A dirty-faced clock on the wall told Betty that it was within twenty minutes of the time their train was due. However, they were within sight of the station, so, provided Bob was quickly waited upon, there was no reason to worry about missing the connection.
Bob came back, balancing the sandwiches and milk precariously, and they proceeded to make a hearty lunch, their appetites sharpened by the clear Western air, in a measure compensating for the sawdust bread and the extreme blueness of the milk.
“What are those men laughing about, I wonder,” commented Betty idly, as a fresh burst of laughter came from the table in the corner of the room. “What a noise they make! Bob, do I imagine it, or does this bread taste of oil?”
Bob laughed, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure the counter-man could not hear.
“Do you know, I thought that very thing,” he confessed. “I wasn’t going to mention it, for fear you’d think I was obsessed with the notionof oil. To tell you the truth, Betsey, I think this bread has been near the kerosene oil can, not an oil well.”
“Well, we can drink the milk,” said Betty philosophically. “It’s lucky one sandwich apiece was good. Oh, won’t it be fine to get to Flame City and see Uncle Dick! I want to get where we are going, Bob!”
“Sure you do,” responded Bob sympathetically, frowning with annoyance as another hoarse burst of laughter came from the corner table. “But I’m afraid Flame City isn’t going to be much of a place after all.”
“I don’t care what kind of place it is,” declared Betty firmly. “All I want is to see Uncle Dick and be with him. And I want you to find your aunts. And I’d like to go to school with the Littell girls next fall. And that’s all.”
Bob smiled, then grew serious.
“I’d like to go to school myself,” he said soberly. “Precious little schooling I’ve had, Betty. I’ve read all I could, but you can’t get anywhere without a good, solid foundation. Well, there’ll be time enough to worry about that when school time comes. Just now it is vacation.”
“Bob!”—Betty spoke swiftly—“look what those men are doing—teasing that poor Chinaman. How can they be so mean!”
Sure enough, one of the group had slouched forward in his chair, and over his bent shoulders Bob and Betty could see an unhappy Chinaman, clutching his knife and fork tightly and looking with a hunted expression in his slant eyes from one to another of his tormentors. They were evidently harassing him as he ate, for while they watched he took a forkful of the macaroni on the plate before him, and attempted to convey it to his mouth. Instantly one of the men surrounding him struck his arm sharply, and the food flew into the air. Then the crowd laughed uproariously.
“Isn’t that perfectly disgusting!” scolded Betty. “How any one can see anything funny in doing that is beyond me. Oh, now look—they’ve got his slippers.”
The unfortunate Chinaman’s loose flat slippers hurtled through the air, narrowly missing Betty’s head.
“Come on, we’re going to get out of this,” said Bob determinedly, rising from his seat. “Those chaps once start rough-housing, no telling where they’ll bring up. We want to escape the dishes, and besides we haven’t any too much time to make our train.”
He had paid for their food when he ordered it, so there was nothing to hinder their going out. Bob started for the door, supposing thatBetty was following. But she had seen something that roused her anger afresh.
The poor Celestial was essaying an ineffectual protest at the treatment of his slippers, when a man opposite him reached over and snatched his plate of food.
“China for Chinamen!” he shouted, and with that clapped the plate down on the unfortunate victim’s head with so much force that it shivered into several pieces.
Betty could never bear to see a person or an animal unfairly treated, and when, as now, the odds were all against one, she became a veritable little fury. As Bob had once said in a mixture of admiration and despair she wasn’t old enough to be afraid of anything or anybody.
“How dare you treat him like that!” she cried, running to the table where the Chinaman sat in a daze. “You ought to be arrested! If you must torment some one, why don’t you get somebody who can fight back?”
The men stared at her open-mouthed, bewildered by her unexpected championship of their bait. Then a great, coarse, blowzy-faced man, with enormous grease spots on his clothes, winked at the others.
“My eye, we’ve a visitor,” he drawled. “Sit down, my dear, and John Chinaman shall bring you chop suey for lunch.”
Betty drew back as he put out a huge hand.
“You leave her alone!” Bob had come after Betty and stood glaring at the greasy individual. “Anybody who’ll treat a foreigner as you’ve treated that Chinaman isn’t fit to speak to a girl!”
A concerted growl greeted this statement.
“If you’re looking for a fight,” snarled a younger man, “you’ve struck the right place. Come on, or eat your words.”
Now Bob was no coward, but there were five men arrayed against him with a probable sixth in the form of the counter-man who was watching the turn of affairs with great interest from the safe vantage-point of his high counter. It was too much to expect that any men who had dealt with a defenceless and handicapped stranger as these had dealt with the Chinaman would fight fair. Besides, Bob was further hampered by the terrified Betty who clung tightly to his arm and implored him not to fight. It seemed to the lad that the better part of valor would be to take to his heels.
“You cut for the station,” he muttered swiftly to Betty. “Get the bags—train’s almost due. I’ll run up the street and lose ’em somewhere on the way. They won’t touch you.”
He said this hardly moving his lips, and Betty did not catch every word. But she heard enoughto understand what was expected of her and what Bob planned to do. She loosened her hold on his arm.
Like a shot, Bob made for the door, banged the screen open wide (Betty heard it hit the side of the building), and fled up the straggling, uneven street. Instantly the five toughs were in pursuit.
Betty heard the counter-man calling to her, but she ran from the place and sped toward the station. It was completely deserted, and a written sign proclaimed that the 1:52 train was ten minutes late. Betty judged that the ticket agent, with whom they had left their bags, would return in time to check them out, and she sat down on one of the dusty seats in the fly-specked waiting-room to wait for the arrival of Bob.
That young man, as he ran, was racking his brains for a way to elude his pursuers. There were no telegraph poles to climb, and even if there had been, he wanted to get to Betty and the station, not be marooned indefinitely. He glanced back. The hoodlums, for such they were, were gaining on him. They were out of training, but their familiarity with the walks gave them a decided advantage. Bob had to watch out for holes and sidewalk obstructions.
He doubled down a street, and then the solution opened out before him. There was a grocerystore, evidently a large shop, for he had noticed the front door on the street where the restaurant was situated. Now he was approaching the rear entrance and a number of packing cases cluttered the walk, and excelsior was lying about. A backward glance showed him that the enemy had not yet rounded the corner. Bob dived into the store.
