Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil: or, The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune

He took an envelope from his pocket and, resting it on his knee, began to draw a rough diagram. The three heads bent close together and the busy tongues were silent save for a muttered question or a word or two of explanation.

Bob began to think that he had heard all he was to hear, and certainly he was no longer in doubt as to the character of the men he had followed. He had decided to go back to Betty when the older of the two gray-suited men, leaning back and taking off his glasses to polish them, addressed a question to Carson.

“Widow own this place?” he asked casually.

“No, couple of old maids,” was the answer. “Last of their line, and all that. The neighbors know it as the Saunders place, but I didn’t rightly get whether that was the name of the old ladies or not.”

The Saunders place!

Bob sat up with a jerk, and then, remembering, sank back and turned a page, though his hands shook with excitement.

“Faith Henderson, born a Saunders – ” The words of the old bookshop man, Lockwood Hale, who had told Bob about his mother’s people, came back to him.

“I do believe it is the very same place,” he said to himself. “There couldn’t be two farms in the oil section owned by different families of the name of Saunders. If it is the right farm, and they’re my aunts, perhaps Betty’s uncle will know where it is.”

He strained his ears, hoping to gather more information, but having heard of this desirable farm, Fluss and Blosser were apparently unwilling to discuss it further. In reality, had Bob only known, they were mulling the situation over in their respective minds, and Carson knew they were. That night, over a game of cards, a finished proposition would doubtless be perfected, and a partnership formed.

“What about you?” Fluss did say.

“Who? Me?” asked Carson inelegantly. “Oh, I’m sorry, but I can’t go in with you. I’m going right on through to the coast. Oklahoma isn’t healthy for me for a couple of months. All I’ll charge you for the information is ten per cent. royalty, payable when your first well flows. My worst enemy couldn’t call me mean.”

“Got something to show you, Carson,” said the man with eye-glasses. “Come on back into the sleeper and I’ll unstrap the suitcase.”

The three rose, tossed away their cigar butts, and went up the aisle. Bob waited till they had gone into the next car, intending then to go back to Betty. His intentions were frustrated by a lanky individual who dropped into the seat beside him.

“Smoke?” he said in friendly fashion, offering Bob a cigarette. “No? Well, that’s right. I didn’t smoke at your age, either. Fact is, I was most twenty-three before I knew how tobacco tasted. Slick-looking posters went up the aisle just now, what?”

Bob admitted that there was something peculiar about them.

“Sharpers, if I ever saw any,” said the lanky one. “We’re overrun with ’em. They come out from the East, and because they can dress and know how to sling language – Say,” he suddenly became serious, “you’d be surprised the way the girls fall for ’em. My girl thinks if a man’s clothes are all right he must be a Wall Street magnate, and the rest of the girls are just like her. They’re the men that give the oil fields a shady side.”

In spite of his roughness, Bob liked the freckle-faced person, and he had proved that he was far from stupid.

“You’ve evidently seen tricky oil men,” he said guardedly. “Do you work in the oil fields? I’m going to Oklahoma.”

“Me for Texas,” announced his companion. “I change at the next junction. No, the nearest I ever come to working in the oil fields is filling tanks for the cars in my father’s garage. But o’ course I know oil – the streets run with it down our way, and they use it to flush the irrigation system. And I’ve seen some of the raw deals these sharpers put through – doing widows and orphans out of their land. Makes you have a mighty small opinion of the law, I declare it does.”

As he spoke the train slowed up, then stopped.

“No station,” puzzled the Texan. “Let’s go and find out the trouble.”

He started for the door, and then the train started, bumped, and came to a standstill again.

“You go ahead!” shouted Bob. “I have to go back and see that my friend is all right.”

CHAPTER IV

BLOCKED TRAFFIC

All was uproar and confusion in the coaches through which Bob had to pass to reach the car where he knew Betty was. Distracted mothers with frightened, crying children charged up and down the aisles, excited men ran through, and the wildest guesses flew about. The consensus of opinion was that they had hit something!

