I
THE driller of the Bonnie Mag No. 3 had been keeping his weather eye
on the public road all the long summer afternoon; exacting and laborious
duties had obtained under the shadow of the oil derrick on this
nineteenth day of August, quite sufficient to have distracted the
attention of the ordinary man, but through it all the driller had
maintained his watch. The pumper, a grimy mortal, who regarded the
monster oil company as the sole and omnipotent power of the universe,
had marked this apparent anxiety of the driller, and inquired, with some
trace of humor, if that gentleman was expecting to see grease gush
up out of the road. To which the driller had responded with barbaric
profanity that the pumper had been employed to pump, and that he might
hold his position by holding his tongue, but not otherwise. A suggestion
that banished all levity from the speech of the pumper. Besides, there
was a red glint in the eyes of the driller, and the underling of the
great oil company appreciated perfectly the full significance of the
sign. He had noticed it before on divers eventful occasions, especially
on a certain morning when being interrupted by an order of the Circuit
Court, the driller had promptly suggested to the deputy sheriff that
he might go to the infernal regions with his injunction; and instead of
suspending operations until the legal forum could determine the title
to the realty, he had complied with his contract by pushing his well
through to the Gordon sand.
It was true indeed that the Circuit Court had attached t he body of the
driller and bringing him up before its august presence fined him two
hundred dollars for contempt, but the old man had paid over the money
without the hesitation of a moment and immediately thereafter consigned
the Circuit Court to the same heated region originally suggested to the
deputy sheriff.
The sun had gone down, and the twilight was beginning to gather on the
oil field. The shadows darkened across the long sloping valley, and the
great derricks in the half light looked dark and gaunt and threatening
like some grim engines of war. It was now difficult to observe the
highway from the oil wells far up on the hill side, and the driller,
who evidently intended to maintain his surveillance of the county
thoroughfare at any cost, stepped out from the shadow of the derrick and
began to wipe his hands on the grass; when he had finished he turned to
the pumper. “Just keep your eye on that cable,” he said curtly, “I'll be
back when you see me coming.” Then he turned and walked slowly down the
path to the road.
The soft breath of wind creeping up from the North through the rift in
the low hills brought with it no sound, save the dull ceaseless thump
of the engines drawing streams of liquid wealth from a thousand narrow
arteries leading down into the bosom of the earth. This great industry,
not content with changing the civilization, had changed also the very
face of the land; two years before this fluttering summer breeze had
carried with it the murmur of ripening corn fields, the sweet odor of
quiet pasture land where herds of fattening cattle wandered through
fields of blue grass. Now, the lands were marked with wagon roads,
studded with the rough shanties of the pumpers and the gigantic wooden
tanks of the great oil companies; and here and there, like the twisted
ugly back of some huge serpent, a black pipe line stretched its
interminable length across the broken country. Greed ruled the world,
and beauty, like many another gift of nature, was battered out under his
hammer.
The oil driller stopped at the road side and leaned his long body on the
rail fence. He was a thin, old man, with sharp, emaciated features, his
hair and iron-gray beard were matted with oil, and his long arms, bare
to the elbow and burned black by the sun, glistened greasy as the piston
of his engine. The ancient workman kept his watch in dead silence, and
beyond this his face showed no interest. This man belonged to that iron
type upon which the world has depended so much for its civilization,
that type which no matter where placed toils on in its station like
a machine, unquestioning, tireless, reliable as a law. In the rank of
their legions it had extended the rule of the Caesars; on the broad
decks of the men-of-war it had widened the dominion of Great Britain;
and in the mines and mills and forests of America it had reared and
maintained and enriched a Republic; growing greater than them all.
Presently in the deepening twilight a huge shadow appeared at the foot
of the long hill, and the driller heard distinctly the sound of a horse
coming leisurely up the sandy road. As it approached, the indefinite
shadow took on a clear and decided outline, until one in the position
of the driller could have seen that it was an enormous man, riding a
red roan horse. The man was leaning forward, his head down and his hands
resting on the pommel of his saddle, while the bridle reins dangled
loose in his fingers. When they were opposite, the driller spoke.
“Is that you, Alshire?” he said.
The giant threw bark his great shoulders and stopped his horse with
a wrench on the bridle “Morg Gaston!” he announced with some trace of
surprise in his voice, then he added, half-apologetically, “what's the
good word with you?”
The driller climbed heavily over the big staked-and-ridered fence, “I
saw you go down this morning,” he said, “and I have been watching for
you back; I want to tell you something.”
Then he came over to the middle of the road and rested his greasy chin
on the mane of the red roan.
“Hell of a high horse,” said the driller.
“Seventeen hands,” responded the giant.
The old man ran his eyes slowly over the immense proportions of the
traveller, his deep, powerful chest, his broad, thick shoulders and his
massive limbs almost grotesquely huge.
