UPTON SINCLAIR

——

Shuffle the cards, and deal a new round of poker hands: they differ in every way from the previous round, and yet it is the same pack of cards, and the same game, with the same spirit, the players grim-faced and silent, surrounded by a haze of tobacco-smoke.

So with this novel, a picture of civilization in Southern California, as the writer has observed it during eleven years’ residence. The picture is the truth, and the great mass of detail actually exists. But the cards have been shuffled; names, places, dates, details of character, episodes—everything has been dealt over again. The only personalities to be recognized in this book are three presidents of the United States who have held office during the past fifteen years. Manifestly, one could not “shuffle” these, without destroying all sense of reality. But the reader who spends his time seeking to identify oil magnates and moving picture stars will be wasting time, and perhaps doing injustice to some individual, who may happen to have shot off his toe to collect accident insurance, but may not happen to be keeping a mistress or to have bribed a cabinet official.

OIL!

A Novel by Upton Sinclair

CHAPTER I
THE RIDE

I

The road ran, smooth and flawless, precisely fourteen feet wide, the edges trimmed as if by shears, a ribbon of grey concrete, rolled out over the valley by a giant hand. The ground went in long waves, a slow ascent and then a sudden dip; you climbed, and went swiftly over—but you had no fear, for you knew the magic ribbon would be there, clear of obstructions, unmarred by bump or scar, waiting the passage of inflated rubber wheels revolving seven times a second. The cold wind of morning whistled by, a storm of motion, a humming and roaring with ever-shifting overtones; but you sat snug behind a tilted wind-shield, which slid the gale up over your head. Sometimes you liked to put your hand up, and feel the cold impact; sometimes you would peer around the side of the shield, and let the torrent hit your forehead, and toss your hair about. But for the most part you sat silent and dignified—because that was Dad’s way, and Dad’s way constituted the ethics of motoring.

Dad wore an overcoat, tan in color, soft and woolly in texture, opulent in cut, double-breasted, with big collar and big lapels and big flaps over the pockets—every place where a tailor could express munificence. The boy’s coat had been made by the same tailor, of the same soft, woolly material, with the same big collar and big lapels and big flaps. Dad wore driving gauntlets; and the same shop had had the same kind for boys. Dad wore horn-rimmed spectacles; the boy had never been taken to an oculist, but he had found in a drug-store a pair of amber-colored glasses, having horn rims the same as Dad’s. There was no hat on Dad’s head, because he believed that wind and sunshine kept your hair from falling out; so the boy also rode with tumbled locks. The only difference between them, apart from size, was that Dad had a big brown cigar, unlighted, in the corner of his mouth; a survival of the rough old days, when he had driven mule-teams and chewed tobacco.

Fifty miles, said the speedometer; that was Dad’s rule for open country, and he never varied it, except in wet weather. Grades made no difference; the fraction of an ounce more pressure with his right foot, and the car raced on—up, up, up—until it topped the ridge, and was sailing down into the next little valley, exactly in the centre of the magic grey ribbon of concrete. The car would start to gather speed on the down grade, and Dad would lift the pressure of his foot a trifle, and let the resistance of the engine check the speed. Fifty miles was enough, said Dad; he was a man of order.

Far ahead, over the tops of several waves of ground, another car was coming. A small black speck, it went down out of sight, and came up bigger; the next time it was bigger yet; the next time—it was on the slope above you, rushing at you, faster and faster, a mighty projectile hurled out of a six-foot cannon. Now came a moment to test the nerve of a motorist. The magic ribbon of concrete had no stretching powers. The ground at the sides had been prepared for emergencies, but you could not always be sure how well it had been prepared, and if you went off at fifty miles an hour you would get disagreeable waverings of the wheels; you might find the neatly trimmed concrete raised several inches above the earth at the side of it, forcing you to run along on the earth until you could find a place to swing in again; there might be soft sand, which would swerve you this way and that, or wet clay which would skid you, and put a sudden end to your journey.

So the laws of good driving forbade you to go off the magic ribbon except in extreme emergencies. You were ethically entitled to several inches of margin at the right-hand edge; and the man approaching you was entitled to an equal number of inches; which left a remainder of inches between the two projectiles as they shot by. It sounds risky as one tells it, but the heavens are run on the basis of similar calculations, and while collisions do happen, they leave time enough in between for universes to be formed, and successful careers conducted by men of affairs.

“Whoosh!” went the other projectile, hurtling past; a loud, swift “Whoosh!” with no tapering off at the end. You had a glimpse of another man with horn-rimmed spectacles like yourself, with a similar grip of two hands upon a steering-wheel, and a similar cataleptic fixation of the eyes. You never looked back; for at fifty miles an hour, your business is with the things that lie before you, and the past is past—or shall we say that the passed are passed? Presently would come another car, and again it would be necessary for you to leave the comfortable centre of the concrete ribbon, and content yourself with a precisely estimated one-half minus a certain number of inches. Each time, you were staking your life upon your ability to place your car upon the exact line—and upon the ability and willingness of the unknown other party to do the same. You watched his projectile in the instant of hurtling at you, and if you saw that he was not making the necessary concession, you knew that you were encountering that most dangerous of all two-legged mammalian creatures, the road-hog. Or maybe it was a drunken man, or just a woman—there was no time to find out; you had the thousandth part of a second in which to shift your steering-wheel the tenth part of an inch, and run your right wheels off onto the dirt.