“Oh, Bob!” Betty greeted him with evident relief when he at last reached her. “What has happened? Is any one hurt? Will another train come up behind us and run into us?”

This last was a cheerful topic broached by the fussy little man whose capacity for going ahead and meeting trouble was boundless.

“Of course not!” Bob’s scorn was more reassuring than the gentlest answer. “As soon as a train stops they set signals to warn traffic. What a horrible racket every one is making! They’re all screeching at once. Get your hat, Betty, and we’ll go and find out something definite. I don’t know any more than you do, but I can’t stand this noise.”

Betty was glad to get away from the babble of sound, and they went down the first set of steps and joined the procession that was picking its way over the ties toward the engine.

“Express due in three minutes,” said a brakeman warningly, hurrying past them. “Stand well back from the tracks.”

He went on, cautioning every one he passed, and a majority of the passengers swerved over to the wide cinder path on the other side of the second track. A few persisted in walking the ties.

“Here she comes! Look out!” Bob shouted, as a trail of smoke became visible far up the track.

He had insisted that Betty stand well away from the track, and now the few persistent ones who had remained on the cleared track scrambled madly to reach safety. A woman who walked with a cane, and who had overridden her young-woman attendant’s advice that she stay in the coach until news of the accident, whatever it was, could be brought to her, was almost paralyzed with nervous fright. Bob went to her distressed attendant’s aid, and between them they half-carried, half-dragged the stubborn old person from the shining rails.

“Toto!” she gasped.

Bob stared, but Betty’s quick eye had seen. There, in the middle of the track, sat a fluffy little dog, its eyes so thickly screened with hair that it is doubtful if it could see three inches before its shining black nose. This was Toto, and the rush of events had completely bewildered him. The dog was accustomed to being held on its mistress’ lap or carried about in a covered basket, but she had decided that a short walk would give the little beast needed exercise, and it had pantingly tagged along after her, obedient, as usual, to her whims. Now she had suddenly disappeared. Well, Toto must sit down and wait for her to come back. Perhaps she might miss him and come after him right away.

The thundering noise of the train was clearly audible when Betty swooped down on the patient Toto, grabbed him by his fluffy neck, and sprang back. Bob, turning from his charge, had caught a glimpse of the girl as she dashed toward something on the track, and now as she jumped he grasped her arm and pulled her toward him. He succeeded in dragging her back several rods, but they both stumbled and fell. There was a yelp of protest from Toto, drowned in the mighty shriek and roar of the train. The great Eastern Limited swept past them, rocking the ground, sending out a cloud of black smoke shot with sparks, and letting fall a rain of gritty cinders.

“Don’t you ever let me catch you doing anything like that again!” scolded Bob, getting to his feet and helping Betty up. “Of all the foolish acts! Why, you would have been struck if you’d made a misstep. What possessed you, Betty?”

“Toto,” answered Betty, dimpling, brushing the dirt from her skirts and daintily shaking out the fluffy dog. “See what a darling he is, Bob. Do you suppose I could let a train run over him?”

Bob admitted, grudgingly, for he was still nervous and shaken, that Toto was a “cute mutt,” and then, when they had restored him to his grateful mistress, they went on to their goal. No one had noticed Betty’s narrow escape, for all had been concerned with their own safety. Betty herself was inclined to minimize the danger, but Bob knew that she might easily have been drawn under the wheels by the suction, if not actually overtaken on the track.

There was a crowd about the engine, and the grimy-faced engineer leaned from his cab, inspecting them impassively. His general attitude was one of boredom, tinged with disgust.

“Guess they’ve all been telling him what to do,” whispered Bob, who, while only a lad, had a trick of correctly estimating situations.

Pressing their way close in, he and Betty were at last able to see what had stopped the train. The high wind, which was still blowing with undiminished force, had blown down a huge tree. It lay directly across the track, and barely missed the east-bound rails.

“Another foot, and she’d have tied up traffic both ways,” said the brakeman who had warned the passengers of the approach of the express. “What you going to do, Jim?”

