“I imagine that’s the type of fellow he is,” said Ned. “I don’t wonder that you felt like beating him up. Sorry that Thompson or Bragden didn’t stop over to look after the work instead of him. They may be no better than he is at heart, but at least they have the manners of gentlemen. But, after all, it will be for only a few weeks, and we’ll try to make the best of it.”
The next day Ned telegraphed to the California bank, and to his satisfaction learned that the check was good.
“It’s all right,” he told Tom.
“Then I’ll go ahead,” said the young inventor. “I’ll start in right away and order the material we need, and I’ll get busy gathering all the information on oil-well machinery and trying to improve on it. No more car rides or airplane spins, or anything else, for a while. Here’s where I shed my coat and work night and day. Watch my smoke.”
The next week was one of intense energy and application for the young inventor. He had the gift of losing himself in his work, especially when that work interested him. And the further he went into the subject the greater the grip it got upon him. His enthusiasm grew as he plunged into the fascinating study of the tremendous riches in oil that the earth held beneath its surface. Soon he was absorbed in it as in a thrilling romance. He traced the gradual steps by which men of all climes and in all ages had sought to possess themselves of this marvelous wealth stored in nature’s caverns and only yielded up reluctantly.
“Do you know,” he said one night to Ned, as they sat discussing the matter in the office, “that the Chinese were the pioneers in the matter of oil-well digging?”
“No, I didn’t,” replied Ned. “But I’m not surprised. Those old Chinamen seem to have started most of the things we’ve improved on later. There’s gunpowder and the compass and a raft of other things.”
“Well, digging for oil was one of them,” said Tom. “And the principles they applied underlie the methods we’re using to-day. Of course, they didn’t use steam power, and that’s where we’ve got the bulge on them. They worked by man power, and that apparatus was laughably crude when compared with ours, yet their methods were strikingly similar to those we’re using now or have been using very recently.”
“For instance?” said Ned, with a lifting of the eyebrows.
“Well, take their springboard arrangement,” replied Tom. “The cutting tool, or bit, was suspended in the hole by means of a rattan cable, and the required movement was given to it by a springboard. When a coolie jumped on the board, it raised the bit; when he relieved it of his weight the bit fell and cut its way downward. A drum with a vertical shaft, around which oxen traveled in a circle, coiled the cable and lifted the drill out of the hole when they wanted to bail out the hole or change tools. The bailer was made of a section of bamboo, and that material was also used for tubing and casing and pipe lines.