THE WILD-CAT
I
Dad had thought things over, and studied his bank account, and given his
decision; they would drill the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1, and do it
quick, and give the “Excelsior Pete” crowd a run for their money; there
was no use letting the Big Five think they owned the whole oil industry.
Dad would stick here and see things started; so he phoned for his
geologist, and hunted up a contractor to figure over a well for water.
Mr. Banning, the geologist, came next day, and gave Bunny’s hopes a
knock over the head at the very outset. He said Dad was right in his
idea that you couldn’t count very much on that streak of oil on the top
of the ground. You might come on oil-sands one or two hundred feet down,
but they wouldn’t be likely to amount to much; if that was all you were
looking for, you might bring in one of those little drilling-rigs on
wheels such as they used back in Pennsylvania! But out here, said Mr.
Banning, the real oil-sands lay deep, and you never knew what you’d find
till you got there. But he liked the looks of the district, and thought
it worth a chance; he spent a couple of days wandering over the hills
with Dad and Bunny, studying the slope of the strata, and finally he and
Dad chose the side of a hill on the Watkins ranch, not far from the
place where Bunny had sat and talked with Ruth while she tended the
goats.
The water-well man came, offering to drill a four-inch well for $2.12 a
foot; and Dad signed a contract with him, on the basis of his making so
many feet a day, and getting a bonus if he went above that, and paying a
forfeit if he fell below it. After which Dad and Bunny drove over to pay
a visit to Mr. Jeremiah Carey, a rancher near Roseville, who was
chairman of the county board of supervisors, which had to do with the
all-important question of road construction.
A great part of the road passed through Dad’s own property; and it had
been Bunny’s naive idea that Dad would call in a contractor, and pay the
price, as in the case of the water well. But Dad said no, that wasn’t
the way you did with roads; it was a public road, running from Paradise
to Roseville, down along the slide, and it would be graded and paved at
public expense. To be sure, Dad would use this road more than anyone
else, but also he would pay some of the taxes; all the people owning
property along the slide would pay a share, and the new road would
increase the value of their property.
All this Dad explained, first to Bunny, and then to Mr. Carey, a
friendly old fellow who grew apricots and peaches on the slopes of a
ridge overlooking the San Elido valley. Mr. Carey was evidently pleased
to meet a famous oil operator, and he took them up to the house and made
them sit comfortable in big porch chairs, and called to Mrs. Carey to
bring some lemonade for Bunny. Dad produced his gold-foil cigars, and
told the chairman of the county board of supervisors what a great thing
it was going to mean for this whole section if oil developments came in;
he told about the Bankside lease at Prospect Hill, and the million and
more which he had paid to the Bankside family, and the palace on the
beach front which Mr. Bankside was now occupying; you could see the eyes
of Mr. and Mrs. Carey open wider and wider, as Dad visioned this slope
covered with a forest of oil-derricks. Absolutely, the whole thing
depended upon one problem, that of roads. Manifestly, you couldn’t bring
in derrick materials and drilling tools and heavy machinery over that
sheep-track which they now had, and which had jist broken a spring on
Dad’s new motor-car; nor could the county expect Dad to improve a public
road at his own expense, in order to have the privilege of paying tens
of thousands of dollars of new taxes into the county treasury. To all of
which Mr. Carey agreed.
Dad went on to say that it was a question of time; if the county
authorities were going to dilly-dally along, and keep him waiting—why
then, he had plenty of other tracts he could drill, and he would keep
this here Paradise place for a quail-preserve. Mr. Carey looked worried,
and said he’d do his best, but of course Mr. Ross understood that public
affairs didn’t move in a hurry, you had to issue bonds to pave a new
road, and there would have to be a special election to vote them. Dad
said that was what he had come to find out about; if that was the case,
it was all off so far as he was concerned. Wasn’t there some way this
work could be done at once, on the basis of its being repairs to an old
road, instead of new paving? And Mr. Carey said of course, they had
funds for repair work, he didn’t know just how much, he’d have to
consult his associates on the board.
Mr. Carey got up and strolled down to the car with Dad and Bunny; and as
they stood there chatting, Dad took out an envelope from his pocket, and
said: “Mr. Carey, I’m asking a lot of your time, and it ain’t fair you
should work for nothing. I hope you won’t take offense if I ask you to
let me pay your gasoline and tire-cost while you’re running about
a-seein’ to this.” Mr. Carey hesitated, and said he didn’t know whether
that would be exactly proper or not; and Dad said it would be
understood, it was jist for Mr. Carey’s time, it wouldn’t change his
judgment as to what should be done; they would have other dealings, no
doubt, and perhaps some day Dad would come wild-catting on Mr. Carey’s
ranch. The other put the envelope into his pocket, and said Dad would
hear from him soon.
Now Bunny had been taking a course in school which was called “civics,”
and had learned all about how the government of his country was run.
There had been many discussions in class, and among other things they
had mentioned “corruption of public officials.” Bunny—of course without
any hint that he had ever had personal knowledge of such a thing—had
asked the lady teacher about the possibility of a business man’s paying
a public official extra sums for his time and trouble in public matters;
and the lady teacher had been shocked by such a suggestion, and had
declared that it would be bribery without question. So now Bunny told
Dad, and the latter explained. It was the difference between a
theoretical and a practical view of a question. The lady-teacher had
never had to drill an oil well, her business didn’t depend on moving
heavy materials over a sheep-trail; all she did was jist to sit in a
room and use high-soundin’ words, like “ideals” and “democracy” and
“public service.” That was the trouble with this education business, the
people that taught was people that never done things, and had no real
knowledge of the world.
In this case it all came down to one question, did they want to drill
the Watkins tract or not. Of course they might wait ten years, till in
the course of the county’s development somebody else come in and did
what Dad was now a-doin’—put skids under the public authorities, and
“greased” the skids. In a great many cases the authorities were greedy,
they went out on purpose to hold you up and make you pay; in other cases
they was jist ignorant and indifferent; but anyhow, if you wanted things
done you had to pay for them. Dad explained the difference between
public and private business; in your own business, you were boss, and
you drove ahead and pushed things through; but when you ran into public
authorities, you saw graft and waste and inefficiency till it made you
sick. And yet there was fools always rooting for public ownership;
people who called themselves Socialists, and wanted to turn everything
over to the government to run, and when they had their way, you’d have
to fill out a dozen application blanks and await the action of a board
of officials before you could buy a loaf of bread.
Dad said that Bunny would get a practical course in civics, that he
could take back to his teacher; they wasn’t going to get their road,
jist by paying a tip to one apricot-grower. And sure enough, they
didn’t! A couple of days later Dad got Mr. Carey on the phone, and
learned that he had interviewed the other board members, and feared
there would be some opposition; the board came up for re-election this
fall, and there had been a lot of grumbling over the waste of road
funds, and nobody wanted to take on any more troubles. There was to be a
meeting of the board next week, and meantime, if Dad had any influence,
it would be a good time for him to use it. Dad repeated this to Bunny,
and explained, he was supposed to call on the other board members and
distribute some more envelopes. “But I’ll do it wholesale,” said Dad,
“and I’ll do it quick—before the Excelsior Pete crowd wake up to what’s
happening. That’s our only chance, I’ve an idea.”
