"I got some tackle in town," and Hammond grinned widely.
"Good work! Then make yourself at home and go to it. We've most of the afternoon before us."
Gramont left the house, and headed down toward the bayou shore.
He took a letter from his pocket, opened it, and glanced over it anew. It was an old letter, one written him nearly two years previously by Lucie Ledanois. It had been written merely in the endeavour to distract the thoughts of a wounded soldier, to bring his mind to Louisiana, away from the stricken fields of France. In the letter Lucie had described some of the more interesting features of Bayou Terrebonne—the oyster and shrimp fleets, the Chinese and Filipino villages along the Gulf, the far-spread cypress swamps; the bubbling fountains, natural curiosities, that broke up through the streams and bayous of the whole wide parish—fountains that were caused by gas seeping up from the earth's interior, and breaking through.
Gramont knew that plans were already afoot to tap this field of natural gas and pipe it to New Orleans. Oil had been found, too, and all the state was now oil-mad. Fortunes were being made daily, and other fortunes were being lost daily by those who dealt with oil-stocks instead of with oil.
"Those gas-fountains did the work!" reflected Gramont. "And according to this letter, there's one of those fountains here in the bayou, close to her property. 'Just opposite the dock,' she says. The first thing is to find the dock, then the fountain. After that, we'll decide if it's true mineral gas. If it is, then the work's done—for I'll sure take a chance on finding oil near it!"
Gramont came to the bayou and began searching his way along the thick and high fringe of bushes and saplings that girded the water's edge. Presently he came upon the ruined evidences of what had once been a small boat shed. Not far from this he found the dock referred to in the letter; nothing was left of it except a few spiles protruding from the surface of the water. But he had no need to look farther. Directly before him, he saw that which he was seeking.
A dozen feet out from shore the water was rising and falling in a continuous dome or fountain of highly charged bubbles that rose a foot above the surface. Gramont stared at it, motionless. He watched it for a space—then, abruptly, he started. It was a violent start, a start of sheer amazement and incredulity.
He leaned forward, staring no longer at the gas dome, but at the water closer inshore. For a moment he thought that his senses had deceived him, then he saw that the thing was there indeed, there beyond any doubt—a very faint trace of iridescent light that played over the surface of the water.
"It can't be possible!" he muttered, bending farther over. "Such a thing happens too rarely——"