"He ain't here. It's up to you. Go ahead. Just tell 'em why you rang the bell."
Dave found himself pushed forward to the steps of the court-house a few yards away. He had never before attempted to speak in public, and he had a queer, dry tightening of the throat. But as soon as he began to talk the words he wanted came easily enough.
"Jackpot Number Three has come in a big gusher," he said, lifting his voice so that it would carry to the edge of the crowd.
Hundreds of men in the crowd owned stock in the Jackpot properties. At Dave's words a roar went up into the night. Men shouted, danced, or merely smiled, according to their temperament. Presently the thirst for news dominated the enthusiasm. Gradually the uproar was stilled.
Again Dave's voice rang out clear as the bell he had been tolling. "The report is that it's one of the biggest strikes ever known in the State. The derrick has been knocked to pieces and the oil's shooting into the air a hundred feet."
A second great shout drowned his words. This was an oil crowd. It dreamed oil, talked oil, thought oil, prayed for oil. A stranger in the town was likely to feel at first that the place was oil mad. What else can be said of a town with derricks built through its front porches and even the graveyard leased to a drilling company?
"The sump holes are filling," went on Sanders. "Soon the oil will the running to waste on the prairie. We need men, teams, tools, wagons, hundreds of slickers, tents, beds, grub. The wages will be one-fifty a day more than the run of wages in the camp until the emergency has been met, and Emerson Crawford will board all the volunteers who come out to dig."
The speaker was lost again, this time in a buzz of voices of excited men.
But out of the hubbub Dave's shout became heard.
"All owners of teams and tools, all dealers in hardware and groceries, are asked to step to the right-hand side of the crowd for a talk with Mr. Crawford. Men willing to work till the gusher is under control, please meet Bob Hart in front of the fire-house. I'll see any cooks and restaurant-men alive to a chance to make money fast. Right here at the steps."
"Good medicine, son," boomed Emerson Crawford, slapping him on the shoulder. "Didn't know you was an orator, but you sure got this crowd goin'. Bob here yet?"