CHAPTER III.
BRACE BARLOW THE MOONLIGHTER.
Besides Uncle Phin and Cynthia, Arthur had one other friend whom he seldom saw now, but whom he was always glad to meet. This was Brace Barlow, a stalwart, good-natured, young fellow, about twenty-five years old, who seemed so big and strong to the little boy, that the latter called him his “dear giant.” He worked for Arthur’s uncle when the boy first came to live with the Dustins, and had immediately taken a great fancy to the gentle little fellow. He taught Arthur to ride horseback, to drive a team, and to swim, and was always ready to tell him stories of adventures in the oil region. Besides these things, he took pains patiently to explain where the oil came from, and how wells were drilled, deep down into the earth to its hiding-places.
Some months before the time with which this story opens, Brace Barlow left Mr. Dustin’s employ, and, much to Arthur’s dismay, became a “moonlighter.”
Now to understand what a “moonlighter” is, one must know at least as much as Arthur did about oil wells. They are holes about the size of an ordinary stove-pipe, bored, by means of immensely heavy iron drills, hundreds and sometimes thousands of feet into the earth, until they reach the layer of porous sandstone that holds the oil, just as a sponge holds water.
With the oil in this sandstone are vast quantities of gas, that exert an enormous pressure upon it; and the moment an opening is made to where it is, this gas forces the oil to the surface, often driving it forth in great spurts and fountain-like jets. Such a well is called a “gusher,” and from it the oil flows for days, weeks, and sometimes for years. After a while, however, the supply of oil or gas, or both, becomes exhausted, so that the stream no longer rises above the mouth of the well. Then a pump is used, and by means of it the oil is pumped up, just as water is from an ordinary well. But the supply of oil always decreases, until, by and by, the pump no longer brings it up in paying quantities.
For some years after the discovery of oil, these exhausted wells were abandoned, and their owners sunk new ones in other places. At length, however, a wise man who had studied the situation very carefully, concluded that if, by any means, the oil-bearing rock could be shattered for a considerable distance around the bottom of these old wells, the flow of oil might be increased, and it might again be produced from them in paying quantities. So he invented a torpedo that could be exploded at any required depth in a well. It was simply a long tin tube, closed at the lower end, and filled with nitro-glycerine. This is one of the most terrible explosives ever discovered; and though it is only ordinary sweet glycerine, such as is used for chapped faces and hands, mixed with nitric acid, it is ten times more powerful than gunpowder, and explodes upon receiving a very slight shock or blow.
A torpedo of this kind, lowered to the bottom of an oil well, and exploded by means of a sharp-pointed iron weight dropped upon it, shatters a large area of oil-bearing rock, and the oil or gas, comes rushing to the surface as when the well was first opened. This operation is called “shooting a well”; the lowering of a torpedo into position, a thousand feet or more below the surface of the earth, is called “placing a shot,” and the men who undertake this dangerous business are called “torpedo men” or “well-shooters.”
The person who invented this process of well-shooting, and obtained a patent on it, charged so much for the use of his torpedoes that to shoot a well was an expensive undertaking. Many oil producers thought they could not afford it, or that their exhausted wells were not worth the further expenditure of so much money. Under these circumstances a class of reckless, daring fellows sprang into existence, who made a business of manufacturing torpedoes, and secretly shooting wells without paying the inventor the royalty to which his patent entitled him. Thus they were able to do the work much more cheaply than the regular torpedo men, and a great number of well owners were willing to employ them for the sake of what money they would thus save.
As these men generally worked at night they were called “moonlighters,” and many thrilling tales of the desperate risks run by them, are still told in the oil regions. The inventor of the torpedo, who was the only man having a legal right to use it, was of course most anxious to detect and punish these “moonlighters,” and for this purpose he employed a number of spies. These spies, or detectives, were generally mounted on fleet horses, and whenever they discovered a “moonlighter” driving along the lonely roads, with his load of nitro-glycerine, they gave chase to him. Then he would whip up his spirited team, and drive away at full speed, reckless of consequences, and only intent upon escaping from his pursuers.
Thus it often happened that people sleeping in the vicinity of those quiet mountain roads were awakened at night by the sound of galloping horses, the rattle of a light wagon, and the shouts of its pursuers. They would hold their breath and wait in anxious suspense until the sounds died away, happy if they did not hear the awful roar of an explosion, that meant instant death to all who were anywhere near that ill-fated wagon.