That might happen only once or twice in the course of a day’s driving. When it did, Dad had one invariable formula; he would shift the cigar a bit in his mouth and mutter: “Damn fool!” It was the only cuss-word the one-time mule-driver permitted himself in the presence of the boy; and it had no profane significance—it was simply the scientific term for road-hogs, and drunken men, and women driving cars; as well as for loads of hay, and furniture-vans, and big motor-trucks which blocked the road on curves; and for cars with trailers, driving too rapidly, and swinging from side to side; and for Mexicans in tumble-down buggies, who failed to keep out on the dirt where they belonged, but came wabbling onto the concrete—and right while a car was coming in the other direction, so that you had to jam on your foot-brake, and grab the hand-brake, and bring the car to a halt with a squealing and grinding, and worse yet a sliding of tires. If there is anything a motorist considers disgraceful it is to “skid his tires”; and Dad had the conviction that some day there would be a speed law turned inside out—it would be forbidden to drive less than forty miles an hour on state highways, and people who wanted to drive spavined horses to tumble-down buggies would either go cross-lots or stay at home.

II

A barrier of mountains lay across the road. Far off, they had been blue, with a canopy of fog on top; they lay in tumbled masses, one summit behind another, and more summits peeking over, fainter in color, and mysterious. You knew you had to go up there, and it was interesting to guess where a road might break in. As you came nearer, the great masses changed color—green, or grey, or tawny yellow. No trees grew upon them, but bushes of a hundred shades. They were spotted with rocks, black, white, brown, or red; also with the pale flames of the yucca, a plant which reared a thick stem ten feet or more in the air, and covered it with small flowers in a huge mass, exactly the shape of a candle-flame, but one that never flickered in the wind.

The road began to climb in earnest; it swung around the shoulder of a hill, and there was a sign in red letters: “Guadalupe Grade: Speed limit on curves 15 miles per hour.” Dad gave no evidence that he knew how to read, either that sign, or his speedometer. Dad understood that signs were for people who did not know how to drive; for the initiate few the rule was, whatever speed left you on your own half of the highway. In this case the road lay on the right side of the pass; you had the mountain on your right, and hugged it closely as you swung round the turns; the other fellow had the outside edge, and in the cheerful phrase of the time, it was “his funeral.”

Another concession Dad made—wherever the bend was to the right, so that the mass of the mountain obstructed the road, he sounded his horn. It was a big, commanding horn, hidden away somewhere under the capacious hood of the car; a horn for a man whose business took him on flying trips over a district big enough for an ancient empire; who had important engagements waiting at the end of his journey, and who went through, day or night, fair weather or foul. The voice of his horn was sharp and military; there was in it no undertone of human kindness. At fifty miles an hour there is no place for such emotions—what you want is for people to get out of the way, and do it quick, and you tell them so. “Whanhnh!” said the horn—a sound you must make through your nose, for the horn was one big nose. A sudden swing of the highway—“Whanhnh!”—and then an elbow jutting out and another swing—“Whanhnh!”—so you went winding up, up, and the rocky walls of Guadalupe Pass resounded to the strange new cry—“Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” The birds looked about in alarm, and the ground-squirrels dived into their sandy entrance-holes, and ranchmen driving rickety Fords down the grade, and tourists coming to Southern California with all their chickens and dogs and babies and mattresses and tin pans tied onto the running-boards—these swung out to the last perilous inch of the highway, and the low, swift roadster sped on: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”

Any boy will tell you that this is glorious. Whoopee! you bet! Sailing along up there close to the clouds, with an engine full of power, magically harnessed, subject to the faintest pressure from the ball of your foot. The power of ninety horses—think of that! Suppose you had had ninety horses out there in front of you, forty-five pairs in a long line, galloping around the side of a mountain, wouldn’t that make your pulses jump? And this magic ribbon of concrete laid out for you, winding here and there, feeling its way upward with hardly a variation of grade, taking off the shoulder of a mountain, cutting straight through the apex of another, diving into the black belly of a third; twisting, turning, tilting inward on the outside curves, tilting outward on the inside curves, so that you were always balanced, always safe—and with a white-painted line marking the centre, so that you always knew exactly where you had a right to be—what magic had done all this?

Dad had explained it—money had done it. Men of money had said the word, and surveyors and engineers had come, and diggers by the thousand, swarming Mexicans and Indians, bronze of skin, armed with picks and shovels; and great steam shovels with long hanging lobster-claws of steel; derricks with wide swinging arms, scrapers and grading machines, steel drills and blasting men with dynamite, rock-crushers, and concrete mixers that ate sacks of cement by the thousand, and drank water from a flour-stained hose, and had round steel bellies that turned all day with a grinding noise. All these had come, and for a year or two they had toiled, and yard by yard they had unrolled the magic ribbon.

Never since the world began had there been men of power equal to this. And Dad was one of them; he could do things like that, he was on his way to do something like that now. At seven o’clock this evening, in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach City, a man would be waiting, Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, whom Dad described as his “lease-hound”; he would have a big “proposition” all lined up, and the papers ready for signature. So it was that Dad had a right to have the road clear; that was the meaning of the sharp military voice of the horn, speaking through its nose: “Whanhnh! Whanhnh! Dad is coming! Get out of the way! Whanhnh! Whanhnh!”

The boy sat, eager-eyed, alert; he was seeing the world, in a fashion men had dreamed in the days of Haroun al Raschid—from a magic horse that galloped on top of the clouds, from a magic carpet that went sailing through the air. It was a giant’s panorama unrolling itself; new vistas opening at every turn, valleys curving below you, hilltops rising above you, processions of ranges, far as your eye could reach. Now that you were in the heart of the range, you saw that there were trees in the deep gorges, towering old pine trees, gnarled by storms and split by lightning; or clumps of live oaks that made pleasant spaces like English parks. But up on the tops there was only brush, now fresh with the brief spring green; mesquite and sage and other desert plants, that had learned to bloom quickly, while there was water, and then stand the long baking drought. They were spotted with orange-colored patches of dodder, a plant that grew in long threads like corn-silk, weaving a garment on top of the other plants; it killed them—but there were plenty more.

