“When he had gone, Steve, we went over to see why he had been scratching the soil as he did, and showing so many evidences of excitement. Well, tell him what we found, Toby.”
“Oil!” ejaculated Toby, theatrically, and Steve almost fell over, such was his astonishment.
“Do you mean petroleum–crude oil?” he gasped.
“Why, in some places the ground was just rank with the black-looking stuff,” Toby assured him. “I sniffed it even before we got on the ground; and while I’m not wonderfully bright-witted, I didn’t have the least trouble guessing what it was.”
“Of course,” continued Jack, “we don’t know just how this Dangerfield ever got wind of the fact that the big tract of land owned by his aunt showed traces of being an oil district, because there are no such places within fifty miles of here; but he must have scented it out in some way, and 128 then laid all his pipes so as to tie the property up under an option.”
“Why, it would be well worth a million, if a cent,” said Toby, “in case the wells panned out half-way decent. I’ve read a heap about this oil business, and how many a poor farmer who had never been able to scratch a decent living from his hundred-acre farm, woke up some fine morning to have speculators pounding on his door, and offering him all kinds of money up to the hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell out to them.”
“So that’s really all there is to the story,” Jack went on to say. “You know as much as I do now. Dangerfield is here on the ground. He’s conducting some sort of work over where we heard those explosions, and I think he must be trying to put down an experiment well, so as to convince the men he means to take into the deal with him that it means a fortune for each one of them.”
“Yes,” Toby went on to say, breathlessly, “and mebbe those dull shocks we heard came from their shooting the well. I understand they have to start things with a blast of dynamite, when the gusher begins to flow.”
“That may be the case,” Jack admitted, “though I hardly think a shrewd man like Dangerfield would go quite so far until he had actually secured the option from his aunt. It may be he feels certain she will give it to him, and is going ahead on that foundation. No matter, he certainly 129 showed signs of being mighty well pleased at what he saw today, didn’t he, Toby?”
“Just what he did, Jack, as happy as a clam at high tide,” came the answer. “Why, there was one time I actually thought the gent was getting daffy, for he began to dance about like a darky boy, and slap his thigh again and again. After that he hurried away. I guess if he had any doubts lingering over, what he discovered today did for them.”