VII
Christmas was coming; and Bunny had his program all laid out. He was going to take Dad to the Christmas Day football game, and next morning they would leave for Paradise, and stay there until it was time to go back for the New Year’s Day football game. The well was going fine; they were down over two thousand feet, in soft shale, and having no trouble. Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Bunny came home from school, and Aunt Emma said, “Your father just phoned; he’s got some news about Excelsior Peter.” That was a joke they had in the family—“Excelsior Peter;” Aunt Emma had guessed that “Pete” was a nick-name, and she would be real lady-like and use the full name! So, of course, they teased the life out of her.
“What is it?” cried Bunny.
“They’ve struck oil.”
“At Paradise?” Bunny rushed to the phone, in great excitement. Yes, Dad said, Dave Murgins had jist phoned down; “Excelsior-Carter No. 1,” as the well was called, had been in oil-sands for several days, and had managed to keep it secret. Now they were cementing off, something you couldn’t hide.
Bunny jumped into the car and rushed down to the office. Everybody was excited; the afternoon papers had the news, and some of Dad’s oil friends dropped in to talk about it. It meant a new field, of course; there would be a rush to Paradise. Dad was the lucky one—to think he had got twelve thousand acres up there, owned them outright! How had it happened? Dad said it wasn’t his doings; he had spent a hundred thousand dollars jist to amuse his boy, to get him interested in the business, and perhaps teach him a lesson. But now, by golly, it looked as if the boy had done the teaching! Mr. Bankside, who had got to be quite an oil man now, and was drilling a well of his own, said that he always hoped his sons would lose when they started gambling, so they’d not get the habit; Dad said yes, but he’d risk Bunny’s soul this once, there was too much money at stake!
After that, of course, Bunny was on pins and needles to get to Paradise; he wanted to quit school, but Dad said no. Bunny decided he didn’t care about that old Christmas Day football game; what did Dad think? To which Dad answered that he’d managed to get along to the age of fifty-nine without ever seeing a football game! So Bunny said he’d write and tell Ruth, they’d run up on Christmas eve, starting after school, and have dinner late, in regular society style. It would be hard for Ruth to believe that fashionable people in the cities ate their dinner at eight or nine o’clock at night!
Meantime, the bit was grinding away in the well; they were down to 2300 feet, and it was known that Excelsior-Carter No. 1 had struck the sands at 2437 feet. Bunny was so much excited that he would run to the phone in between classes at school, and call up his father’s secretary at the office, to ask if there was any news. And so, three days before Christmas, he got the magic word; Dad was on the phone, and said that Bunny’s well was in oil-sands. It was too early yet to say any more, they were taking a core, that was all. As soon as he got free from class, Bunny went flying over to the office, and there he listened to a conversation—Dad had put in a long distance call, and was talking to the man from whom he got his machinery. He was ordering a patent casing-head, the biggest made, to be shipped to the well; it was to be put on a truck and start tonight. And then Dad was talking to Murgins again, telling him at what hour the casing-head was due, and they must set to work and break out the drill-stem, and put that casing-head on tight, with lugs on the side, and jist bury it with cement, not less than fifty tons, Dad said; they were away off from everything, out there at Paradise, and if they was to have a blow-out, it would be the very devil.
Well, they got their core, eight feet of it, and it was high gravity oil—a fortune waiting for them, down underneath those rocky hills, where the feet of goats and sheep had trod for so many years! Dad ordered his “tankage,” and then he ordered more. Then they learned that the casing-head had arrived; it was screwed on, and the “lugs” were on, and when the cement had set, all the gas under Mount Vesuvius couldn’t lift that there load, said Dad. They started drilling again, and took another core, and found the oil heavier yet. So finally Dad gave way, and said it was too important, he guessed Bunny would have to beg off a day in school. Dad gave orders to “wash” the well, and he called up the cement-man, and arranged for the big truck to set out for Paradise; Dad would meet them there, and they would do the job the day before Christmas, and if they got their shut-off, they’d celebrate with the biggest turkey in that famous turkey-raising country. So, early the next morning, Dad and Bunny chucked their suit-cases into the car, and set out to break the speed records to Paradise. Three hours later they stopped to telephone, and the foreman said they were “washing;” also that the Excelsior Pete well had got a water shut-off, and had drilled through the cement, and was going down into the oil-sands, the final stage of making a well.
They got to San Elido; and Dad said, “We’ll jist stop and shake hands with Jake Coffey.” They drove up to the store, and Bunny jumped out, and there was a clerk and he said, “Jake’s gone up to Paradise to see the well. Have you heard the news? Excelsior Pete has got a gusher, there’s oil all over the place!” Bunny ran out and shouted to Dad, and leaped into the car, and gosh-amighty, the way they did burn up that road across the desert! Dad laughed, and said the speed-cops would all be up at the well.
They got to Paradise, and the town was deserted, not a soul on the streets, and not a car, except those that were hurrying through, like the Rosses. A burglar could have made off with the whole place—but any burglar would have been watching the gusher, along with the speed-cops! You had to park your car a quarter of a mile away from the well, and you could hear the gusher roaring like Niagara Falls! And then, walking, you came round a turn in the road, and you could see the valley, and everything in sight was black; there was a high wind blowing, and it was a regular thunder cloud, a curtain of black mist as far as you could see. The derrick was hidden altogether—you had to make a detour, behind a little ridge, and come over the top to windward, and there the crowds were gathered, staring at the great black jet that came rushing up out of the ground, a couple of hundred feet into the air, with a sound like an endless express train going by. You could see men working, or trying to work, under the derrick; you could see a bunch of them with picks and shovels, throwing up a sort of dam to hold the oil; they wouldn’t save much, Dad said, it evaporated too fast.
Dad could watch this scene philosophically; it wasn’t his “funeral.” If it had been one of the independents, like himself, he’d have offered to help; but this was a dirty crowd, Excelsior Pete, they didn’t think the little fellows had any business on earth, there was nothing too mean for them to do. Of course, it was a shame to see all that treasure going to waste; but you couldn’t be sentimental when you were playing the oil-game. What you had to watch out for was that the wind didn’t shift suddenly and ruin your good suit of clothes!