So Dad strolled into the office of Mr. Hardacre, the real estate agent,
and through the smoke of a gold-foil cigar he put to that knowing
gentleman the problem of what people he, Mr. Hardacre, would call on, in
case he wanted to get a road built in San Elido county. Mr. Hardacre
laughed and said that first he’d go to see Jake Coffey, and after that
he’d go home and rest. Further questions elicited the fact that Jake
Coffey was a hay and feed dealer in the town of San Elido, the county
seat; also, he was the Republican boss of the county. Dad said all
right, thanks, and he and Bunny were soon in the car, and headed for San
Elido at Dad’s customary speed. “Now, son,” said he, “you’ll finish your
lesson in civics!”
II
Jacob Coffey, Hay, Feed and Grain, Lime, Cement and Plaster, sat in the
private office behind his store, with his feet on a center table from
which the remains of a poker game had not yet been cleaned. He was a
hard-bitten individual with tight-shut mouth and other features to
correspond; his skin was tanned to leather, and all his teeth were gold,
so far as they showed. He got his feet off the table and stood up; and
when he heard Dad’s name, he said: “I was rather expecting you’d call.”
Dad said: “I only jist heard about you. I came at fifty miles an hour.”
So they were friends, and Mr. Coffey accepted a gold-foil cigar instead
of his half-chewed one, and they sat down to business.
“Mr. Coffey,” said Dad, “I am an independent oil man; what the Big Five
call one of the ‘little fellers’—though not so little that I won’t show
here in San Elido county. I’ve bought twelve thousand acres, and want to
prospect for oil. If there’s any here, I’ll put a couple of hundred
wells on the tract, and employ a thousand men, and pay a few million
dollars in wages, and double real estate values for five or ten miles
around. Now, Excelsior Pete is here; and of course they’ll fight to keep
me or anyone else out. The thing I want to show you political fellers is
that these big companies never put up the dough unless they have to, and
it most all goes to the state machine, anyhow. Like everything else,
they need a little competition to keep them softened up. Us independents
pay more, and we make the big fellows pay more too. I assume I’m talking
to a man who knows this game.”
“You may assume it,” said Mr. Coffey, drily. “Exactly what do you want?”
“For the present, jist one thing—a road to Paradise. It’s a case of no
road, no drilling, and that’s no bluff, but a fact you can understand,
because you haul heavy material yourself, and you may have tried to
deliver over that there sheep-trail.”
“I have,” said Mr. Coffey.
“Well, then, no words needed. I want a road, and I want it without no
red tape—I want the county to start work within the next ten days, and
jist push the job right through, so that I can get in here and drill my
well, now while I got a rig to spare. Maybe that’s never been done
before, but it’s what I want, and I’ve come to ask what it’s worth. Do I
make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” said Mr. Coffey, and his hard face yielded to a slight
smile. It was evident that he liked Dad’s business methods.
He told his side of the case; and Bunny understood that he was
bargaining, drawing a fancy picture of the tremendous difficulties
involved. The county machine had been having a peck of trouble of late,
some damned fool had stolen some money—a silly thing to take the
county’s money, said Mr. Coffey, when you could make so much more in
legitimate ways. Also there had been criticism of road contracts; they
had a crank in this town that published a weekly paper, the “Watch-Dog,”
and filled it with reckless charges. Well, the long and short of it was
that to use the emergency repair funds of the county to build a road for
an oil operator, would be bound to stir up a lot of fuss, and lose votes
which the county machine needed. As Mr. Ross had said, the Excelsior
Pete crowd, who already had a road to their tract, wouldn’t favor Dad’s
road; they might furnish material for the crank’s weekly paper, and they
might make a kick to the state committee, and make Mr. Coffey’s life a
little hell.
Dad listened politely—as the process of bargaining required. He said
that he appreciated all these troubles, and would expect to make up for
them. In the first place, there would be the job of carrying the county
supervisors into office. Would it seem a fair proposition if Dad were to
contribute five thousand dollars to the war chest of the campaign
committee? Mr. Coffey blew a big cloud of grey-blue tobacco-smoke into
the air, and sat gazing fixedly at the figure 5 and three O’s written in
these clouds.
“You understand,” Dad added; “that’s a party matter, and separate from
any proposition I make to you personally.”
“Let’s have your whole idea,” said Mr. Coffey, quietly.
So Dad gave his “spiel” about believing in co-operation, and how he
always got a little organization together wherever he worked, and stood
by his friends and gave them a share of what he made. He told about his
Ross-Bankside No. 1, and how he had formed a syndicate for that well,
and, in order to make sure of getting his derrick material on the spot,
he had let the president of a big lumber company have two percent of
it—jist a little friendly service, and the well had earned so far
nearly six hundred thousand dollars net profits, and the president of
this company had made over twelve thousand, jist for his trouble in
seeing that Dad always got his lumber the day he asked for it.
And now here was the same thing; if Dad could get a road, he would
gamble on the Paradise tract, and Mr. Coffey might gamble with him. Dad
offered to “carry” him to the amount of two percent of the well; the
cost would run over a hundred thousand dollars, so Mr. Coffey would be
getting a two thousand dollar investment, and if the well became a
producer, he might get five or ten, or even thirty or forty thousand
dollars; such things had happened many times, and were to be reckoned
on. Of course, Dad would expect this to mean that he and Mr. Coffey
would be friends; they would work together, and help each other with any
little favors that might be needed.
And Mr. Coffey puffed several more clouds of smoke, and studied them,
and said he felt friendly to Dad; but he thought it would be better if
Dad would contribute two thousand dollars to the campaign fund, and
carry five thousand for Mr. Coffey personally. And Dad, looking him in
the eye, inquired, “Can you deliver the goods?” Mr. Coffey said yes, he
could deliver them all right, Dad needn’t have any worries. So it was a
bargain, and Dad took out his check-book and wrote out two thousand
dollars to the order of the treasurer of the county campaign committee
of the Republican party. Then he asked Mr. Coffey whether he held any
public office, and the latter replied no, he was just a plain business
man; so Dad said all right then, the agreement could be in Mr. Coffey’s
name; and he wrote a memorandum to the effect that he had received the
sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, in return
for which Mr. Coffey was owner of five percent interest in the net
profits of a well to be drilled on the Abel Watkins ranch near Paradise,
to be known as the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1. But it was understood and
agreed that the said well was not to be drilled until there was a good
hard road completed from the main street of Paradise to the entrance of
the Abel Watkins ranch, and if the said road were not completed within
sixty days the said J. Arnold Ross was under no obligation to drill the
said well, nor to return to the said Jacob Coffey the said one dollar
and other good and valuable considerations. And Dad handed that to the
said Jacob Coffey, and smiled, and remarked that he hoped it wouldn’t
fall into the hands of the “Watch-Dog.” Mr. Coffey smiled, and laid his
hand on Bunny’s shoulder, and said he hoped this young man wouldn’t make
any mistake and talk about it; and Dad said that Bunny was learning the
oil business, and the first lesson he had learned was never to talk
about his father’s affairs.
