Sandy moved a pin to the spot he indicated, connected it to the control panel with a length of wire, and pressed a switch.
Nothing happened!
Quiz groaned. Why couldn’t the thing show off when they wanted it to?
“If you drilled there, sir, you’d just have a dry hole,” Sandy said with more confidence than he felt. “That location must be on the far fringe of the oil pool.”
“Right!” The little man grinned from ear to ear, showing a fine white set of false teeth. “I did drill a wildcat well there. She was dry as a bone. My ninth duster in a row.... Now what happens if I drill here, near the bed of the San Juan River?”
This time a bulb glowed brightly when they stuck their pin into the cardboard.
“We can’t be sure, sir,” Sandy hesitated. “We don’t know too much about geology. Besides, oil is like gold. It’s where you find it, and the only way you find it is by drilling for it. But I’d guess that, in the neighborhood you indicated, you’d stand a chance of hitting a thousand barrels per day.”
“Eight hundred and fifty barrels,” corrected the man in the blue jeans. “The well I drilled on the San Juan was the only thing that kept me out of bankruptcy.”
A blare of jazz from Pepper’s loud-speakers, now working in unison, cut off further conversation and gave the boys a chance to study their strange acquaintance.
“Why don’t you go over and take in that beam-of-light exhibit?” Sandy said when Pepper had brought the sound down to bearable levels. “It won first prize.”