“Hide me!” he gasped, running plump into a white-haired man in overalls who was whistling “Ben Bolt” and opening cases of canned peaches with pleasant dexterity. “Hide me quick. There’s a gang after me—five of ’em!”
“Under the counter, Sonny,” said the groceryman, hardly looking at Bob. “Just lay low, and trust Micah Davis to ’tend to the scamps.”
Bob crawled under the nearest counter and in a few minutes he heard the men at the door.
“’Lo, Davis,” said one conciliatingly. “Seen anything of a fresh kid—freckled, good clothes, right out of the East? He tried to pass some bad money at Jake Hill’s. Seen him?”
Bob nearly denounced this lie, but common sense saved him. Small use in seeking protection and then refusing it.
“Haven’t seen anybody like that,” said the groceryman positively. “Quit bruising those tomatoes, Bud.”
“Well, he won’t get out of town,” stated Budsourly. “There’s a girl with him, and they’re figuring on taking the one-fifty-two. We’re going down and picket the station. If Mr. Smarty gets on that train at all, his face won’t look so pretty.”
They tramped off, and Bob came out from his hiding place.
“They’re a nice bunch!” he declared bitterly. “I got into a row with ’em because they were teasing a poor Chinaman and Betty Gordon landed on them for that. Then I tried to get her away from the place, and of course that started a fight. But I suppose they can dust the station with me if they’re set on it—only I’ll register a few protests.”
“Now, now, we ain’t a-going to have no battle,” announced the genial Mr. Davis. “I knew Bud was lying soon as I looked at him. Why? ’Cause I never knew him to tell the truth. As for picketing the station, well, there’s more ways than one to skin a cat.”
Micah Davis was a Yankee, as he proudly told Bob, “born and raised in New Hampshire,” and his shrewd common sense and dry humor stood him in good stead in the rather lawless environment of Chassada. He was well acquainted with the unlovely characteristics of the five who had chased Bob, and when he heard the whole story he promised to look up the Chinaman and see what he could do for him.
“If he’s out of a job, I’d like to hire him,” he said. “They’re good, steady workers, and born cooks. He can have the room back of the store and do his own housekeeping. I’ll stop in at Jake’s this afternoon.”
Bob was in a fever of fear that he would miss the train, and it was now a quarter of two. But Mr. Davis assured him that that special train was always late and that there was “all the time in the world to get to the station.”
“I’m expecting some canned goods to come up from Wayne,” he declared, “and I often go down after such stuff with my wheelbarrow.Transportation’s still limited with us, as you may have guessed. I calculate the best way to fool those smart Alecs is to put you in an empty packing case and tote you down. Comes last minute, you can jump out and there you are!”
Bob thought this a splendid plan, and said so.
“Then here’s the very case, marked ‘Flame City’ on purpose-like,” was the cheery rejoinder. “Help me lift it on the barrow, and then you climb in, and we’ll make tracks. Comfortable? All right, we’re off.”
He adjusted the light lid over the top of the box, which was sufficiently roomy to allow Bob to sit down, and the curious journey began. Apparently it was a common occurrence for Mr. Davis to take a shipment of goods that way, for no one commented. As the wheelbarrow grated on the crushed stone that surrounded the station, Bob heard the voice of the man called Bud.
“One-fifty-two’s late, as usual,” he called. “That young scalawag hasn’t turned up, either. Guess he’s going to keep still till the last minute and figure on getting away with a dash. The girl’s in the waiting-room.”
“I’m surprised you’re not in there looking in her suitcase for the young reprobate,” said Mr. Davis with thinly veiled sarcasm. “What happened? Did Carl order you out?”
Carl, the listening Bob judged, must be the ticket agent.
“I’d like to see that whippersnapper order me out!” blustered Bud. “There’s a whole raft of women in there, waiting for the train.”
Mr. Davis carefully lowered the wheelbarrow and leaned carelessly against the box.
“Guess I’ll go in and see the girl—like to know how she looks,” he observed a bit more loudly than was necessary.
Bob understood that he was going to explain to Betty and he thanked him silently with all his heart.
The friendly Mr. Davis strolled into the waiting-room and had no difficulty in recognizing Betty Gordon. She was the only girl in the room, in the first place, and she sat facing the door, a bag on either side of her, and a world of anxiety in her dark eyes. The groceryman crossed the floor and took the vacant seat at her right. There was no one within earshot.
“Don’t you be scared, Miss,” he said quietly. “I’m Micah Davis, and I just want to tell you that everything’s all right with that Bob boy. I’ve got him out here in a box, and when the train comes he’s a-going to hop on board before you can say Jack Robinson.”
“Oh, you dear!” Betty turned upon the astonished Mr. Davis with a radiant smile. “I wasworried to death about him, because those dreadful men have been hanging around the station, and they keep peering in here. You’re so good to help Bob!”
Mr. Davis stammered confusedly that he had done nothing, and then hurried on to advise Betty to pay no attention to anything that might happen, but to let the conductor help her on the train.
“I’ve got to wheel the lad down toward the baggage car,” he explained, “so’s they won’t suspect. You see, Miss, this is an oil town and folks do pretty much as they please. If a gang want to beat up a stranger they don’t find much opposition. In a few years we’ll have better order, but just now the toughs have it. Sorry you had to have this experience.”
“I’ll always remember Chassada pleasantly because of you,” said Betty impulsively. “Hark! Isn’t that the train? Yes, it is. Don’t mind me—go back to Bob. I’m all right, honestly I am!”
They shook hands hurriedly, and Betty followed the other passengers out to the platform. She caught a glimpse of Mr. Davis placidly trundling his wheelbarrow down the platform, and then the train pulled in and the conductor helped her aboard.
“Express?” called the baggage car man as thewheelbarrow was halted beside the truck on which he was tumbling a pile of boxes.
“Sure, express,” retorted Mr. Davis. “Live stock this time. A passenger for you, with his ticket and all. Let him go through to the coaches, George. It’s all right. He’ll explain.”
He lifted the lid of the box and Bob stepped out. The baggage man stared, but he knew and trusted Mr. Davis.
“Don’t thank me, lad,” said the groceryman kindly as Bob tried to pour out his thanks. “You’re from my part of the country, and any boy in trouble claims my help. There, there, for goodness’ sake, are you going to miss the train after all the trouble I’ve taken?”