The engineer sighed heavily.

“Got to wait till it’s sawed in pieces small enough for a gang to handle,” he answered. “We’ve sent to Tippewa for a cross-cut saw. Take us from now till the first o’ the month to saw that trunk with the emergency saws.”

“Where’s Tippewa?” called out an inquisitive passenger. “Any souvenirs there?”

“Sure. Indian baskets and that kind of truck,” volunteered the young brakeman affably, as the engineer did not deign to answer. “’Bout a mile, maybe a mile and a half, straight up the track. We don’t stop there. You’ll have plenty of time, won’t he, Jim?”

“We’ll be here a matter of three hours or more,” admitted the engineer.

“Let’s walk to the town, Betty,” suggested Bob. “We don’t want to hang around here for three hours. All this country looks alike.”

Apparently half the passengers had decided that a trip to the town promised a break in the monotony of a long train trip, and the track resembled the main street of Pineville on a holiday. Every one walked on the track occupied by the stalled train, and so felt secure.

“Bob,” whispered Betty presently, “look. Aren’t those the two men you followed this morning? Just ahead of us – see the gray suits? And did you hear anything to report?”

“Why, I haven’t told you, have I?” said Bob contritely. “The train stopping put it out of my mind. What do you think, Betty, they were talking about the Saunders place! Can you imagine that?”

“The Saunders place?” echoed Betty, stopping short. “Why, Bob, do you suppose – do you think – ”

“Sure! It must be the farm my aunts live on,” nodded Bob. “Saunders isn’t such a common name, you know. Besides, the one they call Dan Carson – he isn’t with them, guess he is too fat to enjoy walking – said it was owned by a couple of old maids. Oh, it is the right place, I’m sure of it. And I count on your Uncle Dick’s knowing where it is, since they spoke of the farm being in the heart of the oil section.”

“Where do you suppose they’re going now?” speculated Betty.

“Oh, I judge they want to see the sights, same as we do,” replied Bob carelessly. “Perhaps they count on fleecing some confiding Tippewa citizen out of his hard-earned wealth. They can’t do much in three hours, though, and I think they’re booked to go right on through to Oklahoma. Of course I don’t know how crooks work their schemes, but it seems to me if you want to make money, honestly or dishonestly, in oil, you go where oil is.”

Betty Gordon was not given to long speeches, but when she did speak it was usually to the point.

“I don’t think they’re going back to the train,” she announced quietly. “They’re carrying their suitcases.”

“Well, what do you know about that!” Bob addressed a telegraph pole. “Here I am making wild guesses, and she takes one look at the men themselves and tells their plans. Do I need glasses? I begin to think I do.”

“I don’t guess their plans,” protested Betty. “Anyway, perhaps they were afraid to leave their bags in the car.”

“No, it looks very much to me as though they had said farewell to the Western Limited,” said Bob. “They wouldn’t carry those heavy cases a mile unless they meant to leave for good. Let’s keep an eye on them, because if they are going to ‘work’ the Saunders place, I’d like to see how they intend to go about it.”

For some time the boy and girl tramped in silence, keeping Blosser and Fluss in view. A large billboard, blown flat, was the first sign that they were approaching Tippewa.

“I hope there is a soda fountain,” said Betty thirstily. “The wind’s worse now we’re out of the woods, isn’t it? Do you suppose those sharpers think they can get another train from here?”

“Tippewa doesn’t look like a town with many trains,” opined Bob. “I confess I don’t see what they expect to do, or where they can go. Here comes an automobile, though. Can’t be such an out-of-date town after all.”

The automobile was driven by a man in blue-striped overalls, and, to the surprise of Bob and Betty, Blosser and Fluss hailed him from the road. There was a minute’s parley, the suitcases were tossed in, and the two men followed. The automobile turned sharply and went back along the route it had just come over.

CHAPTER V

BETWEEN TRAINS

Bob looked at Betty, and Betty stared at Bob.