So then they shook hands all round, and the two got into their car, and
Bunny exclaimed, “But Dad, I thought you were a Democrat!” And Dad
laughed and said that he wasn’t deciding the tariff on hyperchlorides,
nor the independence of the Philippine Islands, he was jist gettin’ a
road to the Watkins ranch. Bunny said, “There’s one thing I don’t
understand; how can Mr. Coffey do all that, if he hasn’t any office?” To
which Dad answered that the big fellows as a rule avoided holding office
for that very reason, so they were free to do business. Mr. Carey could
be sent to prison if it were proven that he had taken money from Dad,
but nothing could be done to Coffey, he was jist the “boss.” The
office-holder, said Dad, was either a poor devil who needed a fifth-rate
salary, or else he was a man actuated by vanity, he liked to make
speeches, and be applauded by the crowd, and see his picture in the
papers. You would never see pictures of Jake Coffey in the papers, he
done his work in his back office, and never in the lime-light.
Bunny, of course, remembered what he had been taught in the “civics”
class, and asked if that was the way the business of government was
always run. Dad said it was about the same everywhere, from the county
up to the state, and on to the national government. It wasn’t really as
bad as it seemed, it was jist a natural consequence of the inefficiency
of great masses of people. It was all right to make spread-eagle
speeches on “democracy,” but what was the fact? Who was the voters here
in San Elido county? Why, the very boobs that Bunny had seen “jumping”
and “rolling” and “talking in tongues” at Eli’s church; and could
anybody pretend that these people could run a government? They were
supposed to decide whether or not Dad should have a road and drill a
well! It was a sure thing they couldn’t do it; and Jake Coffey was the
feller that done the deciding for them—he provided that promptness and
efficiency that business men had to have, and that couldn’t be got under
our American system.
III
The water-well men got to work, and the telephone linemen; and Dad said
it was time to figure on living quarters for their crew. They would get
along with a bunk-house while they were prospecting; then, if they found
oil, they’d put up nice cabins for the families of the men. Dad said to
Paul that he was foolish to waste his time on beans and strawberries,
which would keep him a pauper all his life; he had better turn carpenter
and do this building job, and after that he could learn oil-drilling.
Dad would have his boss-carpenter come and figure the materials for the
bunk-house, and see to the foundations and the sills, and after that
Paul could finish the job with carpenters he’d pick up in the
neighborhood, and Dad would pay him five dollars a day, which was jist
about five times what he’d get working this old ranch by himself.
Paul said all right, and they sat down one evening and made out the
plans of the house. It was going to be real nice, Dad said, because this
was Bunny’s well, and Bunny was turning into a little social reformer,
and intended to feed his men on patty de far grar. Instead of having one
long room with bunks, they’d have little individual cubby-holes, each
with its separate window, and two bunks, one on top of the other, for
the day man and the night man. There would be a couple of showers, and
besides the dining-room and kitchen and store-room, a nice sitting-room,
with a victrola and some magazines and books; that was Bunny’s own idea,
he was a-goin’ to have a sure enough cultured oil-crew.
Dad and Bunny took a drive to Roseville, to get some furniture and stuff
for their own cabin, which was now complete. Dad purchased a copy of the
“Eagle,” fresh off the press, and he opened it, and burst into a roar of
laughter. Bunny had never seen him do that in his life before, so he
looked in a hurry, and there on the front page was a story about one
Adonijah Prescott, a rancher who lived near the slide between Paradise
and Roseville; some three months ago his wagon had been overturned and
his collar-bone broken, and now he was filing suit against the county
for fifteen thousand dollars damages; more than that, he was suing each
and every member of the county board of supervisors, alleging neglect of
their public duties in leaving the road in an unsafe condition! On the
editorial page appeared a two-column discourse on the dreadful condition
of the aforesaid road; there were mineral springs nearby, and it had
been proposed to develop them, but the project had been dropped, because
of lack of transportation; and now there were possibilities of oil, but
these also were in danger, because of bad roads, which kept San Elido
one of the most backward counties of the state. The “Eagle” stated that
a public-spirited rancher, Mr. Joe Limacher, was circulating a petition
for immediate repairs to the road along the slide, and it was to be
hoped that all citizens and tax-payers would sign up.
Next day along came Mr. Limacher, in a rusty Ford, and asked Dad to
sign! Dad looked very thoughtful, and said it would cost him a hell of a
lot of taxes. The public-spirited Mr. Limacher—who was being paid three
dollars a day by Jake Coffey—argued a while with Dad, and in the end
Dad said all right, he didn’t want his neighbors to think him a
cheapskate, so he’d sign along with the rest. Four days later came the
news that the supervisors had held a special meeting and voted immediate
repairs to the slide road; and two days after that came the grading
gang, teams of big horses with heavy plows—you’d never have guessed
there were so many in the county, there must have been a score of them
on that two mile stretch. They tore up the ground, and men with
crow-bars rolled the boulders out of the way, and more teams with
scrapers slid the dirt this way and that, and pretty soon it began to
look like a highway. And then, beginning at the Paradise end, came
countless loads of crushed rock, in big motor-trucks which tilted up
backwards and slid out their burden. There were machines to level this
material, and great steam-rollers to roll it flat—gee, it was wonderful
to see what Dad’s money could do!
They had ordered the lumber for the bunk-house, and got it in by small
loads, and Paul was at work with half a dozen men from the neighborhood.
He had engaged them himself, telephoning from Paradise; and if any of
them felt humiliated at working under a nineteen year old boss, Dad’s
twenty-two dollar check salved their feelings at twelve-thirty every
Saturday. Even old Mr. Watkins, Paul’s father, was impressed by this
sudden rise of his “black sheep,” and no longer said anything about
hell-fire and brimstone. It was on his ranch, you understand, that all
this activity was taking place; the carpenters’ hammers were thumping
all day, and up near the head of the arroyo the artesian well was
flowing, and a gang of men and horses were leveling a road up to the
drilling site. It seemed to the Watkins family as if the whole county
had suddenly moved to their ranch. It meant high prices, right on the
spot, for everything good to eat they could raise. You could not help
being impressed by so much activity, even though you knew it was the
activity of Satan!
Best of all was the effect upon Ruth, who fairly shone with happiness
over Paul’s success. Ruth kept house for Dad and Bunny, besides what she
did for Paul and herself; but it seemed to agree with her, she filled
out, and her cheeks grew rosy. She had money to buy shoes and stockings
and clean dresses, and Bunny noticed all of a sudden that she was quite
a pretty girl. She shared Bunny’s idea that his father was a great man,
and she expressed her admiration by baking pies and puddings for him,
regardless of the fact that he was trying to keep his weight down! The
four of them had supper together every evening, after the day’s work was
done, in the Rascum bungalow with the bougainvillea vine; and then they
sat out under the vine in the moonlight and talked about what they had
done, and what they were going to do, and the world was certainly an
interesting place to be alive in!
IV
It was time for Bunny to go back to school; but first he had to pay his
semi-annual visit to his mother.
