"Why?"

"To prospect; to look for a new field. I figured that the Pennsylvania vein would come out about here and extend northward."

"Sounds reasonable. And you still think so, eh?"

"Yes."

"Is that your well with the jail-wall about it, yonder?"

"No, I bored it but it belongs to Pennsylvania Scroggie, the man whom you helped defeat the Southern lease ring."

If Maddoc was surprised, he did not show it. "You struck oil, I see, Jacobs."

"Yes, about an eight-a-day well."

"Deep?"

"No, surface."