“You are not little yourself,” he observed, as though announcing a
discovery, “and I am darned glad of it, leastways I was darned glad of
it that morning old Ward's rotten derrick blowed down, and you chanced
along and lifted her off me. I was pinned under them timbers like a
rat.”
The man laughed, but his face in the dark was not merry. The driller
extended his close inspection to the horse; when he had finished he
stepped back in the road and an expression of intense admiration spread
itself over his rugged features.
“By jolly!” he said, “you are a pair to draw to.”
The giant patted the withers of the great horse.
“Cardinal is a good colt,” he replied, “good as they grow.”
The driller stood for some moments gazing almost worshipfully at the
pair; then he straightened suddenly and coming up close to the horse
rested his arms, wet with petroleum, on the pommel of the saddle.
“Alshire,” he said, lowering his voice, “the Company thinks there is
grease under your land. I was up to see the manager last night, and
while I was there the engineers came in with the maps, and they all
agreed that the head of the pool was about under your farm. You are
nigh on to three miles east of the development, but the belt is surely
running your way; this here last well that the Company plugged is forty
barrels better than the No. 1 five hundred feet west; and I'll tell
you another thing, there ain't no more boring in this region until the
Company gets its clutches on all this land laying to the east, yours
included. My instructions is to make this last one dry, and move over
into Ohio.”
The great Alshire bent over and placed his broad hand on the greasy
arm of the driller. “I'm obliged to you, Morg,” he said slowly. “I'll
lookout.”
“By jolly!” continued the old workman, “you better had, they are a
smooth set of divels, and whatever you do, keep your mouth plugged. I
ain't never given the Company the double cross before, but I could n't
see them skin you, by jolly, I could n't!”
The old driller spoke rapidly, as though half ashamed of his treason,
and when he had finished turned and began climbing the high fence.
“Morg,” called the giant. “Morg.”
“That's all right,” answered the driller, as he vanished up the dark
hill side, “just keep your mouth plugged; that's all right.”
The giant touched his horse in the flank with his heel and rode on.
Rufus Alshire was a grazier, a business almost exclusively followed in
this magnificent grass country. Many years before, his greatgrandfather,
an English Tory, had fled into this inland country in order to escape
certain unpleasant relations with the colonial government. Here he had
builded an enormous log manor-house, and surrounding himself with rather
worthless retainers, maintained a sort of baronial existence. Others
followed, and after a time the country was cleared and came to be
divided into great tracts of pasture land, owned by these powerful
families. But the elements of the feudal system, although suffering some
modifications, remained. The tenants were, for the most part, born and
reared on the stock land, and were almost fixtures.
The descendants of this independent ancestry continued to reside as near
to the central part of their estate as possible, and maintained huge
residences, rough at times and not quite comfortable perhaps, but always
enormous. The nature of the country being especially adapted to the
fattening of beef cattle, this industry soon came to be the exclusive
business of this powerful people. It was a profitable and supremely
independent industry, and gave wide play to the baronial instincts of
the Anglo-Saxon; who, even after the golden time of his race had gone
out so many hundred years, still loved the open sky, and the blue hills,
and the monster oak trees, and hated in his heart with a stubborn bitter
spirit of rebellion the least shadow of restraint. He was willing to
serve God if need be, but while he lived he would not serve men. In
stature the descendants of the long dead Saxon were huge specimens
of the race, almost as big of limb as the fabled barbarians of Lygia;
powerful men, whom close and intimate relations with the mother nature
kept strong and immensely vital to the very evening of life. But withal
the hospitality of the Saxon was profligate, his impulses were kindly,
and he was quite content to leave the affairs of government and the
problems of civilization to other hands, provided the minions of these
powers held their feet back from his soil.
The twilight had deepened into night; on the crest of the far-off hills
the great oak trees stood outlined against the sky like mighty silent
figures waiting for some mystic word that should call them into life.
The rim of the moon was rising slowly from behind the oil field, red
like battered brass; the road, covered with shifting light and shadow,
stretched across the rolling country like a silver ribbon. The grazier
rode slowly, his hands hanging idly at his sides, and his face set with
deep thought; from time to time he raised his ponderous right hand and
struck it heavily against the tree of his saddle as though to indicate
thereby some important decision finally reached, but as often he dropped
the hand back to its place.
The important information of the oil driller had added a mighty element
to the matters with which he was evidently concerned. The horse, left to
his own inclinations, quickened his pace and presently the shadow of a
huge house loomed upon the crest of the hill at the roadside. The horse
stopped at the gate, and the man. aroused from his reverie, dismounted
slowly, and opening the gate led the horse through; as he closed the
gate he stopped for a moment and rested his enormous elbow on the
latch. “Well,” he said, as though announcing his temporary conclusion to
himself, “I'll ship the cattle to-morrow, and I'll see Jerry.”