Bunny had seen a notice in the paper, to the effect that Mrs. Andrew
Wotherspoon Lang was suing for divorce on grounds of desertion. Now
Mamma told him about it—her second husband had basely left her, two
years after their marriage, and she had no idea where he was. She was a
lonely and very sad woman, with tears in her eyes; Bunny could have no
idea how hard it was, how every one tried to prey upon defenseless
women. Presently, through the tears, Bunny became aware that his “pretty
little Mamma” was tactfully hinting something; she would have to have a
new name when she got the divorce, and she wanted to take back Dad’s
name, and Bunny wasn’t quite sure whether that meant that she was to
take Dad back along with his name. She asked how Dad was, and mustn’t he
be lonely, and did he have any women friends? That bothered Bunny, who
didn’t like to have people probing into his father’s relations with
women—he wasn’t sure himself, and didn’t like to think about it. He
said that Mamma would have to write to Dad, because Dad wouldn’t let
him, Bunny, talk about these matters. So then some more tears ran down
the pretty cheeks, and Mamma said that everybody shut her out, even her
own daughter, Bertie, had refused to come and stay with her this time,
and what did that mean? Bunny explained, as well as he could; his sister
was selfish, he thought, and wrapped up in her worldly career; she was a
young lady now, flying very high, with a fast set, and didn’t have time
for any of her family.
But Bertie had found time recently for a talk with her brother; telling
him that he was old enough now to know about their mother. Bertie had
got the facts long ago from Aunt Emma, and now she passed them on, and
many mysteries were solved for the boy, not merely about his mother, but
about his father. Dad had married after he was forty, being then the
keeper of a cross-roads store; he had married the village belle, who
thought she was making a great conquest. But very soon she had got ideas
beyond the village; she had tried to pry Dad loose, and finally had run
away and left him, with a prosperous bond-salesman from Angel City, who
had married her, but then got tired and left her.
Mamma’s leaving had done what all her arguments had failed to do—it had
pried Dad loose. He had thought it over and realized—what everybody
wanted was money, and he had lost out because he hadn’t made enough;
well, he’d show them. And from that time Dad had shut his lips and set
to work. Some of his associates in the village had proposed to drill for
oil, and he had gone in with them, and they had made a success, and
pretty soon Dad had branched out for himself.
Bunny thought that story over, and watched his father, and pieced things
together. Yes, he understood now—that grim concentration, and
watchfulness, and merciless driving; Dad was punishing Mrs. Andrew
Wotherspoon Lang, showing her that he was just as good a man as any
bond-salesman from the city! And Dad’s distrust of women, his idea that
they were all trying to get your money away from you! And his centering
of all his hopes upon Bunny, who was going to be happy, and to have all
of his father’s virtues and none of his faults, and provide that meaning
and justification which Dad couldn’t find in his own life! When Bunny
thought of that, he would have a sudden access of affection, and put his
arm across Dad’s shoulders, and say something about how his father was
working too hard, and how Bunny must hurry and grow up and carry some of
the load.
He ventured very timidly to broach the matter of his mother’s debts, and
her plea that her income be increased; and so he got his father’s point
of view about his mother. There was jist no use a-givin’ her money, Dad
said; she was the type that never lives upon an income, but always has
debts and is discontented. It wasn’t stinginess on Dad’s part, nor any
wish to punish her; she had money enough to live like she had bargained
to live when she married him, and that was his idea of justice. She had
had nothing to do with his later success, and no claim upon its fruits.
If she once found out that she could get money from Bunny, she would
jist make his life miserable, and that was why Dad was so determined
about it. The tradesmen could sue his mother, but they couldn’t collect
anything, so in the end they’d learn not to give her credit, and that
would be the best thing for her. It was a painful subject, but the time
had come when Bunny must understand it, and learn that women who tried
to get your money away from you would even go so far as to marry you!
Bunny didn’t say so, but he thought Dad was a little too pessimistic
about one-half the human race. Bunny knew there were women who weren’t
like that, for he had found one—Rosie Taintor, who had been his
sweetheart now for a year or more. Rosie always tried to keep him from
spending money on her, saying that she didn’t have any money, and it
wasn’t fair; she would ride in his car, but that was all. She was so
gentle and good—and Bunny was very unhappy about what was happening to
their love-affair. But his efforts to deny the truth to himself had been
futile—he was beginning to be bored by it! They had looked at the
eighteenth-century English prints until they knew them by heart; and
Rosie’s comment on everything was still the same—“wonderful!” Bunny had
gone on to new things, and he wanted new comments, and could not help
wanting them, no matter how cruel it seemed. Therefore he did not take
Rosie driving so often, and once or twice he took some other girl to a
dance. And little Rosie was gentle and demure as ever, she did not even
cry, at least not in his presence; Bunny was deeply touched, but like
all male creatures, he found it an immense convenience when old loves
consent to die painlessly, and without making a fuss! Without realizing
it, he got ready to fall in love with some new girl.
V
The new road was done, and the bunk-house was done, and occupied; Dad’s
boss-carpenter had gone up there, and Paul was working with him on the
derrick. Then came the fleet of motor-trucks, with the drilling tools,
and they were rigging up, and Paul was helping with that. Bunny was in
school, and missing all the fun, but Dad got a report almost every day
from his foreman, and passed it on to Bunny at supper-time. They were
behind in their race with Excelsior Pete, which had already spudded in,
having had the advantage of a road from the start; but Dad said not to
worry, it would be a long way to the bottom of those wells.
Bunny’s great hour came; it happened to be a Friday, and he begged off
from school—it wasn’t often that a boy had such an excuse, that he had
a “wild-cat” named after him, and had to go to press a lever and start
the drilling machinery! They set out early in the morning, and arrived
in mid-afternoon; and rolling over that new road, hard and smooth and
grey, how proud they felt! They came to the Watkins arroyo, and the new
road leading into it—their own private road, so marked! There was no
one at the Watkins place, everyone had gone up to the well; you could
see a crowd gathered about the derrick—the nice new shiny derrick of
yellow pine, built on a little shelf, half-way up the slope—the Ross
Junior-Paradise Number One!
They drove up, and the foreman welcomed them; everything was ready, the
last bolt tight, and full steam up—they could have started a couple of
hours ago. Bunny looked about; there was Paul among the other workmen,
keeping himself in the background. And Ruth—she was with her family;
Bunny went up to them, he was glad to see them all, even old Mr.
Watkins, in spite of the jumping and the rolling and the rheumatix and
other troubles. The whole neighborhood was there, and Bunny knew many of
them by name, and spoke to them, whether he knew them or not; they all
liked this eager lad—the young prince who had a well named after him.
Some of them in their secret hearts were “sore,” because they had sold
their land so cheap, and if they had held on, they too might have become
rich and famous; but nothing of that showed now, this was a great hour,
a ceremony about which they would talk for many a day.