He pushed Bob gently toward the door of the baggage car and the boy scrambled in. Then, and not until then, did the vociferous Bud see what was going on. He dared not tackle the groceryman, but he came running pellmell down the platform to bray at Bob.
“You big coward!” he yelled. “Sneaking away, aren’t you? Just let me catch you in this town again, and I’ll make it so hot for you you’ll wish you’d never left your kindergarten back East.”
He was so angry he fairly danced with rage, and Bob and the baggage man both had to laugh.
“Laugh, you big boob!” howled Bud. “Youwouldn’t think it so funny if I had you by the collar. ’Fraid to fight, aren’t you? You wait! Some day I’ll get you and I’ll—I’ll drown you!”
Bud had made an unfortunate choice of punishment, for his words carried a suggestion to Bob. Mail and express was still being unloaded, and beside the track was a large puddle of oily, dirty water apparently from a leaky pipe, for there were no indications of a recent rain.
With a swift spring, Bob was on his feet beside the surprised Bud, and, seizing him, whirled him sharply about. Then with a strong push he sent him flat into the puddle.
Sputtering, gasping, and actually crying with rage, the bully stumbled to his feet and charged blindly for Bob. That agile youth had turned and dashed for the train, which was now slowly moving. He caught the steps of the baggage car and drew himself up. Once on the platform he turned to wave to Mr. Davis, but that good citizen was holding back the foaming Bud from dashing himself against the wheels and did not see Bob’s farewell.
“Whew!” gasped Bob, making his way to Betty, after going through an apparently endless number of cars, “our Western adventures begin with a rush, don’t they? I’m hoping Flame City will be peaceful, for I’ve had enough excitement to last me a week.”
“I wish Mr. Davis lived in Flame City,” said Betty warmly. “I never knew any one to be kinder. Imagine all the trouble he took for you, Bob.”
Bob agreed that the groceryman was a living example of the Golden Rule, and then the sight of oil derricks in the distance changed the trend of their thoughts.
“Where do you suppose those two sharpers—what were their names?—could have gone?” said Betty. “Seems to me, there are a lot of unpleasant people out here, after all.”
“You mean Blosser and Fluss,” replied Bob. “I don’t know where they went, but I’m certain they are not up to anything good. Still, it isn’t fair to say we’ve come in contact with a lot of unpleasant people, Betty. All new developments have to fight against the undesirable element, Mr. Littell says. You see, the prospect of making money would naturally attract them, and that, coupled with the possibility of meeting trusting and ignorant souls who have a little and want to make more, draws the crooks. It has always been that way. Haven’t you read about the things that happened in California when there was the rush of gold seekers?”
Betty was not especially interested in the gold seekers, but the glimpses she had had of the oil industry fascinated her. She hoped that her UncleDick would have time to take them around, and she was divided between an automobile and a horse as the choicest medium of sightseeing.
“Well, I’d like to ride,” declared Bob when she sought his opinion. “I’ve always wanted to. But I don’t intend to see the sights, altogether, Betty. I want to find my aunts, and then, if possible, I’d like to get a job. There must be plenty for a boy to do out here.”
“But you’ve been working all summer,” protested Betty. “You’re as thin as a rail now. I know Uncle Dick won’t let you go to work. Why, Bob, I counted on your going around with me! We can have such fun together.”
“Well, of course, there will be lots of odd hours,” Bob comforted her. “I don’t intend to borrow any more money, Betty, that’s flat. And if I don’t get my share in the farm, that is, if it proves my mother never had any sisters and never was entitled to a share of anything, I don’t intend to let that be the end of my ambitions. I’m going to school, if it takes an arm!”
Betty gazed at him respectfully. Bob, when in earnest, was a very convincing talker. She wondered for a moment what he would be when he grew up.
“We’re coming into Flame City,” he warned her before she could put this thought into words.“Tip your hat straight, Betsey, and take the camera. I can manage both bags.”
“Oh, I hope Uncle Dick will meet us!” Betty was so excited she bumped her nose against the glass trying to see out of the window. “Look, Bob, just see those derricks! This is surely an oil town!”
The brakes went down, and the brakeman at the end of the car flung the door open.
“Flame City!” he shouted. “All out for Flame City!”
Bob and Betty descended the steps and found themselves on a rough platform with an unpainted shelter in the center that evidently did duty as a station. There were a few straggling loungers about, a team or two backed up to the platform, and a small automobile of the runabout type, red with rust.
“Well, bless her heart, how she’s grown!” cried a cordial voice, and Mr. Richard Gordon had Betty in his arms.
“Uncle Dick! You don’t know how glad I am to see you!” Betty hugged him tight, thankful that the worry and anxiety and uncertainty of the last few weeks, while she had waited in Washington to hear from him, was at last over. “How tanned you are!” she added.
“Oh, I’m a regular Indian,” was the laughing response. “This must be Bob? Glad to see you, my boy. I feel that I already know you.”
He and Bob shook hands heartily. Mr. Gordon was tall and muscular, with closely-cropped gray hair and quizzical gray eyes slightly puckeredat the corners from much staring in the hot sun. His face and hands were very brown, and he looked like a man who lead an outdoor life and liked it.
Bob took to him at once, and the feeling seemed to be mutual, for Mr. Gordon kept a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder while he continued to scan him smilingly.
“Began to look as though we were never going to get together, didn’t it?” Mr. Gordon said. “Last week there was a rumor that I might have to go to China for the firm, and I thought if that happened Betty would be in despair. However, that prospect is not immediate. Well, young folks, what do you think of Flame City, off-hand?”
Betty stared. From the station she could see half a dozen one-story shacks and, beyond, the outline of oil well derricks. A straggling, muddy road wound away from the buildings. Trolley cars, stores and shops, brick buildings to serve as libraries and schools—there seemed to be none.
“Is this all of it?” she ventured.
“You see before you,” declared Mr. Gordon gravely, “the rapidly growing town of Flame City. Two months ago there wasn’t even a station. We think we’ve done rather well, though I suppose to Eastern eyes the signposts of aflourishing town are conspicuous by their absence.”
“But where do people live?” demanded Betty, puzzled. “If they come here to work or to buy land, isn’t there a hotel to live in? Where do you live, Uncle Dick?”
