CHAPTER VITHE WILD-CAT
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!”
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.
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!
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.
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!”
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.
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!
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!”