Dad looked things over, and asked a few questions, and was about to say,
“Go,” when he noticed another car coming up the road. It was a big shiny
limousine, and it rolled up fast, and the crowd parted, and it stopped,
and from it descended—gee whiz, could you believe your eyes?—a young
man, tall and rather gawky, stoop-shouldered, sun-tanned, with pale blue
eyes and a mop of corn-colored hair; Eli Watkins, Prophet of the Third
Revelation, transfigured and glorified in a stiff white collar and black
tie and black broadcloth suit, ill-fitting but expensive, and with a
manner cut to the same pattern, that peculiar blend of humble pride
which the divine profession generates. He was followed by an elderly
rich gentleman, who assisted from the car two ladies with costumes, as
you might say the feminine gender of Eli’s; they were some of the
prophet’s new converts, or those whom he had “healen.” The neighbors
stared respectfully, and for a minute or two the well was forgotten, the
spiritual power took precedence over the temporal.
Dad came forward, and shook hands with the prophet; bye-gones were to be
bye-gones, and all disharmonies forgotten in this great hour. Bunny was
amazed by what happened, for he had never known Dad to make a speech
unless he was made to. But there was a whimsical streak in J. Arnold
Ross, which bubbled up once in a while, and caused these queer turns of
events. Dad faced the crowd, and clearing his throat, said: “Ladies and
gentlemen, we are drilling this here well on the ranch where Mr. Eli
Watkins was born, so perhaps he would like to say jist a few words to
you on this occasion.” There was a round of hand-clapping, and Eli
colored, and was obviously very much flattered; he took a step or two
forwards, and folded his hands in front of him in the fashion of a
blessing, and lifted his head, and half closed his eyes, and the booming
voice rolled out:
“Brethren and sisters: Upon these hills have I tendened my father’s
herds, like the prophets of old, and have harkened unto the voice of the
Holy Spirit, speaking to me in the storms and the thunders. Brethren and
sisters, the Lord unfoldens Himself in many ways, and gives precious
gifts to His children. The treasures of the yearth are His, and when in
His Mercy they are handened unto mankind, it is His Will that they be
used in His service and unto His Glory. The things of the body are
subjected unto the things of the spirit; and if in God’s wisdom it
should happen that this well should bring forth treasure, may it be used
in the service of the Most Highest, and may His Blessings rest upon all
they that own or labor for it. Amen.”
There was a chorus from the audience, “Amen!” And so there you were, a
regular consecration! All the lies that Dad had told to the Watkins
family and to others, the bribes that he had paid to Messrs. Carey and
Coffey—all these were abrogated, nullified, and remitted, and the Ross
Junior-Paradise No. 1 was from that time forth a sanctified well. And so
Dad turned and looked at Bunny, who was standing by the engine with the
lever in his hand. “All right, son!” And Bunny moved the lever, and the
engine gave a thump, and the chain gave a pull, and the gears gave a
rattle, and the rotary-table gave a turn, and down underneath the
derrick-floor you heard that exciting sound which the oil men report as
“Spud!”
VI
At less than two hundred feet they struck the sands which accounted for
Bunny’s “earthquake oil;” there proved to be two feet of them, and Dad
said it would give them enough oil to run their own car for a year! They
were going deeper, still with an eighteen-inch bit, through hard
sandstone formation; they were working in an open hole, with no casing,
because the ground was so firm. Paul was working as a general utility
man, mainly carpentry. “Dad, we’re going to make Paul our manager some
day,” Bunny had said; but Paul had smiled and said that he was going to
be a scientist, and he wouldn’t fool himself with the idea that the jobs
at the top were easy—he’d not exchange his eight hour job for Dad’s
eighteen hour job. This was a subtle kind of flattery, and gave Dad a
tremendously high opinion of Paul!
Thanksgiving Day was coming; and Bunny’s soul was torn in half. It was a
great occasion at the school, the annual football battle with a rival
institution known as “Polly High,” located in Angel City. And what was
Bunny, a real boy or an oil gnome? He fought it out within himself, and
announced his decision, to the dismay of Rosie Taintor and of Aunt
Emma—he was going to Paradise with Dad! It was the quail season, and
Dad needed a change, the boy told his aunt; but the sharp old lady said
he could fool himself, but he couldn’t fool her.
They didn’t have to take any camping things now, for they had their
cabin on the Rascum place, with a telephone and everything comfortable.
There was an extension phone in the bungalow, and all they had to do was
to call up Ruth, and there would be a jolly fire in the cabin, and a
supper on the table at the bungalow, with all kinds of home-made good
things, the eating of which would make it necessary for Dad to walk
miles and miles over the hills next day! First, of course, they would
stop at the well, and inspect things, and have a talk with the foreman.
There were traces of oil again, and Dad had told them to take a core,
and he asked Mr. Banning to come up next day and study it with him.
They came in sight of the derrick. The drill-stem was out of the hole,
they could see the mass of “stands” setting in place. When they got
nearer, they saw that the crew had a cable down in the hole; and when
Dave Murgins, the foreman, saw them, he came out to the car, and it was
plain that something was wrong. “We’ve had an accident, Mr. Ross.”
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s a man fell in the hole.”
“Oh, my God!” cried Dad. “Who?” And Bunny’s heart was in his throat, for
of course his first thought was Paul.
“A roughneck,” said the foreman. “Fellow by the name of Joe Gundha. You
don’t know him.”
“How did that happen?”
“Nobody knows. We was changing the bit, and this fellow went down into
the cellar for some reason—he had no business there that we know of.
Nobody thought about him for a while.”
“You sure he went down?”
“We been fishing with a hook, and we got a bit of his shirt.”
Bunny was white about the lips. “Oh, Dad, will he be alive?”
“How long has he been down?”
“We’ve been fishing half an hour,” said Murgins.
“And you haven’t heard a sound?”
“Not one.”
“Well then, he’s drowned in the mud. How far down is he?”
“About fifty feet. The mud sinks that far when we take out the
drill-stem. He must have went down head first, or he’d have been able to
keep his head above the mud and make a noise.”
“My God! My God!” exclaimed Dad. “It makes me want to quit this
business! What can you do to help men that won’t help themselves?”
Bunny had heard that cry a thousand times before. They had a cover for
the hole, and any man who went down into the cellar was supposed to slip
it into place. Of necessity the dirt caved in about the edges, so that
the top of the hole was a kind of funnel, its edges slippery with mud,
and in this case with traces of oil; yet men would take chances, sliding
around on the edge of that yawning pit! What could you do for them?
“Has he got any family?” asked Dad.
“He told Paul Watkins he’d got a wife and some children in Oklahoma; he
worked in the oil fields there.”
Dad sat motionless, staring in front of him; and nobody said a word.
They knew he really was interested in his men, taking care of them was a
matter of personal pride to him. Bunny had turned sort of sick inside;
gee, what a shame—in his well, of all places, his first one, that was
to start off the new field! It was all spoiled for him; he wouldn’t be
able to enjoy his oil if he got it!
“Well,” said Dad, at last, “what are you doin’? Jigglin’ a hook up and
down in there? You’ll never get him up that way. You’ll have to put down
a three-pronged grab.”
“I thought that would tear him so—” explained Dave Murgins,
hesitatingly.
“I know,” said Dad; “but you’ve got it to do. It ain’t as if he might
have any life in him. Bend the prongs so they fit the hole, and force
them past the body. Go ahead and get it over with, and let’s hope it’ll
teach the rest of you something.”