“Mostly in my tin boat,” was the answer. “Many’s the night I’ve slept in the car. But of course I have a bunk out at the field. Accommodations are extremely limited, Betty, I will admit. The few houses that take in travelers are over-crowded and dirty. If some one had enterprise enough to start a good hotel he’d make a fortune. But like all oil towns, the fever is to sink one’s money in wells.”
Betty’s eyes turned to the horizon where the steel towers reared against the sky.
“Can we go to see the oil fields now?” she asked. “We’re not a bit tired, are we, Bob?”
Mr. Gordon surveyed his niece banteringly.
“What is your idea of an oil field?” he teased. “A bit of pasture neatly fenced in, say two or three acres in area? Did you know that our company at present holds leases for over four thousand acres? The nearest well is ten miles from this station. No, child, I don’t think we’ll run out and look around before supper. I want to take you and Bob to a place I’ve found where I think you’ll be comfortable. Have you trunk checks?We’ll have to take all baggage with us, because I’m leaving to-morrow for a three-day inspection trip, and the Watterbys can’t be expected to do much hauling.”
Bob had the checks, one for Betty’s trunk and another for a small old-fashioned “telescope” he had bought cheaply in Washington and which held his meagre supply of clothing.
“We’ll stow everything in somehow,” promised Mr. Gordon cheerily, as he and Bob carried the baggage over to the rusty little automobile. “You wouldn’t think this machine would hold together an hour on these roads,” he continued, “but she’s the best friend I have. Never complains as long as the gasoline holds out. There! I think that will stay put, Bob. Now in with you, Betty, and we’ll be off.”
Bob perched himself upon the trunk, and Mr. Gordon took his place at the wheel. With a grunt and a lurch, the car started.
“I suppose you youngsters would like to know where you’re going,” said Mr. Gordon, deftly avoiding the ruts in the miserable road. “Well, I’ll warn you it is a farm, and probably Bramble Farm will shine in contrast. But Flame City is impossible, and when everybody is roughing it, you’ll soon grow used to the idea. The Watterbys are nice folks, native farmers, and what they lack in initiative they make up in kindnessof heart. I’m sorry I have to leave to-morrow morning, but every minute counts, and I have no right to put personal business first.”
He turned to Bob.
“You don’t know what a help you are going to be,” he said heartily. “I really doubt if I should have had Betty come, if at the last moment she had not telegraphed me you were coming, too. It’s no place out here for a girl—Oh, you needn’t try to wheedle me, my dear, I know what I’m saying,” he interpolated in answer to an imploring look from his niece. “No place for a girl,” he repeated firmly. “I shall have no time to look after her, and she can’t roam the country wild. Grandma Watterby is too old to go round with her, and the daughter-in-law has her hands full. I’d like nothing better, Bob, than to take you with me to-morrow, and you’d learn a lot of value to you, too, on a trip of this kind. But I honestly want you to stay with Betty; a brother is a necessity now if ever one was.”
Bob flushed with pleasure. That Mr. Gordon, who had never seen him and knew him only through Betty’s letters and those the Littells had written, should put this trust in him touched the lad mightily. What did he care about a tour of the oil fields if he could be of service to a man like this? And he knew that Mr. Gordon was honest in his wish to have his niece protected.Betty was high-spirited and headstrong, and, having lived in settled communities all her life, was totally ignorant of any other existence.
“Listen, Uncle Dick,” broke in Betty at this point. “Do you know anybody around here by the name of Saunders?”
“Saunders?” repeated her uncle thoughtfully. “Why, no, I don’t recollect ever having heard the name. But then, you see, I know comparatively little about the surrounding country. I’ve fairly lived at the wells this summer. I only stumbled on the Watterbys by chance one day when my car broke down. Why? Do you know a family by that name?”
So Betty, helped out by Bob, explained their interest in the mythical “Saunders place,” and Mr. Gordon listened in astonishment.
“Guess they’re the aunts you’re looking for, Bob,” he said briefly, when he was in possession of the facts. “Couldn’t be many families of that name around here, not unless they were related. Do you know, there’s a lot of that tricky business afoot right here in Flame City? People have lost their heads over oil, and the sight of a handful of bills drives them crazy. The Watterby farm is one of the few places that hasn’t been rushed by oil prospectors. That’s one reason why I chose it.”
They were now on a lonely stretch of road withgently rolling land on either side of them, dotted with a scrubby growth of trees. Not a house was in sight, and they had passed only one team, a pair of mules harnessed to a wagon filled with lengths of iron pipe.
“You’ll know all about oil before you’re through,” said Mr. Gordon suddenly. Then he laughed.
“It’s in the very air,” he explained. “We talk oil, think oil, and sometimes I think, we eat oil. Leastways I know I’ve tasted it in the air on more than one occasion.”
Betty had been silently turning something over in her mind.
“Isn’t there danger from fire?” she asked presently.
“There certainly is,” affirmed her uncle. “We’ve had one bad fire this season, and I don’t suppose the subject is ever out of our minds very long at a time. Sandbags are always kept ready, but let a well get to burning once, and all the sandbags in the world won’t stop it.”
“I wouldn’t want a well to burn,” said Bob slowly, “but if one should, I shouldn’t mind seeing it.”
“You wouldn’t see much but thick smoke,” rejoined Mr. Gordon. “I’ve some pictures of burning wells I’ll show you when I can get them out.Nothing but huge columns of heavy black smoke that smudges up the landscape.”
“Like the lamp that smoked one night when Mrs. Peabody turned it down too low—remember, Bob?” suggested Betty. “Next morning everything in the room was peppered with greasy soot.”
“Look ahead, and you’ll see the Watterby farm—‘place,’ in the vernacular of the countryside,” announced Mr. Gordon. “Unlike the Eastern farms, very few homes are named. There’s Grandma Watterby watching for us.”
Bob and Betty looked with interest. They saw a gaunt, plain house, two stories in height, without window blinds or porch of any sort, and if ever painted now so weather-beaten that the original color was indistinguishable. A few flowers bloomed around the doorstep but there was no attempt at a lawn. A huddle of buildings back of the house evidently made up the barns and out-houses, and chickens stalked at will in the roadside.
These fled, squawking, when Mr. Gordon ran the car into the ditch and an old woman hobbled out to greet him.