“What do you know about that!” gasped the boy. “They couldn’t have arranged for the car to meet them, because the tree blowing down was an accident pure and simple. Where can they be going?”

“I don’t know,” said Betty practically. “But here’s a drug store and I must have something cold to drink. My throat feels dried with dust. Why don’t you ask the drug clerk whose car that was?”

Bob acted upon this excellent suggestion, and while Betty was recovering from her disappointment in finding no ice-cream for sale and doing her best to quench her thirst with a bottle of lukewarm lemon soda, Bob interviewed the grizzled proprietor of the store.

“A small car painted a dull red you say?” this individual repeated Bob’s question. “Must ’a’ been Fred Griggs. He hires out whenever he can get anybody to tote round.”

“But where does anybody go?” asked Bob, feeling that his query was not couched in the most complimentary terms, but unable to amend it quickly.

The drug store owner was not critical.

“Oh, folks go over to Xville,” he said indifferently. “That’s a new town fifteen miles back. They say oil was discovered there some twenty years ago, but others claim nothing but water ever flowed. That’s how it came to be called Xville. I guess if the truth was known, the wells wasn’t oil – we’re a little out of the belt here.”

That was as far as Bob was able to follow the sharpers. He had no way of knowing certainly whether they had gone to Xville, or whether they had hired the car to take them to some other place nearer or further on. Betty finished her soda and they strolled about the single street for a half hour, buying three collapsible Indian baskets for the Littell girls, since they would easily pack into Betty’s bag.

They reached the train to find the last section of the big tree being lifted from the track, and half an hour later, all passengers aboard, the train resumed its journey. Bob and Betty had eaten lunch in the town, and they spent the afternoon on the observation platform, Betty tatting and Bob trying to write a letter to Mr. Littell. They were glad to have their berths made up early that night, for both planned to be up at six o’clock the next morning when the train, the conductor told them, crossed the line into Oklahoma. Betty cherished an idea that the State in which she was so much interested would be “different” in some way from the country through which they had been passing.

The good-natured conductor was on hand the next morning to point out to them the State line, and Betty, under his direct challenge, had to admit that she could see nothing distinguishing about the scenery.

“Wait till you see the oil wells,” said the conductor cheerfully. “You’ll know you’re in Oklahoma then, little lady.”

Bob and Betty were to change at Chassada to make connections for Flame City, where Betty’s Uncle Dick was stationed, and soon after breakfast the brakeman called the name of the station and they descended from the train. As it rolled on they both were conscious of a momentary feeling of loneliness, for in the long journey from Washington they had grown accustomed to their comfortable quarters and to the kindly train crew.

They had an hour to wait in Chassada, and Bob suggested that they leave their bags at the station and walk around the town.

“I believe they have oil wells near here,” he said. “Some one on the train – oh, I know who it was, that lanky chap from Texas – was telling me that from the outskirts of the place you can see oil wells. Or perhaps we can get a bus to take us out to the fields and bring us back.”

“Oh, no,” protested Betty. “I know Uncle Dick is counting on showing us the wells and explaining them to us, Bob. Don’t let us bother about going up close to a well – we can see enough from the town limits. Look, there’s one now!”

They had reached the edge of the narrow, straggling group of streets that was all of Chassada, and now Betty pointed toward the west where tall iron framework rose in the air. There were six of these structures, and, even at that distance, the boy and girl could see men working busily about at the base of the frames.

“Looks just like the postcards your uncle sent, doesn’t it?” said Bob delightedly. “Gee! I’d like to see just how they drive them. Well, I suppose before we’re a week older we’ll know how to drive a well and what to do with the oil when it finally flows. You’ll be talking oil as madly as any of them then, Betty.”

“I suppose I shall,” admitted Betty. “Do you know, I’m hungry. I wonder if there is any place we can eat?”

“Must be,” said the optimistic Bob. “Come on, we’ll go up this street. Perhaps there will be some kind of a restaurant. Never heard of a town without a place to eat.”