Other hills were all rock, of an endless variety of color. You saw surfaces mottled and spotted like the skins of beasts—tawny leopards, and creatures red and grey or black and white, whose names you did not know. There were hills made of boulders, scattered as if giants had been throwing them in battle; there were blocks piled up, as if the children of giants had grown tired of play. Rocks towered like cathedral arches over the road; through such an arch you swung out into view of a gorge, yawning below, with a stout white barrier to protect you as you made the turn. Out of the clouds overhead a great bird came sailing; his wings collapsed as if he had been shot, and he dived into the abyss. “Was that an eagle?” asked the boy. “Buzzard,” answered Dad, who had no romance in him.

Higher and higher they climbed, the engine purring softly, one unvarying note. Underneath the wind-shield were dials and gauges in complicated array: a speedometer with a little red line showing exactly how fast you were going; a clock, and an oil gauge, a gas gauge, an ammeter, and a thermometer that mounted slowly on a long grade like this. All these things were in Dad’s consciousness—a still more complicated machine. For, after all, what was ninety horsepower compared with a million dollar power? An engine might break down, but Dad’s mind had the efficiency of an eclipse of the sun. They were due at the top of the grade by ten o’clock; and the boy’s attitude was that of the old farmer with a new gold watch, who stood on his front-porch in the early morning, remarking, “If that sun don’t get over the hill in three minutes, she’s late.”

III

But something went wrong and spoiled the schedule. You had got up into the fog, and cold white veils were sweeping your face. You could see all right, but the fog had wet the road, and there was clay on it, a combination that left the most skilful driver helpless. Dad’s quick eye noted it, and he slowed down; a fortunate thing, for the car began to slide, and almost touched the white wooden barrier that guarded the outer edge.

They started again, creeping along, in low gear, so that they could stop quickly; five miles the speedometer showed, then three miles; then another slide, and Dad said “Damn”. They wouldn’t stand that very long, the boy knew; “Chains”, he thought, and they drew up close against the side of the hill, on an inside curve where cars coming from either direction could see them. The boy opened the door at his side and popped out; the father descended gravely, and took off his overcoat and laid it in the seat; he took off his coat and laid that in the same way—for clothing was part of a man’s dignity, a symbol of his rise in life, and never to be soiled or crumpled. He unfastened his cuffs and rolled up the sleeves—each motion precisely followed by the boy. At the rear of the car was a flat compartment with a sloping cover, which Dad opened with a key; one of a great number of keys, each precisely known to him, each symbolical of efficiency and order. Having got out the chains, and fastened them upon the rear tires, Dad wiped his hands on the fog-laden plants by the roadside; the boy did the same, liking the coldness of the shining globes of water. There was a clean rag in the compartment, kept there for drying your hands, and changed every so often. The two donned their coats again, and resumed their places, and the car set out, a little faster now, but still cautiously, and away off the schedule.

“Guadalupe Grade: Height of Land: Caution: Fifteen miles per hour on curves.” So ran the sign; they were creeping down now, in low gear, holding back the car, which resented it, and shook impatiently. Dad had his spectacles in his lap, because the fog had blurred them; it had filled his hair with moisture, and was trickling down his forehead into his eyes. It was fun to breathe it and feel the cold; it was fun to reach over and sound the horn—Dad would let you do it now, all you wanted. A car came creeping towards them out of the mist, likewise tooting lustily; it was a Ford, puffing from the climb, with steam coming out of the radiator.

Then suddenly the fog grew thinner; a few wisps more, and it was gone; they were free, and the car leaped forward into a view—oh, wonderful! Hill below hill dropping away, and a landscape spread out, as far as forever; you wanted wings, so as to dive down there, to sail out over the hilltops and the flat plains. What was the use of speed limits, and curves, and restraining gears and brakes?—“Dry my spectacles,” said Dad, prosaically. Scenery was all right, but he had to keep to the right of the white-painted line on the road. “Whanhnh! Whanhnh!” said the horn, on all the outside curves.

They slid down, and little by little the scenery disappeared; they were common mortals, back on earth. The curves broadened out, they left the last shoulder of the last hill, and before them was a long, straight descent; the wind began to whistle, and the figures to creep past the red line on the speedometer. They were making up for lost time. Whee! How the trees and telegraph poles went whizzing! Sixty miles now; some people might have been scared, but no sensible person would be scared while Dad was at the wheel.

But suddenly the car began to slow up; you could feel yourself sliding forward in your seat, and the little red line showed fifty, forty, thirty. The road lay straight ahead, there was no other car in sight, yet Dad’s foot was on the brake. The boy looked up inquiringly. “Sit still,” said the man. “Don’t look round. A speed-trap!”

Oho! An adventure to make a boy’s heart jump! He wanted to look and see, but understood that he must sit rigid, staring out in front, utterly innocent. They had never driven any faster than thirty miles per hour in their lives, and if any traffic-officer thought he had seen them coming faster down the grade, that was purely an optical delusion, the natural error of a man whose occupation destroyed his faith in human nature. Yes, it must be a dreadful thing to be a “speed-cop”, and have the whole human race for your enemy! To stoop to disreputable actions—hiding yourself in bushes, holding a stop-watch in hand, and with a confederate at a certain measured distance down the road, also holding a stop-watch, and with a telephone line connecting the two of them, so they could keep tab on motorists who passed! They had even invented a device of mirrors, which could be set up by the roadside, so that one man could get the flash of a car as it passed, and keep the time. This was a trouble the motorist had to keep incessant watch for; at the slightest sign of anything suspicious, he must slow up quickly—and yet not too quickly—no, just a natural slowing, such as any man would employ if he should discover that he had accidentally, for the briefest moment, exceeded ever so slightly the limits of complete safety in driving.

“That fellow will be following us,” said Dad. He had a little mirror mounted in front of his eyes, so that he could keep tab on such enemies of the human race; but the boy could not see into the mirror, so he had to sit on pins and needles, missing the fun.