Dad got out of the car, and told Bunny to take their things down to the
Rascum place, and break the news to Ruth; she’d be upset, especially if
she knew the fellow. Bunny understood that Dad didn’t want him around
when that torn body came out of the hole; and since he couldn’t do any
good, he turned the car in silence, and drove away. In his mind he saw
the men screwing the “grab” onto the drill-stem—a tool which was built
to go over obstacles that fell into the hole, and to catch hold of them
with sharp hooks. They might get Joe Gundha by the legs and they might
get him by the face—ugh, the less you thought about a thing like that,
the better for your enjoyment of the oil-game!
Dad came to the cabin after a couple of hours, and lay down for a while
to rest. They had got the body out, he said, and had telephoned for the
coroner; he would swear in several of the men as a jury, and hear the
testimony of others, and look at the body, and then give a burial
permit. Paul had been to the dead man’s bunk and looked over his things,
and put them all into a box to be shipped to his wife; Dad had in his
pocket half a dozen letters that had been found among the things, and
because he didn’t want Bunny to think that money came easy, or that life
was all play, he gave him these letters, and Bunny sat off in a corner
and read them: pitiful little messages, scrawled in a childish hand,
telling how the doctor said that Susie’s heart would be weak for a long
time after the flu, and the baby was getting two more teeth and was
awful cross, and Aunt Mary had just been in to see her, and said that
Willie was in Chicago and doing good; there were cross-marks and circles
that were kisses from mamma, and from Susie and from the baby. One
sentence there was to cheer up Dad and Bunny: “I am glad you got such a
good boss.”
Well, it made a melancholy Thanksgiving evening for them; they ate a
little of the feast which Ruth had prepared, but without real enjoyment.
They talked about accidents, and Dad told of something which had
happened in the first well he had drilled—they were down only thirty
feet, when a baby had crawled down into the cellar and slid into the
hole. It had taken a couple of able-bodied men to hold the mother back,
while the rest of them tried to get the child out. They fished for it
with a big hook on the end of a rope, and got the hook under the baby’s
body and lifted it gently a few feet, but then the body got wedged
somehow, and they were helpless. The child had hung there, not
screaming, just making a low, moaning sound all the time, “U-u-u-” like
that, never stopping; they could hear it plainly. They started twenty
feet from the well and dug a shaft, big enough for two men to work in,
breaking the ground with crow-bars, scraping it into buckets with big
hoes, and the men on top hauling the buckets out with ropes. When they
got below the baby, they ran in sideways, and got the baby out all
right. The hook had sunk into the flesh of the thigh, but without
breaking the skin; the bruise had healed, and in a few days the child
was all right.
A strange thing was life! If Bunny had stayed home that day, he’d have
taken Rosie Taintor to the football game, and at the moment when poor
Joe Gundha had plunged to his doom, Bunny would have been yelling his
head off over a few yards gained by his team. And now, in the evening,
he’d have been at a dance; yes, Bertie actually was at a dance, at the
home of one of her fashionable friends, or at some fancy hotel where
they were giving a party. Bunny could see, in his mind’s eye, her
gleaming shoulders and bosom, her dress of soft shimmering stuff, her
bright cheeks and vivid face; she would be sipping champagne, or gliding
about the room in the arms of Ashleigh Mathews, the young fellow she was
in love with just now. Aunt Emma would be all dressed up, playing at a
card-party; and grandmother was painting a picture of a young lord, or
duke, or somebody, in short pants and silk stockings, kissing the hand
of his lady love!
Yes, life was strange—and cruel. You lived in the little narrow circle
of your own consciousness, and, as people said, what you didn’t know
didn’t hurt you. Your Thanksgiving dinner was spoiled, because one poor
laborer had slid down into a well which you happened to own; but dozens
and perhaps hundreds of men had been hurt in other wells all over the
country, and that didn’t trouble you a bit. For that matter, think of
all the men who were dying over there in Europe! All the way from
Flanders to Switzerland the armies were hiding in trenches, bombarding
each other day and night, and thousands were being mangled just as
horribly as by a grab in the bottom of a well; but you hadn’t intended
to let that spoil your Thanksgiving dinner, not a bit! Those men didn’t
mean as much to you as the quail you were going to kill the next day!
Well, the coroner came, and they buried the body of Joe Gundha, on a
hill-top a little way back out of sight, and with a wooden cross to mark
the spot. It was a job for Mr. Shrubbs, the preacher at Eli’s church;
and Eli came along, and old Mr. Watkins and his wife, and other old
ladies and gentlemen of the church who liked to go to funerals. It was
curious—Dad seemed glad to have them come and tell him what to do; they
knew, and he didn’t! Obviously, it didn’t really do the poor devil any
good to preach and pray over his mangled corpse; but at least it was
something, and there were people who came and did it, and all you had to
do was jist to stand bare-headed in the sun for a while, and hand the
preacher a ten-dollar bill afterwards. Yes, that was the procedure—in
death, as in life; you wanted something done, and there was a person
whose business it was to do that thing, and you paid him. To Bunny it
seemed a natural phenomenon—and all the same, whether it was Mr.
Shrubbs, who prayed over your dead roughneck, or the man at the filling
station who supplied the gas and oil and water and air for your car, or
the public officials who supplied the road over which you drove the car.
Dad had sent a telegram to Mrs. Gundha, telling her the sad news, and
adding that he was sending a check for a hundred dollars to cover her
immediate expenses. Now Dad wrote a letter, explaining what they had
done, and how they were sending her dead husband’s things in a box by
express. Dad carried insurance to cover his liability for accidents, and
Mrs. Gundha would be paid by the insurance company; she must present her
claim to the industrial accident commission. They would probably allow
her five thousand dollars, and Dad hoped she would invest the money in
government bonds, and not let anybody swindle her, with oil stocks or
other get rich quick schemes.
So that was that; and Dad said they might jist as well go
quail-shooting, and forget what they couldn’t help. And Bunny said all
right; but in truth he didn’t enjoy the sport, because in his mind
somehow the quail had got themselves mixed up with Joe Gundha and the
soldiers in France, and he couldn’t get any fun out of mangled bodies.
VII
Christmas was coming; and Bunny had his program all laid out. He was
going to take Dad to the Christmas Day football game, and next morning
they would leave for Paradise, and stay there until it was time to go
back for the New Year’s Day football game. The well was going fine; they
were down over two thousand feet, in soft shale, and having no trouble.
Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Bunny came home from school,
and Aunt Emma said, “Your father just phoned; he’s got some news about
Excelsior Peter.” That was a joke they had in the family—“Excelsior
Peter;” Aunt Emma had guessed that “Pete” was a nick-name, and she would
be real lady-like and use the full name! So, of course, they teased the
life out of her.
“What is it?” cried Bunny.
“They’ve struck oil.”
“At Paradise?” Bunny rushed to the phone, in great excitement. Yes, Dad
said, Dave Murgins had jist phoned down; “Excelsior-Carter No. 1,” as
the well was called, had been in oil-sands for several days, and had
managed to keep it secret. Now they were cementing off, something you
couldn’t hide.