But Bob began to think presently that perhaps Chassada differed in more ways than one from the towns to which he was accustomed. In the first place, though every one seemed to have plenty of money – there was a neat and attractive jewelry store conspicuous between a barber shop and a grain store – no one seemed to have to work. The streets were unpaved, the sidewalks of rough boards in many places, in others no walks at all were attempted. Many of the buildings were mere shacks incongruously painted in brilliant colors, and there were more dogs than were ever before gathered into one place. Of that Bob was sure.

“Do you suppose they’ve all made fortunes in oil?” Betty ventured, scanning the groups of men and boys that filled every doorway and lounged at the corners. “No one is working, Bob. Who runs the wells?”

“Different shifts, I suppose,” answered Bob. “I declare, Betty, I’m not so sure that you’ll get anything to eat after all. We’ll go back to the station; they may have sandwiches or cake or something like that on sale there.”

They turned down another street that led to the station, Bob in the lead. He heard a little cry from Betty, and turned to find that she had disappeared.

“The lady fell down that hole!” shouted a man, hurrying across the street. “There go the barrels! I told Zinker he ought to have braced that dirt!”

Bob, still not understanding, saw four large barrels that had stood on the sidewalk slowly topple over the side of an excavation and roll out of sight.

“She went in, too,” cried the man, scrambling over the edge. “Are you hurt, lady?” he called.

“Betty!” shouted Bob. “Betty, are you hurt?” He took a flying leap to the edge of the hole, and, having miscalculated the distance, slid over after the barrels.

Over and over he rolled, bringing up breathless against something soft.

“I knew you’d come to get me,” giggled Betty, “but you needn’t have hurried. Are there any more barrels coming?”

Bob was immensely relieved to find that she was unhurt. The barrels had luckily been empty and had rolled over and into her harmlessly.

“Well, looks like you’re all right,” grinned the Chassada citizen who had followed Bob more leisurely. “Let me help you up this grade. There now, you’re fine and dandy, barring a little dirt that will wash off. George Zinker excavated last winter for a house, and then didn’t build. I always told him the walk was shifty. You’re strangers in town, aren’t you?”

Bob explained that they were only waiting over between trains.

“So you’re going to Flame City!” exclaimed their new friend with interest when Bob mentioned their destination. “I hear they’ve struck it rich in the fields. Buying up everything in sight, they say. We had a well come in last week. Hope you have a place to stay, though; Flame City isn’t much more than a store and a post-office.”

Betty looked up from rubbing her skirt with her clean handkerchief in an endeavor to remove some of the gravel stains.

“Isn’t Flame City larger than Chassada?” she demanded.

“Larger? Why, Chassada is four or five years ahead,” explained the Chassada man. “We’ve got a hotel and three boarding houses, and next month they’re fixing to put up a movie theater. Flame City wasn’t on the map six months ago. That’s why I say I hope you have a place to go – you’ll have to rough it, anyway, but accommodations is mighty scarce.”

Bob assured him that some one was to meet them, and then asked about a restaurant.

“If you can stand Jake Hill’s cooking, turn in at that white door down the street,” was the advice, emphasized by a graphic forefinger. “Lay off the custard pie, ’cause he generally makes it with sour milk. Apple pie is fair, and his doughnuts is good. No thanks at all – glad to accommodate a stranger.”

The white door indicated opened into a little low, dark room that smelled of all the pies ever baked and several dishes besides. There were several oilcloth-topped tables scattered about, and one or two patrons were eating. As Bob and Betty entered a great gust of laughter came from a corner table where a group of men were gathered.

“Guess that was good advice about the custard pie,” whispered Bob mischievously. “Think you can stand it, Betty?”

“I’m so hungry, I could stand anything,” declared Betty with vigor. “I’d like a couple of sandwiches and a glass of milk. I guess you have to go up to that counter and bring your orders back with you – I don’t see any waiters.”

Bob went up to the counter, and Betty sat down at a vacant table and looked about her.

CHAPTER VI

QUICK ACTION

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 notion of 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.”