“Do you see anything?”

“No, not yet; but he’ll come; he knows we were speeding. He puts himself on that straight grade, because everybody goes fast at such a place.” There you saw the debased nature of the “speed-cop”! He chose a spot where it was perfectly safe to go fast, and where he knew that everyone would be impatient, having been held in so long by the curves up in the mountains, and by the wet roads! That was how much they cared for fair play, those “speed-cops”!

They crept along at thirty miles an hour; the lawful limit in those benighted times, back in 1912. It took all the thrill out of motoring, and it knocked the schedule to pot. The boy had a vision of Ben Skutt, the “lease-hound”, sitting in the lobby of the Imperial Hotel at Beach City; there would be others waiting, also—there were always dozens waiting, grave matters of business with “big money” at stake. You would hear Dad at the long distance telephone, and he would consult his watch, and figure the number of miles to be made, and make his appointment accordingly; and then he had to be there—nothing must stop him. If there were a breakdown of the car, he would take out their suit-cases, and lock the car, hail a passing motorist and get a ride to the next town, and there rent the best car he could find—or buy it outright if need be—and drive on, leaving the old car to be towed in and repaired. Nothing could stop Dad!

But now he was creeping along at thirty miles! “What’s the matter?” asked the boy, and received the answer: “Judge Larkey!” Oh, sure enough! They were in San Geronimo County, where the terrible Judge Larkey was sending speeders to jail! Never would the boy forget that day, when Dad had been compelled to put all his engagements aside, and travel back to San Geronimo, to appear in court and be scolded by this elderly autocrat. Most of the time you did not undergo such indignities; you simply displayed your card to the “speed-cop”, showing that you were a member of the Automobile Club, and he would nod politely, and hand you a little slip with the amount of your “bail” noted on it, proportioned to the speed you had been caught at; you mailed a check for the amount, and heard and thought no more about it.

But here in San Geronimo County they had got nasty, and Dad had told Judge Larkey what he thought of the custom of setting “speed-traps”—officers hiding in the bushes and spying on citizens; it was undignified, and taught motorists to regard officers of the law as enemies. The Judge had tried to be smart, and asked Dad if he had ever thought of the possibility that burglars also might come to regard officers of the law as enemies. The newspapers had put that on the front page all over the state: “Oil Operator Objects to Speed Law: J. Arnold Ross Says He Will Change It.” Dad’s friends kidded him about that, but he stuck it out—sooner or later he was going to make them change that law, and sure enough he did, and you owe to him the fact that there are no more “speed-traps,” but officers have to ride the roads in uniform, and if you watch your little mirror, you can go as fast as you please.

IV

They came to a little house by the roadside, with a shed that you drove under, and a round-bellied object, half glass and half red paint, that meant gasoline for sale. “Free Air,” read a sign, and Dad drew up, and told the man to take off his chains. The man brought a jack and lifted the car; and the boy, who was always on the ground the instant the car stopped, opened the rear compartment and got out the little bag for the chains to go in. Also he got out the “grease-gun”, and unwrapped that. “Grease is cheaper than steel,” Dad would say. He had many such maxims, a whole modern Book of Proverbs which the boy learned by heart. It was not that Dad was anxious to save the money; nor was it that he had grease to sell and not steel; it was the general principle of doing things right, of paying respect to a beautiful piece of machinery.

Dad had got out, to stretch his legs. He was a big figure of a man, filling every inch of the opulent overcoat. His cheeks were rosy, and always fresh from the razor; but at second glance you noted little pockets of flesh about his eyes, and a network of wrinkles. His hair was grey; he had had many cares, and was getting old. His features were big and his whole face round, but he had a solid jaw, which he could set in ugly determination. For the most part, however, his expression was placid, rather bovine, and his thoughts came slowly and stayed a long time. On occasions such as the present he would show a genial side—he liked to talk with the plain sort of folks he met along the road, folks of his own sort, who did not notice his extremely crude English; folks who weren’t trying to get any money out of him—at least not enough to matter.

He was pleased to tell this man at the “filling station” about the weather up there in the pass; yes, the fog was thick—delayed them quite a bit—bad place for skidding. Lots of cars got into trouble up there, said the man—that soil was dobe, slick as glass; have to trench the road better. Quite a job that, Dad thought—taking off the side of the mountain. The man said the fog was going now—lots of “high fog” in the month of May, but generally it cleared up by noon. The man wanted to know if Dad needed any gas, and Dad said no, they had got a supply before they tackled the grade. The truth was, Dad was particular, he didn’t like to use any gas but his own make; but he wouldn’t say that to the man, because it might hurt the man’s feelings.

He handed the man a silver dollar for his services, and the man started to get change, but Dad said never mind the change; the man was quite overwhelmed by that, and put up his finger in a kind of salute, and it was evident he realized he was dealing with a “big man.” Dad was used to such scenes, of course, but it never failed to bring a little glow to his heart; he went about with a supply of silver dollars and half dollars jingling in his pocket, so that all with whom he had dealings might share that spiritual warmth. “Poor devils,” he would say, “they don’t get much.” He knew, because he had been one of them, and he never lost an opportunity to explain it to the boy. To him it was real, and to the boy it was romantic.

Behind the “filling station” was a little cabinet, decorously marked, “Gents.” Dad called this the “emptying station”, and that was a joke over which they chuckled. But it was a strictly family joke, Dad explained; it must not be passed on, for other people would be shocked by it. Other people were “queer”; but just why they were queer was something not yet explained.

They took their seats in the car, and were about to start, when who should come riding up behind them—the “speed-cop”! Yes, Dad was right, the man had been following them, and he seemed to scowl when he saw them. They had no business with him, so they drove on; doubtless he would take the filling station as a place to hide, and watch for speeders, said Dad. And so it proved. They had gone for a mile or two, at their tiresome pace of thirty, when a horn sounded behind them, and a car went swiftly by. They let it go, and half a minute later Dad, looking into his little mirror, remarked: “Here comes the cop!” The boy turned round, and saw the motor-cycle pass them with a roaring of the engine. The boy leaped up and down in the seat. “It’s a race! It’s a race! Oh, Dad, let’s follow them!”