Bunny jumped into the car and rushed down to the office. Everybody was
excited; the afternoon papers had the news, and some of Dad’s oil
friends dropped in to talk about it. It meant a new field, of course;
there would be a rush to Paradise. Dad was the lucky one—to think he
had got twelve thousand acres up there, owned them outright! How had it
happened? Dad said it wasn’t his doings; he had spent a hundred thousand
dollars jist to amuse his boy, to get him interested in the business,
and perhaps teach him a lesson. But now, by golly, it looked as if the
boy had done the teaching! Mr. Bankside, who had got to be quite an oil
man now, and was drilling a well of his own, said that he always hoped
his sons would lose when they started gambling, so they’d not get the
habit; Dad said yes, but he’d risk Bunny’s soul this once, there was too
much money at stake!
After that, of course, Bunny was on pins and needles to get to Paradise;
he wanted to quit school, but Dad said no. Bunny decided he didn’t care
about that old Christmas Day football game; what did Dad think? To which
Dad answered that he’d managed to get along to the age of fifty-nine
without ever seeing a football game! So Bunny said he’d write and tell
Ruth, they’d run up on Christmas eve, starting after school, and have
dinner late, in regular society style. It would be hard for Ruth to
believe that fashionable people in the cities ate their dinner at eight
or nine o’clock at night!
Meantime, the bit was grinding away in the well; they were down to 2300
feet, and it was known that Excelsior-Carter No. 1 had struck the sands
at 2437 feet. Bunny was so much excited that he would run to the phone
in between classes at school, and call up his father’s secretary at the
office, to ask if there was any news. And so, three days before
Christmas, he got the magic word; Dad was on the phone, and said that
Bunny’s well was in oil-sands. It was too early yet to say any more,
they were taking a core, that was all. As soon as he got free from
class, Bunny went flying over to the office, and there he listened to a
conversation—Dad had put in a long distance call, and was talking to
the man from whom he got his machinery. He was ordering a patent
casing-head, the biggest made, to be shipped to the well; it was to be
put on a truck and start tonight. And then Dad was talking to Murgins
again, telling him at what hour the casing-head was due, and they must
set to work and break out the drill-stem, and put that casing-head on
tight, with lugs on the side, and jist bury it with cement, not less
than fifty tons, Dad said; they were away off from everything, out there
at Paradise, and if they was to have a blow-out, it would be the very
devil.
Well, they got their core, eight feet of it, and it was high gravity
oil—a fortune waiting for them, down underneath those rocky hills,
where the feet of goats and sheep had trod for so many years! Dad
ordered his “tankage,” and then he ordered more. Then they learned that
the casing-head had arrived; it was screwed on, and the “lugs” were on,
and when the cement had set, all the gas under Mount Vesuvius couldn’t
lift that there load, said Dad. They started drilling again, and took
another core, and found the oil heavier yet. So finally Dad gave way,
and said it was too important, he guessed Bunny would have to beg off a
day in school. Dad gave orders to “wash” the well, and he called up the
cement-man, and arranged for the big truck to set out for Paradise; Dad
would meet them there, and they would do the job the day before
Christmas, and if they got their shut-off, they’d celebrate with the
biggest turkey in that famous turkey-raising country. So, early the next
morning, Dad and Bunny chucked their suit-cases into the car, and set
out to break the speed records to Paradise. Three hours later they
stopped to telephone, and the foreman said they were “washing;” also
that the Excelsior Pete well had got a water shut-off, and had drilled
through the cement, and was going down into the oil-sands, the final
stage of making a well.
They got to San Elido; and Dad said, “We’ll jist stop and shake hands
with Jake Coffey.” They drove up to the store, and Bunny jumped out, and
there was a clerk and he said, “Jake’s gone up to Paradise to see the
well. Have you heard the news? Excelsior Pete has got a gusher, there’s
oil all over the place!” Bunny ran out and shouted to Dad, and leaped
into the car, and gosh-amighty, the way they did burn up that road
across the desert! Dad laughed, and said the speed-cops would all be up
at the well.
They got to Paradise, and the town was deserted, not a soul on the
streets, and not a car, except those that were hurrying through, like
the Rosses. A burglar could have made off with the whole place—but any
burglar would have been watching the gusher, along with the speed-cops!
You had to park your car a quarter of a mile away from the well, and you
could hear the gusher roaring like Niagara Falls! And then, walking, you
came round a turn in the road, and you could see the valley, and
everything in sight was black; there was a high wind blowing, and it was
a regular thunder cloud, a curtain of black mist as far as you could
see. The derrick was hidden altogether—you had to make a detour, behind
a little ridge, and come over the top to windward, and there the crowds
were gathered, staring at the great black jet that came rushing up out
of the ground, a couple of hundred feet into the air, with a sound like
an endless express train going by. You could see men working, or trying
to work, under the derrick; you could see a bunch of them with picks and
shovels, throwing up a sort of dam to hold the oil; they wouldn’t save
much, Dad said, it evaporated too fast.
Dad could watch this scene philosophically; it wasn’t his “funeral.” If
it had been one of the independents, like himself, he’d have offered to
help; but this was a dirty crowd, Excelsior Pete, they didn’t think the
little fellows had any business on earth, there was nothing too mean for
them to do. Of course, it was a shame to see all that treasure going to
waste; but you couldn’t be sentimental when you were playing the
oil-game. What you had to watch out for was that the wind didn’t shift
suddenly and ruin your good suit of clothes!
VIII
They watched for a while, and then they remembered they had a well of
their own, and drove back to Paradise, and across the valley to the
Watkins ranch. They had a long talk with the foreman; Dad examined the
core, and the report of the chemist who had tested the oil; he saw that
the “washing” was going all right, they would be ready for the cementing
off in the morning. Everybody was on tiptoe; they were going to do their
job better than the “Excelsior Pete” crowd, and not smear all the
landscape with crude petroleum. The tankage was at the railroad depot,
and they inspected the foundations, just completed for the tanks.
Everything “hunkydory,” said Dad. They drove over to the Rascum place
and saw Ruth, and Bunny got on his hunting-clothes, and got a few quail
before sundown; and then they had supper, and Paul told them all the
gossip about the well, also how much money Eli had collected for his
temple. After supper they went back to the well—they just couldn’t keep
away! It was a crisp cold evening, a new moon in the sky, a big white
star just over it—everything so beautiful, and Bunny so happy, he owned
a “wild-cat,” and it was “coming in,” it was going to yield him a
treasure that would make all the old-time fairy-tales and Arabian Nights
adventures seem childish things. They were lifting the “water-string”
now—a process necessary to cementing off; the casing at the bottom had
to be raised, so that the cement could be forced under. It was
difficult, for the casing was wedged, and they had to put down a tool
known as a “jar,” which struck heavy blows and shook the casing loose.
Standing on the derrick platform, Bunny listened to these blows, far
down in the earth; and then suddenly came a sound, the like of which had
never assailed his ears in all his life, a sound that was literally a
blow on the side of his head; it seemed as if the whole inside of the
earth suddenly blew out. That tremendous casing-head, with its mass of
cement, which Dad had said would hold down Mt. Vesuvius, went suddenly
up into the air; straight up, with the big fourteen inch casing
following it, right through the top of the derrick, smashing the crown
block and tackle as if these had been made of sugar candy!