“Well, Grandma,” he called cheerily, raising his voice, for she was slightly deaf, “I’ve brought you two young folks bag and baggage, just as Ipromised. I suspect they’ve brought appetites with them, too.”
“Glad to see you,” said the old woman, putting out a gnarled hand. Her eyes were bright and clear as a bird’s, and she had a quick, darting way of glancing at one that was like a bird, too. “Emma’s got the supper on,” she announced. “She’s frying chicken.”
“I’ll go in and tell Mrs. Watterby that she may count on me,” declared Mr. Gordon jovially, as Bob jumped down and helped Betty out. “I never miss a chance to eat fried chicken, never. I wonder if it will be fried in oil?”
“Emma uses lard,” said Grandma Watterby placidly.
Mr. Gordon stayed over night, but was off early in the morning. Bob and Betty watched his rickety car out of sight, and then, determined to keep busy and happy, set out to explore the Watterby farm.
The family, they had discovered at supper the night before, consisted of Grandma Watterby, her son Will, a man of about forty-five, and the daughter-in-law, Emma, a tall, silent woman with a wrinkled, leathery skin, a harsh voice, and the kindest heart in the world. An Indian helped Mr. Watterby run the farm. In addition there were two boarders, a man and his wife who had come West for the latter’s health and who, for the sake of the glorious air, put up with many minor inconveniences. They were very homesick for the East, and asked Bob and Betty many questions.
“Just think, Bob,” said Betty, as she and Bob went out to the barn (they had been told that they were free to go anywhere), “there’s no running water in the house. Mrs. Watterby carries in every bit that’s used for drinking and washing.She was up at four o’clock this morning, carrying water to fill the tubs; she is doing the washing now.”
“Water’s as hard as a rock, too,” commented Bob. “I suppose that’s the alkali. Did you notice how harsh and dry Mrs. Watterby’s face looks? Seems to me I’d rather drill for water than for oil, and the first thing I’d do would be to pump a line into the house. They’ve lived on this farm for sixty years, your uncle said. At least Grandma Watterby has. And I don’t believe they’ve done one thing to it, that could be called an improvement.”
“Here’s the Indian,” whispered Betty. “Make him talk, Bob. I like to hear him.”
The Indian had eaten at the same table with the family, after the farm fashion, and Betty had been fascinated by the monosyllabic replies he had given to questions asked him. He was patching a harness in the doorway of the barn and glanced up unsmilingly at them. Nevertheless he did not seem hostile or unfriendly.
“You come to see oil fields?” he asked unexpectedly. “You help uncle own big well, yes? Indians know about oil hundreds of years ago.”
“Uncle Dick is working for a big oil company,” explained Betty. “I don’t think he owns any wells himself. Tell us something about the Indians? Are there many around here?”
There was an old sawhorse beside the door, and she sat down comfortably on that, while Bob, picking up a handy stick of wood, drew a knife from his pocket and began to whittle.
The Indian was silent for a few minutes. Then he spoke slowly, his needle stabbing the heavy leather at regular intervals.
“Wherever there is oil, there were Indians once,” he announced. “Ask any oil man and he will tell you. At Lake Erie, in Pennsylvania and some parts of New York State, where dwelt the Iroquois, many years after oil was found. It is true, for I have read and heard it.”
“Were the Iroquois in New York State?” asked Bob interestedly. “I’ve always read of the Mohawks, but not about them.”
The Indian glanced at him gravely.
“The Mohawks were an Iroquois tribe,” he explained courteously. “Mohawks, Senecas, Tionontati, Cayuga, Oneida—all were tribes of the Iroquois. Yes I see you recognize those names—many places in this country have been named for Indians.”
“Are you an Iroquois?” asked Betty, rather timidly, for she feared lest the question should be considered impolite.
“I am a Kiowa,” announced the redman proudly. “Oklahoma and Kansas were the home of the Kiowas, the Pawnees and the Comanches.And you see oil has been found here. In Texas, where the big oil fields are, once roved Wichitas. The Dakotas, some tribes of which were the Biloxi, the Opelousas and the Pascagoulas, lived on the gulf plains of Louisiana. Out in southern California, where the oil wells now flow, the Yokut Indians once owned the land. They tell me that where oil had been discovered in Central America, petroleum seeps to the surface of the land where once the Indian tribes were found.”
“Did the Indians use the oil?” asked Bob. He, like Betty, was fascinated with the musical names of the mysterious tribes as they rolled easily from the Kiowa’s tongue.
“Not as the white man does,” was the answer. “The Senecas skimmed the streams for oil and sometimes spread blankets over the water till they were heavy with the oil. They used oil for cuts and burns and were famed for their skill in removing the water from the oil by boiling. Dances and religious rites were observed with the aid of oil. The Siouan Indians, who lived in West Virginia and Virginia, knew, too, of natural gas. They tossed in burning brands and watched the flames leap up from pits they themselves had dug.
“You will find,” the Indian continued, evidently approving of the rapt attention of his audience, “many wells now owned by Indians and leased towhite-men companies. The Osage have big holdings. They are reservation Indians, mostly—perhaps they can not help that. I must go to the plowing.”
He gathered up his harness and went off to the field, and Bob and Betty resumed their explorations, talking about him with interest. Their tour of the shabby outbuildings was soon completed, and just in time for a huge bell rung vigorously announced that dinner was on the table.
That afternoon they found Grandma Watterby braiding rugs under the one large tree in the side yard, and she welcomed them warmly.
“I was just wishing for some one to talk to,” she said cheerfully. “Can’t you sit a while? There isn’t much for young ’uns to do, and I says to your uncle it was a good thing there was two of you—at least you can talk.”
“What lovely rugs!” exclaimed Betty, examining the old woman’s work. “See, Bob, they’re braided, just like the colonial rag rugs you see in pictures. Can’t I do some?”
“Sure you can braid,” said the old woman. “It’s easy. I’ll show you, and then I’ll sew some while you braid.”
“Let me braid, too,” urged Bob. “My fingers aren’t all thumbs, if I am a boy.”
“Well now,” fluttered Grandma Watterby, pleased as could be, “I don’t know when I’ve hadsomebody give me a lift. Working all by yourself is tedious-like, and Emma don’t get a minute to set down. My brother used to make lots of mats to sell; he could braid ’em tighter than I can.”
She showed Betty how to braid and then started Bob on three strips. Then she took up the sewing of strips already braided.