Dad was not too old to have some sporting spirit left; besides, it was a convenience to have the enemy out in front, where you could watch him, and he couldn’t watch you. Dad’s car leaped forward, and the figures again crept past the red line of the speedometer—thirty-five—forty—forty-five—fifty—fifty-five. The boy was half lifted out of his seat, his eyes shining and his hands clenched.

The concrete ribbon had come to an end; there was now a dirt road, wide and level, winding in slow curves through a country of gentle hills, planted in wheat. The road was rolled hard, but there were little bumps, and the car leaped from one to another; it was armed with springs and shock-absorbers and “snubbers”, every invented device for easy riding. Out in front were clouds of dust, which the wind seized and swept over the hills; you would have thought that an army was marching there. Now and then you got a glimpse of the speeding car, and the motor-cycle close behind it. “He’s trying to get away! Oh, Dad, step on her!” This was an adventure you didn’t meet on every trip!

“Damn fool!” was Dad’s comment; a man who would risk his life to avoid paying a small fine. You couldn’t get away from a traffic-officer, at least not on roads like this. And sure enough, the dust clouds died, and on a straight bit of the highway, there they were—the car drawn up at the right, and the officer standing alongside, with his little notebook and pencil, writing things. Dad slowed down to the innocent thirty miles and went by. The boy would have liked to stop, and listen to the argument inevitable on such occasions; but he knew that the schedule took precedence, and here was the chance to make a “get-away.” Passing the first turn, they hit it up; the boy looked round every half minute for the next half hour, but they saw no more of the “speed-cop.” They were again their own law.

V

Some time ago these two had witnessed a serious traffic accident, and afterwards had appeared to testify concerning it. The clerk of the court had called “J. Arnold Ross,” and then, just as solemnly, “J. Arnold Ross, junior,” and the boy had climbed into the witness-chair, and testified that he knew the nature of an oath, and knew the traffic regulations, and just what he had seen.

That had made him, as you might say, “court-conscious.” Whenever, in driving, anything happened that was the least bit irregular, the boy’s imagination would elaborate it into a court scene. “No, your honor, the man had no business on the left side of the road; we were too close to him, he had no time to pass the car in front of him.” Or it was: “Your honor, the man was walking on the right side of the road at night, and there was a car coming towards us, that had blinding lights. You know, your honor, a man should walk on the left side of the road at night, so that he can see the cars coming towards him.” In the midst of these imaginings of accidents, the boy would give a little jump; and Dad would ask, “What’s the matter, son?” The boy would be embarrassed, because he didn’t like to say that he had been letting his dreams run away with him. But Dad knew, and would smile to himself; funny kid, always imagining things, his mind jumping from one thing to another, always excited!

Dad’s mind was not like that; it got on one subject and stayed there, and ideas came through it in slow, grave procession; his emotions were like a furnace that took a long time to heat up. Sometimes on these drives he would say nothing for a whole hour; the stream of his consciousness would be like a river that has sunk down through rocks and sand, clean out of sight; he would be just a pervading sense of well-being, wrapped in an opulent warm overcoat, an accessory, you might say, of a softly purring engine running in a bath of boiling oil, and traversing a road at fifty miles an hour. If you had taken this consciousness apart, you would have found, not thoughts, but conditions of physical organs, and of the weather, and of the car, and of bank-accounts, and of the boy at his side. Putting it into words makes it definite and separate—so you must try to take it all at once, blended together: “I, the driver of this car, that used to be Jim Ross, the teamster, and J. A. Ross and Co., general merchandise at Queen Centre, California, am now J. Arnold Ross, oil operator, and my breakfast is about digested, and I am a little too warm in my big new overcoat because the sun is coming out, and I have a new well flowing four thousand barrels at Lobos River, and sixteen on the pump at Antelope, and I’m on my way to sign a lease at Beach City, and we’ll make up our schedule in the next couple of hours, and ‘Bunny’ is sitting beside me, and he is well and strong, and is going to own everything I am making, and follow in my footsteps, except that he will never make the ugly blunders or have the painful memories that I have, but will be wise and perfect and do everything I say.”

Meantime the mind of “Bunny” was not behaving in the least like this, but on the contrary was leaping from theme to theme, as a grass-hopper in a field leaps from one stalk of grass to another. There was a jackrabbit, racing away like mad; he had long ears, like a mule, and why were they so transparent and pink? There was a butcher-bird, sitting on the fence; he stretched his wings all the time, like he was yawning—what did he mean by that? And there was a road-runner, a long lean bird as fast as a race-horse, beautiful and glossy, black and brown and white, with a crest and a streaming tail. Where do you suppose he got water in these dry hills? There on the road was a mangled corpse—a ground squirrel had tried to cross, and a car had mashed it flat; other cars would roll over it, till it was ground to powder and blown away by the wind. There was no use saying anything to Dad about that—he would remark that squirrels carried plague, or at least they had fleas which did; every now and then there would be cases of this disease and the newspapers would have to hush it up, because it was bad for real estate.

But the boy was thinking about the poor little mite of life that had been so suddenly snuffed out. How cruel life was; and how strange that things should grow, and have the power to make themselves, out of nothing apparently—and Dad couldn’t explain it, and said that nobody else could, you were just here. And then came a ranch wagon in front of them, a one-sided old thing loaded with household goods; to Dad it was just an obstacle, but “Bunny” saw two lads of his own age, riding in back of the load and staring at him with dull, listless eyes. They were pale, and looked as if they hadn’t enough to eat; and that was another thing to wonder about, why people should be poor and nobody to help them. It was a world you had to help yourself in, was Dad’s explanation.

