
"I thank you, Brother Harnett, for your decidedly clear explanation. I
almost fancy that I know as much about moonlighters now as when I asked
the question, which is saying a good deal, for you very often contrive,
in explaining anything, to leave one even more ignorant than when he
consulted you."
"If you are willing to listen to as long and as dry a dissertation on
oil wells in general, and illegally-opened ones in particular, as ever
Professor Gardner favored us with on topics in which we were not much
interested, I will begin, stopping now and then only to prevent my teeth
from being shaken out of my head as we ride over this road."
The two had hardly got out of the "city," and the thoroughly bad
character of the road was already apparent. Riding over it was very much
like sailing in a small boat on rough water--always down by the head or
up by the stern, but seldom on an even keel.
"Go on with the lecture," said Ralph, "and while I try to hold myself in
the carriage, I will listen."
"Because of my friendship for you, I will make it as brief as
possible. In the first place, you must know that before oil is struck,
the operator finds either a rock formed of sand or of gravel. This is
the strata just above the deposit of petroleum.
"Of course this must be bored through, if possible, and in the pebbly
rock there is no trouble about it. The drills will go through, and the
gravel will be forced to the surface without much difficulty. But when
the sand-rock is met, it clogs the drills, making it almost impossible
to bore through. A heavy charge of nitro-glycerine makes short work of
this rock, and out comes the oil.
"Now, this method of blasting in oil wells has been patented, or, at
least, the cases for the glycerine and the manner of exploding it has,
and the company, which has its office in Bradford, use every effort to
discover infringements of their patent. Like all owners of patent
rights, they charge an extra price for their wares, and the result is
that there are parties who will, for a much smaller amount of money,
shoot a well and infringe the patent at the same time. These people are
called moonlighters, and the risk they run of losing their lives or
their liberty is, to say the least, very great. The lecture-hour has now
been fully, and I hope I may say profitably, employed."
"If it profits one to learn of your friends, the moonlighters, then your
lecture has been a success. But how do you find excitement in anything
they do? Surely they do not make public their unlawful doings."
"Oh, everything save the shooting of the well is done legally, and with
many even that is questionable! The cases are to be tried, and many
believe that the owners of the patent have really no rights in the
premises. The owners or prospective owners of the land whereon the wells
are to be sunk, employ me to survey their tracts, and by that means I
frequently make the acquaintance of those people who, for the almighty
dollar, will peril their lives driving around the country with
nitro-glycerine enough to blow an entire town up."
"Let me trespass once more on you for dry detail, and then I will learn
anything else I may want to know from observation. What is
nitro-glycerine?"
"I will answer your question by quoting as nearly as I can from what I
read the other day. It is composed of:
Aqueous vapor 20 parts.
Carbonic acid 58 "
Oxygen 3.5 "
Nitrogen 18.5 "
"Until 1864 it found no practical application, except as a homeopathic
remedy for headache, similar to those which it causes. In that year,
Alfred Nobel, a Swede, of Hamburg, began its manufacture on a large
scale, and, though he sacrificed a brother to the terrible agent he
had created, he persevered until in its later and safer forms
nitro-glycerine has come into wide use and popularity. It is a clear,
oily, colorless, odorless, and slightly sweet liquid, and can, with
safety, only be poured into some running stream if one wishes to be rid
of it. Through the pores of the skin, or in the stomach, even in small
quantities, this oil causes a terrible headache and colic, while
headaches also result from inhaling the gases of its combustion. It has
thirteen times the force of gunpowder, exploding so much more suddenly
than that agent does, that in reality it is much more powerful, and it
is this same rapid explosive power that prevents it from being used in
fire-arms."
"You would make a first-rate professor, George," said Ralph, laughing,
"and you may refer to me in case you should desire to procure such a
position. Now I think I am armed with sufficient knowledge to be able to
meet your oily friends, the moonlighters, and have some idea of what
they mean when they speak."
"If I am not mistaken we shall meet some of them very soon, without
trying hard; but if we do not, I will take you to one of their cabins as
soon as we may both feel inclined to go."
"Don't think that I have come here to spend my vacation simply with the
idea that I am at liberty to make drafts at sight on your time," replied
Ralph, as an unusually rough portion of the road necessitated his
exerting all his strength to prevent being thrown out of the wagon. "I
intend to be of every possible assistance to you, and when I cannot do
that, if you are still obliged to labor, I will extract no small amount
of enjoyment out of your farm-house and its surroundings. But at any
time that you have a few hours to spare, I will be only too well pleased
to meet with any adventure, from nitro-glycerine blasts to the perils of
trout-fishing."
By this time the conversation ceased, owing to Ralph's interest in the
scenery around him, and the curious combination of oil-tanks and
derricks with which the landscape was profusely dotted. From Bradford to
Sawyer the road winds along at the base of the hills through a lovely
valley, that seems entirely given over to machinery for the production
and storage of oil. On every hand are the tall, unsightly constructions
of timber that form the derricks, looking not unlike enormous spiders,
as they stand on the sides of the mountains or in the ravines, while the
network of iron pipes, through which the oil is forced by steam-pumps
from the wells to Jersey City, are fitting webs for such spiders.
Huge iron tanks, capable of holding from twenty to forty thousand
barrels of oil, dot the valley quite as thickly as do the blots of ink
on a school-boy's first composition, and form storage places for this
strange product of earth, when the supply is greater than the demand. It
is truly a singular scene, and he who visits this portion of the country
for the first time cannot rid himself of the impression that he has, by
some mysterious combination of circumstances, been transported to some
remote and unknown portion of the globe.
George, to whom this scene was perfectly familiar, did not seem inclined
to allow his friend to remain in silent wonder, for he persisted in
supplying him with a fund of dry detail, which effectually prevented any
indulgence of day-dreams.
Although Ralph would have preferred to gaze about him in silence,
George told him of the Pipe-Line Company, who owned the greater portion
of the huge iron receptacles for oil; who also owned the network of iron
pipes, through which they forced the oil to the market at a charge of
twenty-five cents per barrel.
He also told him that this company connected the main line of pipes with
each tank owned by the oil producers, supplying a small steam-pump at
each connection, and, at stated times, drew off from private tanks the
oil. He even went into the particulars of the work, explaining how each
man could tell exactly the number of barrels the company had taken from
his tank by measuring the depth of the oil before and after the
drawing-off process.
Then he described how these huge receptacles were frequently struck by
lightning, setting fire to the inflammable liquid, and causing
consternation everywhere in the valley; of the firing of solid shot into
the base of the tanks to make a perforation that would allow the oil to
run off, and of the loss of property and danger of life attending such
catastrophes.
So much of dry detail or interesting particulars of the oil business had
the young engineer to tell, that he had hardly finished when the horses
turned sharply into a narrow road, over which the trees formed a perfect
archway, that led to just such a farm-house as suggests by outside
appearance all the good things and comforts of life.
"This is to be home to you for a while," said George, breaking off
abruptly in his dissertation on the price and quality of oil, in which
Ralph was not very much interested, "and I can safely guarantee it to be
a place which you will be sorry to leave after once knowing it."
"It certainly does not seem to be a place around which anything exciting
can be found," thought Ralph; but, since it was only rest from study he
was in search of, he was content with that which he saw.