“We were talking to the Indian this morning,” said Betty idly. “He told us a lot about Indians—how wherever they have been oil has been discovered. Does he really know?”
“Ki has been to Government school, and knows a heap,” nodded Grandma Watterby. “What he tells you’s likely to be so. I don’t rightly know myself about what they have to do with the oil, but Will was saying only the other night that the Osage Indians have been paid millions of dollars within the last few years.”
Her keen old eyes were sparkling, and she was sewing with the quick, darting motion that they soon learned was characteristic of everything she did. She must be very old, Bob decided, watching her shriveled hands, knotted by rheumatism, and the idea of age put another thought into his head.
“Mr. Gordon said you’d lived on this farm for sixty years, Grandma,” the boy said suddenly. It had been explained to them that the old ladyliked every one to use that title. “You must know ’most every one in the neighborhood.”
“Fred Watterby brought me here the day we were married,” the old woman replied, letting her sewing fall into her lap. “Sixty years ago come next October. I was married on my seventeenth birthday.”
She sat in a little reverie, and Bob and Betty braided quietly, unwilling to disturb her, although the same question was in their minds. Then Grandma Watterby took up her sewing with a sigh, and the spell was broken.
“Know everybody in the neighborhood?” she echoed Bob’s statement. “Yes, I used to. But with so many moving in and such a lot of oil folks, why, there’s days when I don’t see a rig pass the house I know.”
Betty and Bob spoke simultaneously.
“Do you know any one named Saunders?” they chorused.
Grandma Watterby considered gravely.
“Saunders? Saunders?” she repeated reflectively, while Betty squeezed Bob’s arm in an agony of hopeful excitement. “Seems to me—now wait a minute, and don’t hurry me. When you hurry me, I get mixed in my mind.”
Betty and Bob waited in respectful silence. The old woman rubbed her forehead fretfully, but gradually her expression cleared.
“There was a Saunders family,” she murmured, half to herself. “Three girls, wasn’t there—or was it four? No, three, and only one of ’em married. What was her name—Faith? Yes, that’s it, Faith. A pretty girl she was, with eyes as blue as a lake and ripply hair she wore in a big knot. I always did want to see that hair down her back, and one day I told her so.
“‘How long is it, Faith?’ I asked her. ‘When I was a girl we wore our hair down our backs in a braid and was thankful to our Creator for the blessing of a heavy head of hair.’
“Faith laughed and laughed. I can see hernow; she had a funny way of crinkling up her eyes when she laughed.
“‘I’ll take it down for you, Mrs. Watterby,’ she says; and, my land, if she didn’t pull out every pin and let her hair tumble down her back. It was a foot below her waist, too. I never saw such a head o’ hair.”
Bob looked up at the old woman with shining eyes.
“That was my mother,” he said quietly.
“Your mother!” Grandma Watterby’s tone was startled. Then her face broke into a wrinkled smile.
“Well, now, ain’t I stupid?” she demanded eagerly. “My head isn’t what it used to be. Course you are Faith Saunders’ son. She married David Henderson, a likely young carpenter. Dear, dear, to think you’re Faith’s boy. My, wouldn’t your grandma have been proud to see you!”
“Did you know her?” asked Bob hungrily. Deprived of kin for so many years, even the claim to relatives, he was pathetically starved for the details taken for granted by the average boy.
“Your grandpa and your grandma,” pronounced Grandma Watterby, “died ’bout a year after your ma was married. I guess they never saw you. Your aunties was all of twenty years older than she was. Your ma was the youngest of alarge family of children, but they all died babies ’cept the two oldest and the youngest. Funny wasn’t it?”
Betty waved her braiding wildly.
“Bob was told he had two aunts,” she cried excitedly. “They’re still living, aren’t they, Grandma Watterby? Do they live near here?”
“I dunno whether they’re living or not,” said the old woman cautiously. “Seems like I would ’a’ heard if they had died, but mebbe not. I don’t go out much any more, and Emma’s no hand for news. Mebbe they died. I ain’t heard a word ’bout the Saunders family for years and years. Where’s your father, boy?”
“He died,” said Bob simply. “He was killed in a railroad wreck, and I guess my mother nearly lost her mind. They found her wandering around the country, with only her wedding certificate and a few other papers in a little tin box. And she was sent to the poorhouse. That night I was born, and she died.”
“Dear! dear!” mourned Grandma Watterby, a mist gathering on her spectacles. “Poor, pretty Faith Saunders! In the poorhouse! The Saunders was never what you might call rich, but I guess none of ’em ever saw the inside of the almshouse. And David Henderson was as fine a young man as you’d want to see. When Faith married him and he took her away from here, folks thoughtthey’d go far in the world. I wonder if Hope and Charity ever tried to find out what became of her?”
“Hope and Charity?” repeated Bob. “Are those my aunts?”
“Yes, Hope and Charity Saunders—they was twins,” said the old lady. “Nice girls, too; and they thought everything of Faith. She was so much younger and so pretty, and they were like mothers to her. And she died in the poorhouse! Why didn’t they send her baby back to the girls? They’d ’a’ taken care of you and brought you up like their own.”
Bob explained that his mother’s mental condition had baffled the endeavors of the authorities to get information from her regarding her home and friends, and that she had evidently walked so many miles from the scene of the wreck that no attempt was made to identify his father’s body. A baby was no novelty in the poorhouse, and no one was greatly interested in establishing a circle of relatives for him, and, except for a happy coincidence, he might have remained in ignorance of his mother’s people all his life.
“I must find out where my aunts live,” he concluded. “I overheard some chaps on the train talking about the Saunders place, and Betty and I decided that that must be the homestead farm. They may not live there now, but surely whoeverdoes, could give me a clue. Do you know of a place so called around here? Or would Mr. Watterby?”
“I don’t know where the Saunders place is,” replied Grandma Watterby, genuinely troubled. “Will wouldn’t know, ’cause he’s only farmed here five years, having his own place till his pa died. If I recollect right, the Saunders didn’t live round here, not right round here, that is. Let’s see, it’s all of fifteen years since Faith was married. I lost sight of the girls after she left, and they stopped driving in to see us. Where was their place? I know I went to old Mrs. Saunders’ funeral. Well, anyway, I got this much straight—there was three hills right back of the house. I’d know ’em if I saw ’em in Japan—them three hills! You watch for ’em, boy, and when you lay eyes on ’em you’ll know you’ve found the Saunders place!”