“Bunny,” the every-day name of this boy, had been started by his mother when he was little—because he was soft and brown and warm, and she had dressed him in a soft, fuzzy sweater, brown in color with white trimmings. Now he was thirteen, and resented the name, but the boys cut it to “Bun,” which was to stay with him, and which was satisfactory. He was a pretty boy, still brown, with wavy brown hair, tumbled by the wind, and bright brown eyes, and a good color, because he lived outdoors. He did not go to school, but had a tutor at home, because he was to take his father’s place in the world, and he went on these rides in order that he might learn his father’s business.

Wonderful, endlessly wonderful, were these scenes; new faces, new kinds of life revealed. There came towns and villages—extraordinary towns and villages, full of people and houses and cars and horses and signs. There were signs along the road; guide-posts at every crossing, giving you a geography lesson—a list of the places to which the roads led, and the distances; you could figure your schedule, and that was a lesson in arithmetic! There were traffic signs, warning you of danger—curves, grades, slippery places, intersections, railroad crossings. There were big banners across the highway, or signs with letters made of electric lights: “Loma Vista: Welcome to Our City.” Then, a little farther on: “Loma Vista, City Limits: Good-bye: Come Again.”

Also there were no end of advertising signs, especially contrived to lend variety to travel. “Picture ahead; kodak as you go,” was a frequent legend, and you looked for the picture, but never could be sure what it was. A tire manufacturer had set up big wooden figures of a boy waving a flag; Dad said this boy looked like Bunny, and Bunny said he looked like a picture of Jack London he had seen in a magazine. Another tire manufacturer had a great open book, made of wood, and set up at a turn of the road leading into each town; it was supposed to be a history book, and told you something about that place—facts at once novel and instructive: you learned that Citrus was the location of the first orange grove in California, and that Santa Rosita possessed the finest radium springs west of the Rocky mountains, and that on the outskirts of Crescent City Father Junipero Serra had converted two thousand Indians to Christianity in the year 1769.

There were people still engaged in converting, you learned; they had gone out on the highway with pots of vari-colored paint, and had decorated rocks and railway culverts with inscriptions: “Prepare to meet thy God.” Then would come a traffic sign: “Railroad crossing. Stop. Look. Listen.” The railroad company wanted you to meet your God through some other agency, Dad explained, because there would be damage suits for taking religious faith too seriously. “Jesus waits,” a boulder would proclaim; and then would come, “Chicken Dinner, $1.” There were always funny signs about things to eat—apparently all the world loved a meal, and became jolly at the thought. “Hot Dog Kennels,” was an eating-place, and “Ptomaine Tommy,” and “The Clam-Baker,” and the “Lobster-Pot.” There were endless puns on the word inn—“Dew Drop Inn” and “Happen Inn,” “Welcome Inn” and “Hurry Inn.” When you went into these places you would find the spirit of jollity rampaging on the walls: “In God we Trust, All Others Cash.” “Don’t complain about our coffee; some day you may be old and weak yourself.” “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”

VI

They were passing through a broad valley, miles upon miles of wheat fields, shining green in the sun; in the distance were trees, with glimpses of a house here and there. “Are you looking for a Home?” inquired a friendly sign. “Santa Ynez is a place for folks. Good water, cheap land, seven churches. See Sprouks and Knuckleson, Realtors.” And presently the road broadened out, with a line of trees in the middle, and there began to be houses on each side. “Drive slow and see our city; drive fast and see our jail,” proclaimed a big board—“By Order of the Municipal Council of Santa Ynez.” Dad slowed down to twenty-five miles; for it was a favorite trick of town marshals and justices of the peace to set speed-traps for motorists coming from the country, with engines keyed up to country rates of speed; they would haul you up and soak you a big fine—and you had a vision of these new-style highwaymen spending your dollars in riotous living. That was something else Dad was going to stop, he said—such fines ought to go to the state, and be used for road-repairs.

“Business zone, 15 miles per hour.” The main street of Santa Ynez was a double avenue, with two lines of cars parked obliquely in the centre of it, and another line obliquely against each curb. You crept along through a lane, watching for a car that was backing out, and you dived into the vacant place, just missing the fender of the car at your right. Dad got out, and took off his overcoat, and folded it carefully, outside in, the sleeves inside; that was something he was particular about, having kept a general store, which included “Gents’ Clothing.” He and Bunny laid their coats neatly in the rear compartment, locked safe, and then strolled down the sidewalk, watching the ranchers of Santa Ynez valley, and the goods which the stores displayed for them. This was the United States, and the things on sale were the things you would have seen in store-windows on any other Main Street, the things known as “nationally advertised products.” The ranchman drove to town in a nationally advertised auto, pressing the accelerator with a nationally advertised shoe; in front of the drug-store he found a display of nationally advertised magazines, containing all the nationally advertised advertisements of the nationally advertised articles he would take back to the ranch.

There were a few details which set this apart as a Western town: the width of the street, the newness of the stores, the shininess of their white paint, and the network of electric lights hung over the centre of the street; also a man with a broad-brimmed hat, and a stunted old Indian mumbling his lips as he walked, and a solitary cowboy wearing “chaps.” “Elite Café,” said a white-painted sign, reading vertically; the word “Waffles” was painted on the window, and there was a menu tacked by the door, so that you could see what was offered, and the prices charged. There were tables along one side of the wall, and a counter along the other, with a row of broad backs in shirtsleeves and suspenders perched on top of little stools; this was the way if you wanted quick action, so Dad and the boy took two stools they found vacant.