Of course Bunny turned and ran for his life, everybody scattered in
every direction. Bunny looked once or twice as he ran, and saw the
casing-head and a long string of casing up in the air, for all the world
like a Dutchman’s pipe, only it was straight. When this pipe-stem got
too long, it broke off, and crashed over sideways, taking part of the
derrick with it; and out of the hole there shot a geyser of water, and
then oil, black floods of it, with that familiar roaring sound—an
express train shooting out of the ground! Bunny gave a yell or two, and
he saw Dad waving his arms, and presumably calling; he started toward
his father—when suddenly, most dreadful thing of all, the whole mass of
oil up in the air burst into flame!
They were never to know what did it; perhaps an electric spark, or the
fire in the boiler, or a spark made by falling wreckage, or rocks blown
out of the hole, striking on steel; anyhow, there was a tower of flame,
and the most amazing spectacle—the burning oil would hit the ground,
and bounce up, and explode, and leap again and fall again, and great red
masses of flame would unfold, and burst, and yield black masses of
smoke, and these in turn red. Mountains of smoke rose to the sky, and
mountains of flame came seething down to the earth; every jet that
struck the ground turned into a volcano, and rose again, higher than
before; the whole mass, boiling and bursting, became a river of fire, a
lava flood that went streaming down the valley, turning everything it
touched into flame, then swallowing it up and hiding the flames in a
cloud of smoke. The force of gravity took it down the valley, and the
force of the wind swept it over the hill-side; it touched the
bunk-house, and swallowed it in one gulp; it took the tool-house,
everything that was wood; and when there came a puff of wind, driving
the stream of oil and gas to one side, you saw the skeleton of the
derrick, draped with fire!
Bunny saw his father, and ran to join him. Dad was rallying the men; was
anybody hurt? He got the crew together, one by one; they were all there,
thank God! He told Paul to run down to the ranch-house and get his
family up into the hills; he told Bunny to go with him, and keep away
from the fire—a long way, you never could tell in which direction it
would explode. So Bunny went flying down the arroyo at Paul’s heels;
they found the family down on their knees, praying, the two girls
hysterical. They got them up, and told them where to go; never mind
their few belongings, cried Bunny, Dad would pay for them. Paul shouted
to see to the goats, and they ran to the pen, but they weren’t needed;
the panic-stricken creatures flung themselves against the side of the
pen and broke through, and away they went down the arroyo; they would
take care of themselves!
Bunny started back; and on the way, here came Dad in his car. He was
going after dynamite, he called to them; they were to keep away from the
fire meantime; and off he went in the darkness. It was one time in his
life that Bunny knew his father to be caught without something he
needed; he hadn’t thought to carry any dynamite around with him on his
drives!
Of course Bunny had heard about oil fires, which are the terror of the
industry. He knew of the devices ordinarily used to extinguish them.
Water was of no use—quite the contrary, the heat would dissolve the
water into its constituents, and you would merely be feeding oxygen to
the flames. You must have live steam in enormous quantities, and for
that you needed many boilers, and they had only one here, this fire
would go on burning all the while they were fetching more; Bunny had
heard of a fire that burned for ten days, until they made a great
conical hood of steel to slide over the well, with an opening in the top
through which the flames rushed out, and into which was poured the live
steam. And meantime all the pressure would be wasted, and millions of
dollars worth of money burned up! Bunny realized that, as a desperate
alternative, Dad was going to try to plug up the hole by a dynamite
blast, even at the risk of ruining the well.
The two boys skirted the slopes, and got back to the well, on the
windward side, away from the flames. There they found the crew engaged
in digging a shaft, as close to the fire as they could get; Bunny
understood that it was in preparation for the dynamite. They had set up
a barrier against the heat, a couple of those steel troughs in which
they mixed cement; upon this they had a hose playing, the water turning
to steam as it hit. A man would run into the searing heat, and chop a
few strokes with a pick, or throw out a few shovelfuls of dirt, and then
he would flee, and another man would run in. Dave Murgins was working
the hose, lying flat on the ground with some wet canvas over his head.
Fortunately, they had pressure from the artesian well, for their pump
was out of commission, along with everything else. Dave shouted his
orders, and the hole got deeper and deeper. Paul ran in to help, and
Bunny wanted to, but Dave shouted him back, and so he had to stand and
watch his “wild-cat” burning up, and all he could do was to bake his
face a little!
They got down below the surface of the ground, and after that it was
easier; but the man who worked in that hole was risking his
life—suppose the wind were to shift, even for a few seconds, and blow
that mass of boiling oil over him! But the wind held strong and steady,
and the men jumped into the hole and dug, and the dirt flew out in
showers. Presently they were tunneling in towards the well—they would
go as close as they dared, before they set the dynamite.
And suddenly Bunny thought of his father, coming with the stuff; he
wouldn’t be able to drive up the road, he’d have to come round by the
rocky hill-side, carrying that dangerous load in the darkness. Bunny
went running, as fast as he dared, to help.
There were cars down on the road; many people had seen the glare of the
fire, and come to the scene. Bunny inquired for his father; and at last
there came a car with much tooting, and there was Dad, and another man
whom Bunny did not know. They drove as far up as they dared—the Watkins
house had been long ago swallowed by the flames. They stopped and got
out, and Dad told Bunny to take the car back to a safe place, and not
come near him or the other man with the dynamite; they would make their
way to the well, very carefully. Bunny heard Dad telling the other man
to go slow, they’d not risk their lives jist to save a few barrels of
oil.
When Bunny got back to the well again, Dad and the man were already
there, and the crew was setting the dynamite. They had some kind of
electric battery to explode it with, and presently they were ready, and
everybody stood back, and the strange man pushed down a handle, and
there was a roar and a burst of flame from the shaft, and the geyser of
oil that was rushing out of the well was snubbed off in an instant—just
as if you stopped a garden hose by pinching it! The tower of oil
dropped; it leaped and exploded a few times more, and that was the end.
The river of fire was still flowing down the arroyo, and would take a
long time to burn itself out; but the main part of the show was over.
And nobody was hurt—that is, nobody but Bunny, who stood by the edge of
the red glare, gazing at the stump of his beautiful oil-derrick, and the
charred foundations of his home-made bunk-house, and all the wreckage of
his hopes. If the boy had been a little younger, there would have been
tears in his eyes. Dad came up to him and saw his face, and guessed the
truth, and began to laugh. “What’s the matter, son? Don’t you realize
that you’ve got your oil?”
Strange as it may seem, that idea came to Bunny for the first time! He
stared at his father, with such a startled expression that the latter
put his arm about the boy and gave him a hug. “Cheer up, son! This here
is nothin’, this is a joke. You’re a millionaire ten times over.”
“Gosh!” said Bunny. “That’s really true, isn’t it!”
“True?” echoed Dad. “Why, boy, we got an ocean of oil down underneath
here; and it’s all ours—not a soul can get near it but us! Are you
a-frettin’ about this measly little well?”
“But Dad, we worked so hard over it!”
Dad laughed again. “Forget it, son! We’ll open it up again, or drill a
new one in a jiffy. This was jist a little Christmas bonfire, to
celebrate our bustin’ in among the big fellers!”