"You needn't get too close," returned Mr. Pertell. "I just want the spouting well as a background."
"It will be all right if you keep about thirty feet back," said one of the well borers.
"How do you shoot a well?" asked Paul, while Russ was getting ready his camera.
"By using nitro-glycerine," was the answer. "This explosive comes in tin cans, about ten feet long and about five inches in diameter. We lower these cannisters down into the iron pipe that extends to the bottom of the well."
"How deep?" queried Alice.
"Oh, a well may run anywhere from three hundred to three thousand feet, or even more. This one is about one thousand. We have about a hundred quarts of nitro-glycerine down in the pipes now; but it hasn't gone off yet."
"Can you—er—tell me when it will go off?" asked Mr. Sneed, looking about him nervously.
"Any minute, if not sooner," replied the oil man, with a smile. "Oh, don't run—you're safe here," he added, as Mr. Sneed began to move away. At the same time Claude Towne, the "swell" of the company, exclaimed:
"I'm not going to stay here and get this new suit spoiled by the oil." He was very careful of his attire.
"Oh, the oil won't spray as far as this," the workman assured him.