Dad was in his element in a place like this. He liked to “josh” the waitress; he knew all kinds of comic things to say, funny names for things to eat. He would order his eggs “sunny side up,” or “with their eyes open, please.” He would say, “Wrap the baby in the blanket,” and laugh over the waitress’ effort to realize that this meant a fried egg sandwich. He would chat with the rancher at his other side—learning about the condition of the wheat, and the prospects of prices for the orange and walnut crops; he was interested in everything like this, as a man who had oil to sell, to men who would buy more or less, according to what they got for their products. Dad owned land, too; he was always ready to “pick up” a likely piece, for there was oil all over Southern California, he said, and some day there would be an empire here.

But now they were behind their schedule, and no time for play. Dad would take fried rabbit; and Bunny thought he wouldn’t—not because of the cannibalistic suggestion, but because of one he had seen mashed on the road that morning. He chose roast pork—not having seen any dead pigs. So there came on a platter two slices of meat, and mashed potatoes scooped out in a round ball, with a hole in the top filled with gluey brown gravy; also a spoonful of chopped up beets, and a leaf of lettuce with apple sauce in it. The waitress had given him an extra helping, because she liked this jolly brown kid, with his rosy cheeks and hair tumbled by the wind, and sensitive lips, like a girl’s, and eager brown eyes that roamed over the place and took in everything, the signs on the wall, the bottles of catsup and slices of pie, the fat jolly waitress, and the tired thin one who was waiting on him. He cheered her up by telling her about the speed-cop they had met, and the chase they had seen. In turn she tipped them off to a speed-trap just outside the town; the man next to Bunny had been caught in it and fined ten dollars, so they had plenty to talk about while Bunny finished his dinner, and his slice of raisin pie and glass of milk. Dad gave the waitress a half dollar for a tip, which was an unheard-of thing at a counter, and seemed almost immoral; but she took it.

They drove carefully until they were past the speed-trap; then they “hit it up,” along a broad boulevard known as the Mission Way, with bronze bells hanging from poles along it. They had all kinds of picturesque names for highways in this country; the Devil’s Garden Way and the Rim of the World Drive, Mountain Spring Grade and Snow Creek Run, Thousand Palm Cañon and Fig Tree John’s Road, Coyote Pass and the Jackrabbit Trail. There was a Telegraph Road, and that was thrilling to the boy because he had read about a battle in the civil war for the possession of a “Telegraph Road”; when they drove along this one, he would see infantry hiding in the bushes and cavalry charging across the fields; he would give a start of excitement, and Dad would ask, “What is it?” “Nothing, Dad; I was just thinking.” Funny kid! Always imagining things!

Also, there were Spanish names, reverently cherished by the pious “realtors” of the country. Bunny knew what these meant, because he was studying Spanish, so that some day he would be equipped to deal with Mexican labor. “El Camino Real”—that meant the Royal Highway; and “Verdugo Cañon”—that meant “executioner.” “What happened there, Dad?” But Dad didn’t know the story; he shared the opinion of the manufacturer of a nationally advertised automobile—that history is mostly “bunk.”

VI

The road was asphalt now; it shimmered in the heat, and whenever it fell away before you, a mirage made it look like water. It was lined with orange-groves; dark green shiny trees, golden with a part of last year’s crop, and snowy white with the new year’s blossoms. Now and then a puff of breeze blew out, and you got a ravishing sweet odor. There were groves of walnuts, broad trees with ample foliage, casting dark shadows on the carefully cultivated, powdery brown soil. There were hedges of roses, extending for long distances, eight or ten feet high, and covered with blossoms. There were wind-breaks of towering thin eucalyptus trees, with long wavy leaves and bark that scales off and leaves them naked; all the world is familiar with them in the moving pictures, where they do duty for sturdy oaks and ancient elms and spreading chestnuts and Arabian date-palms and cedars of Lebanon and whatever else the scenario calls for.

You had to cut your speed down here, and had to watch incessantly; there were intersections, and lanes coming in, and warning signs of many sorts; there was traffic both ways, and delicate decisions to be made as to whether you could get past the car ahead of you, before one coming in the other direction would bear down on you and shut you in a pair of scissors. It was exciting to watch Dad’s handling of these emergencies, to read his intentions and watch him carry them out.

There were towns every five or ten miles now, and you were continually being slowed up by traffic, and continually being warned to conform to a rate of movement which would have irritated an able-bodied snail. The highway passed through the main street of each town; the merchants arranged that, Dad said, hoping you would get out and buy something at their places; if the highway were shifted to the outskirts of the town, to avoid traffic congestion, all the merchants would forthwith move to the highway! Sometimes they would put up signs, indicating a turn in the highway, attempting to lure the motorist onto a business street; after you had got to the end of that street, they would steer you back to the highway! Dad noted such tricks with the amused tolerance of a man who had worked them on others, but did not let anyone work them on him.

Each town consisted of some tens, or hundreds, or thousands of perfectly rectangular blocks, divided into perfectly rectangular lots, each containing a strictly modern bungalow, with a lawn and a housewife holding a hose. On the outskirts would be one or more “subdivisions,” as they were called; “acreage” was being laid out into lots, and decorated with a row of red and yellow flags fluttering merrily in the breeze; also a row of red and yellow signs which asked questions and answered them with swift efficiency: “Gas? Yes.” “Water? Best ever.” “Lights? Right.” “Restrictions? You bet.” “Schools? Under construction.” “Scenery? Beats the Alps.”—and so on. There would be an office or a tent by the roadside, and in front of it an alert young man with a writing pad and a fountain-pen, prepared to write you a contract of sale after two minutes conversation. These subdividers had bought the land for a thousand dollars an acre, and soon as they had set up the fluttering little flags and the tent it became worth $1675 per lot. This also Dad explained with amused tolerance. It was a great country!

They were coming to the outskirts of Angel City. Here were trolley tracks and railroads, and subdivisions with no “restrictions”—that is, you might build any kind of house you pleased, and rent it to people of any race or color; which meant an ugly slum, spreading like a great sore, with shanties of tin and tar-paper and unpainted boards. There were great numbers of children playing here—for some strange reason there seemed to be more of them where they were least apt to thrive.

