“Or they’re killing time while they wait for a message of some kind?”
“Now you’re cooking with LP gas. The question remains: where is that message going to come from? I don’t like this business, Sandy. It gets screwier. I wish we could monitor his station every night, but that’s impossible, of course. Well, at least we know our ear works and that Cavanaugh keeps a kennel. I wonder what John and Don will make of this one.”
“When will Mr. Hall be back?” Sandy was glad for a chance to change the subject.
“Next week, I think. Keep this under your hat, but he has got his loan, and has flown down to Houston to put some more rigs under contract. Also, I wangled a portable drill rig when I was in Farmington today. That means we’ll soon be heading for the other lease to run some surveys. And that’s a job that separates the men from the boys, I can tell you.”
“After what happened tonight I feel as if I’d already been separated.” Sandy yawned. “Gee, don’t oilmen ever get any sleep?”
CHAPTER TEN
Pepper Makes a Play
A huge truck carrying a light folding drill rig and motor rumbled into camp from Farmington two days after the Elbow Rock episode. Donovan then set about organizing an exploration crew. Since the need for secrecy had lessened, only five of the older men were selected to act as a token guard for the property. Ten others, who had had experience in survey work, were directed to take tarpaulins off the long-unused instrument and “shooting” trucks, tune up their motors, and get the trailers set for travel. After Ralph had checked every item on the rented truck and Donovan had made sure that his seismograph, magnetometer, gravimeter and other scientific apparatus were all in perfect working order, the little caravan rolled westward toward Hall’s other San Juan River lease.
“We may be going on a wild-goose chase,” the geologist told Sandy, who was riding with him in the jeep that now had the laboratory in tow. “I had an aerial survey run on the property last fall. It shows one anticline that may contain oil, but I’ll have to do a lot of surface work before I recommend that John spends money on a wildcat well.”
“How do you make an aerial survey, Mr. Donovan?”
“I’d like you to call me Don, if you will, Sandy,” the geologist said. “And you ought to call John by his first name, too. Oilmen don’t go in for formality after they get acquainted.”