And that was the most definite direction Bob could hope for. Grandma Watterby had the weight of years upon her, and she could not remember the road that led to the farm she had often visited. Though in the days that followed she recollected various bits of information about Bob’s mother and her life as a girl, to which he listened eagerly, she was utterly unable to locate the farm. She kept mentioning the three hills, however, and her son, overhearing, smiled a little.
“Mother never did pay much attention to roads and like-a-that,” he commented dryly. “She always found her way around like the Babes in the Wood—by remembering something she had passed coming over.”
The Watterby place was a curious mixture of primitive farming methods, ranching tactics, and Indian folklore, with a sprinkling of furtherest East and West for good measure. Will Watterby attributed his cosmopolitan plan of work to the influence of the ever-changing hired man.
“They come and they go, mostly go,” he was fond of saying. “It’s easier for me to do the hired man’s way, ’cause I can’t go off when things don’t suit me. Our place seems to be a half-way station for all the tramps in creation. I reckon they get off at Flame City, and, headed east or west, have to earn the money for the rest of their trip. Well, anyway, I don’t believe in being narrow; if a man can show me a better way to do a job, I’m willing to be shown.”
“I simply have to have a clean middy blouse to wear to-morrow when Uncle Dick gets back,” Betty confided to Bob. “And I don’t intend to let Mrs. Watterby wash and iron it for me. Can’t you fix me a tub of water somewhere out in the barn? I’ll do it myself and spread it on the grass to dry. Then, when she’s getting supper, I can heat an iron and press it.”
Bob was willing; indeed he needed clean collars himself, and had reached the decision that there was only one way to get them. Inquiry had established the fact that there was no laundry in Flame City, and the genus washwoman was practically unknown.
Betty went in to get her middy blouse, and Bob pumped pail after pail of water and carried it to the barn. One pump supplied the whole farm, house and barns. The two cows, three horses, and the pigs and chickens were watered thrice daily by the patient Ki.
Cold water was not the only difficulty Betty encountered when she came to the actual washing. The soap would not lather, and a thick white scum formed on the water when she tried to churn up a suds.
“Hard,” said Bob laconically. “Got to have something to put in to soften it. Borax is good; know where there is any?”
Betty remembered having seen a box of borax on the kitchen shelf, and Bob volunteered to go for it. When he returned with it, he brought the news that there was a peddler at the back door with a bewildering “assortment of everything,” Bob said.
“Put a lot of this in,” he directed, handing the box to Betty, who obediently shook in half the contents. “Now we’ll put the stuff to soak, andgo and look at this fellow’s stuff. When you come back to wash, all you’ll have to do will be to rinse ’em out and put them out to dry.”
This sounded plausible, and the middy blouse and collars were left to soak themselves clean.
The peddler proved to have a horse and wagon, and he carried dress goods, notions, kitchen wear, books, stationery and candy. Bob and Betty had never seen a wagon fitted up like this, and they thought it far better than a store.
“I might buy that dotted swiss shirtwaist,” whispered Betty, as Mrs. Watterby ordered five yards of apron gingham measured off. “My middy blouse might not dry in time.”
“All right. And I’ll get a clean collar,” agreed Bob. “These aren’t much and I suppose they’re too cheap to last long, but at any rate they’re clean.”
The peddler drove on at last, and then Bob and Betty hurried back to their washing. Alas, the tub had disappeared. At supper that night, Mrs. Watterby had missed it and demanded of her husband if he had seen it.
“Sure, I had Ki spraying the hen house this afternoon,” Watterby rejoined. “Thought you’d mixed the soapsuds and washing soda for him. It was standing in the barn.”
Betty explained. Of her blouse and Bob’s collars, there remained a few ragged shreds, forshe had poured enough washing powder in to eat the fabric full of holes. She took her loss good-naturedly and was thankful she had the new blouse to wear.
Uncle Dick, when he heard the story, went into gales of laughter.
“Tough luck, Kitten,” he comforted her. “We’ll go to see an oil fire this afternoon and that’ll take your mind off your troubles.”
Mr. Gordon had arrived the night of the disastrous laundry experiment, and made his announcement at the supper table.
“An oil fire!” ejaculated Betty. “Where is it? Won’t it burn the offices and houses? Perhaps they’ll have it put out before we get there!”
Mr. Gordon did not seem to be at all excited, and continued to eat his supper placidly. He looked tired, and he later admitted that he had slept little the night before, having spent the time discussing ways of putting out the fire with the well foreman.
“No, we’ll get to it in plenty of time in the morning,” he assured his niece. “An oil fire is less dangerous than expensive, my dear. We’ve got a man coming up from beyond Tippewa with a sand blast on the first train. Telegraphed for him to-night. It will cost fifteen hundred dollars to put the fire out, but it’s worth it.”
“Fifteen hundred dollars!” Betty stared aghast.
“Well, think of the barrels of oil burning up,” returned her uncle. “The fire’s been going sinceyesterday afternoon. The normal output of that well is round about three thousand barrels a day. Every twenty-four hours she burns, that much oil is lost to us. So we count the fifteen hundred cheap.”
The Watterby household had the farm habit of retiring early, and to-night Betty and Bob were anxious to get to sleep early, too, that they might have a good start in the morning. Mr. Gordon was glad to turn in when the rest did and make up for lost sleep, so by nine o’clock the house was wrapped in slumber.
An hour or two later Betty was awakened by what sounded like a shot. Startled, she listened for a moment, and then, hearing no further commotion, went to sleep again.
She was the first one down in the morning, barring Mrs. Watterby, who, winter and summer, rose at half-past four or earlier. Going out to the pump for a drink of water she saw Ki bending over something beside the woodshed.
“Hey!” he hailed her, without getting up. “Come see what I got.”
Ki and Betty were now excellent friends, the taciturn Indian apparently recognizing that her interest in his stories and Indian tales was unfeigned.
“Why, what is it?” she asked, stopping inamazement as her foot touched a furry body. “Is it a dog? Oh, Ki, you didn’t kill a dog?”
“No, not a dog,” said the Indian showing his white teeth in a grin which was the nearest he ever permitted himself to come to a laugh. “Not a dog—a fox. I shot him last night. He would eat Mis’ Watterby’s chickens.”
