"Can you beat that?" Stoner inquired. "Mallow's been selling oil stock and experting wells for us with the Marvelous Magnetic Finder and he don't know an offset from a headache post."
"Certainly, I know—"
"Why, Professor! Is it possible we have been deceived in you? An offset is the thing that sets off to one side of the crown block and it's a light blue, the same as a formation. It's the shape of a syncline, only bigger."
"Don't get funny. You drill an offset well to keep a man from sucking all the oil out from under your land."
"Right!" said Gray. "Wells, as you know, are drilled as close to the side lines as the law allows. When oil is found, the adjoining landowner can compel his lessee to put down a well to offset every one that threatens to draw oil from beneath his property." "That's what I've just been telling you."
"Many an operator has gone broke offsetting wells in order to protect his leases, especially if he has a number of neighbors who all start drilling promptly. That is one of the many production troubles—and there's a saying that trouble begins when the oil starts."
"You said it. But to offset the Nelsons so's to cripple 'em—" Brick
Stoner shook his head. "It ain't hard to borrow money for good offsets.
'Most any bank will lend."
"It is hard for anybody who is overextended to borrow. Possibly my plan won't work, but to annoy, to harass, to embarrass, to stretch them thin—it's all a part of the game. People are never as well off as we think they are. The Nelsons are close to the sand in a number of places. I want to procure the adjoining acreage. For every well they make, I'll force them to drill six more. The day they strike oil I'll have a string of derricks every two hundred feet along their side lines."
It was Mallow who spoke next. "That will cost you dollar for dollar, boss. Have you got chips enough to match their stack?"
"I don't have to invest dollar for dollar. My money will go for leases, and I'll let drilling contracts, fifty-fifty, sixty-forty, seventy-thirty—anything to get quick action. Other people's money will do the work for me. Remember, I'm not after oil, I'm after a man."