“So that was what I heard,” Betty said, recalling the noise that had wakened her. “Bob, come and see the fox Ki shot.”
Bob came running over to the woodshed, and appraised the reddish yellow body admiringly.
“Gee, he was a big one, wasn’t he?” he murmured. “When’d you shoot him, Ki? Last night? I didn’t hear anything. Stealing chickens, I’ll bet a feather.”
Ki nodded, and displayed a shining knife.
“You watch,” he told them. “I skin him, and cure the fur—then I give it to Miss Betty. Make her a nice what you call neck-piece next winter.”
“Oh, don’t skin him!” Betty involuntarily shuddered. “I couldn’t bear to watch you do that. He will bleed, and I’ll think it hurts him. Poor little fox—I hate to see dead things!”
Her lips quivered, and Ki looked hurt.
“You no want a neck-piece?” he asked, bewildered. “Very nice young ladies wear them. I have seen.”
Betty smiled at him through the tears that would come.
“I would love to have the fur,” she explained. “Only I’m such a coward I can’t bear to see you skin the fox. I heard a man say once that women are all alike—we don’t care if animals are killed to give us clothes, but we want some one else to do the killing.”
Somewhat to her surprise, Ki seemed to understand.
“Bob help me skin him,” he announced quietly. “You go in. When the fur is dry and clean, you have it for your neck-piece.”
Betty thanked him and ran away to tell Mr. Gordon and Grandma Watterby of her present. A handsome fox skin was not to be despised, and Betty was all girl when it came to pretty clothes and furs.
Ki and Bob came in to breakfast, and the talk turned to the oil fire. Mr. Gordon generously invited as many as could get into his machine to go, but Mrs. Price could not stand excitement and the Watterbys were too busy to indulge in that luxury. Will Watterby offered to let Ki go, but the Indian had a curious antipathy to oil fields. Grandma Watterby always insisted it was because he was not a Reservation Indian and, unlike many of them, owned no oil lands.
“I’d go with you myself,” she declared brightly,“if the misery in my back wasn’t a little mite onery this mornin’. Racketing about in that contraption o’ yours, I reckon, wouldn’t be the best kind of liniment for cricks like mine.”
So only Mr. Gordon, Betty and Bob started for the fields.
“I saw a horse that I think will about suit you, Betty,” said her uncle when they were well away from the house. “I’m having it sent out to-morrow. She is reputed gentle and used to being ridden by a woman. Then, if we can pick up some kind of a nag for Bob, you two needn’t be tied down to the farm. All the orders I have for you is that you’re to keep away from the town. Ride as far into the country as you like.”
“But, Mr. Gordon,” protested Bob, “I don’t want you to get a horse for me! I’d rather have a job. Isn’t there something I can do out at the oil fields? I’m used to looking out for myself.”
“Look here, young man,” came the reply with mock severity, “I thought I told you you had a job on your hands looking after Betty. I meant it. I can’t go round on these inspection trips unless I can feel that she is all right. And, by the way, have you any objection to calling me Uncle Dick? I think I rather fancy the idea of a nephew.”
Bob, of course, felt more at ease then, andBetty, too, was pleased. The boy found it easy to call Mr. Gordon “Uncle Dick,” and as time went on and they became firmer friends it seemed most natural that he should do so.
They were approaching the oil fields gradually, the road, which was full of treacherous ruts, being anything but straight. Whenever they met a team or another car, which was infrequently, they had to stop far to one side and let the other vehicle pass. Betty was much impressed with her first near view of the immense derricks.
“What a lot of them!” she said. “Just like a forest, isn’t it, Uncle Dick?”
Her uncle frowned preoccupiedly.
“Those are not our fields,” he announced curtly. “They’re mostly the property of small lease-holders. It is mighty wasteful, Betty, to drill like that, cutting up the land into small holdings, and is bound to make trouble. They have no storage facilities, and if the pipe lines can’t take all the oil produced, there is congestion right away. Also many of the leases are on short terms, and that means they’ve the one idea of getting all the oil out they can while they hold the land. So they tend to exhaust the sands early, and violate the principles of conservation.”
They were following the road through the oil fields now, and presently Mr. Gordon announced that they were on his company’s holdings. Atthe same time they saw a column of dense black smoke towering toward the sky.
“There’s the fire!” cried Betty. “Do hurry, Uncle Dick!”
Obediently the little car let out a notch, and they drew up beside a group of men, still some distance from the fire.
“Chandler’s come,” said one of these respectfully to Mr. Gordon. “The five-ton truck brought up a load of sand, and they’re only waiting for you to give the word.”
The speaker was introduced to Betty and Bob as Dave Thorne, a well foreman, and at a word from Mr. Gordon he jumped on the running board of the car and they proceeded another mile. This brought them to the load of sand dumped on one side of the road and the powerful high-pressure hose that had been brought up on the train that morning. The heat from the burning well was intense, though they were still some distance from the actual fire.
“Now, Betty, watch and you’ll see a fire put out,” commanded her uncle, getting out of the car and going forward, first cautioning both young people to stay where they were and not get in any one’s way.
A half dozen men lifted the heavy hose, turned the nozzle toward the column of smoke, and a shower of fine sand curved high in the air. Forperhaps five minutes nothing could be noticed; then, almost imperceptibly, the smoke began to die down. Lower, lower, and lower it fell, and at last died away. The men continued to pump in sand for an extra ten minutes as a matter of precaution, then stopped. The fire was out.
“That fire wasn’t no accident, Boss,” proclaimed Dave Thorne, wiping his perspiring face with a red handkerchief. “She was set. And, believe me, where there’s one, there’ll be others. The north section keeps me awake nights. If a fire started there where that close drilling’s going on, it couldn’t help but spread. You can fight fire in a single well, but let half a dozen of ’em flare up and there’ll be more than oil lost.”
“What a croaker you are, Dave,” said Mr. Gordon lightly. “Don’t lose sleep about any section. A night’s rest is far too valuable to be squandered. These young folks want to see the sights, and I’ll take them around for an hour or so. Then I’ll go over that bill of lading with you. Come, Betty and Bob, we’ll leave the machine and take the trail on foot. Mind your clothes and shoes—there’s oil on everything you touch.”