By dint of constant pushing and passing every other car, Dad had got on his schedule again. They skirted the city, avoiding the traffic crowds in its centre, and presently came a sign: “Beach City Boulevard.” It was a wide asphalt road, with thousands of speeding cars, and more subdivisions and suburban home-sites, with endless ingenious advertisements designed to catch the fancy of the motorist, and cause him to put on brakes. The real estate men had apparently been reading the Arabian Nights and Grimm’s fairy-tales; they were housed in little freak offices that shot up to a point, or tilted like a drunken sailor; their colors orange and pink, or blue and green, or with separately painted shingles, spotted with various colors. There were “good eats” signs and “barbecue” signs—the latter being a word which apparently had not been in the spelling-books when the sign-painters went to school. There were stands where you got orange-juice and cider, with orange-colored wicker chairs out in front for you to sit in. There were fruit and vegetable stands kept by Japs, and other stands with signs inviting you to “patronize Americans.” There was simply no end of things to look at, each separate thing bringing its separate thrill to the mind of a thirteen-year old boy. The infinite strangeness and fascinatingness of this variegated world! Why do people do this, Dad? And why do they do that?

They came to Beach City, with its wide avenue along the ocean-front. Six-thirty, said the clock on the car’s running-board—exactly on the schedule. They stopped before the big hotel, and Bunny got out of the car, and opened the back compartment, and the bell-hop came hopping—you bet, for he knew Dad, and the dollars and half dollars that were jingling in Dad’s pockets. The bell-hop grabbed the suit-cases and the overcoats, and carried them in, and the boy followed, feeling responsible and important, because Dad couldn’t come yet, Dad had to put the car in a parking place. So Bunny strode in and looked about the lobby for Ben Skutt, the oil-scout, who was Dad’s “lease-hound.” There he was, seated in a big leather chair, puffing at a cigar and watching the door; he got up when he saw Bunny, and stretched his long, lean body, and twisted his lean, ugly face into a grin of welcome. The boy, very erect, remembering that he was J. Arnold Ross, junior, and representing his father in an important transaction, shook hands with the man, remarking: “Good evening, Mr. Skutt. Are the papers ready?”

CHAPTER II
THE LEASE

I

The number of the house was 5746 Los Robles Boulevard, and you would have had to know this land of hope in order to realize that it stood in a cabbage field. Los Robles means “the oaks”; and two or three miles away, where this boulevard started in the heart of Beach City, there were four live oak trees. But out here a bare slope of hill, quite steep, yet not too steep to be plowed and trenched and covered with cabbages, with sugar-beets down on the flat. The eye of hope, aided by surveyors’ instruments, had determined that some day a broad boulevard would run on this line; and so there was a dirt road, and at every corner white posts set up, with a wing north and a wing east—Los Robles Blvd.-Palomitas Ave.; Los Robles Blvd.-El Centro Ave.; and so on.

Two years ago the “subdividers” had been here, with their outfit of little red and yellow flags; there had been full-page advertisements in the newspapers, and free auto rides from Beach City, and a free lunch; consisting of “hot dog” sandwiches, a slice of apple pie, and a cup of coffee. At that time the fields had been cleared of cabbages, and graded, and the lots had blossomed with little signs: “Sold.” This was supposed to refer to the lot, but in time it came to refer to the purchaser. The company had undertaken to put in curbs and sidewalks, water and gas and sewers; but somebody made off with the money, and the enterprise went into bankruptcy, and presently new signs began to appear: “For Sale, by Owner,” or “Bargain: See Smith and Headmutton, Real Estate.” And when these signs brought no reply, the owners sighed, and reflected that some day when little Willie grew up he would make a profit out of that investment. Meantime, they would accept the proposition of Japanese truck-gardeners, to farm the land for one-third of the crop.

But three or four months ago something unexpected had happened. A man who owned an acre or two of land on the top of the hill had caused a couple of motor-trucks to come toiling up the slope, loaded with large square timbers of Oregon pine; carpenters had begun to work on these, and the neighborhood had stared, wondering what strange kind of house it could be. Suddenly the news had spread, in an explosion of excitement: an oil-derrick!

A deputation called upon the owner, to find out what it meant. It was pure “wild-catting,” he assured them; he happened to have a hundred thousand dollars to play with, and this was his idea of play. Nevertheless, the bargain signs came down from the cabbage fields, and were replaced by “Oil Lot for Sale.” Speculators began to look up the names and addresses of owners, and offers were made—there were rumors that some had got as high as a thousand dollars, nearly twice the original price of the lots. Motor-cars took to bumping out over the dirt roads, up and down the lanes; and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons there would be a crowd staring at the derrick.

The drilling began, and went on, monotonously and uneventfully. The local newspapers reported the results: the D. H. Culver Prospect No. 1 was at 1478 feet, in hard sandstone formation and no signs of oil. It was the same at 2,000, and at 3,000; and then for weeks the rig was “fishing” for a broken drill, and everybody lost interest; it was nothing but a “dry hole,” and people who had refused double prices for their lots began to curse themselves for fools. “Wild-catting” was nothing but gambling anyhow—quite different from conservative investments in town lots. Then the papers reported that D. H. Culver Prospect No. 1 was drilling again; it was at 3059 feet, but the owners had not yet given up hope of striking something.

Then a strange thing happened. There came trucks, heavily loaded with stuff, carefully covered with canvas. Everybody connected with the enterprise had been warned or bribed to silence; but small boys peered under the canvas while the trucks were toiling up the hill with roaring motors, and they reported big sheets of curved metal, with holes along the edges for bolts. That could be only one thing, tanks. And at the same time came rumors that D. H. Culver had purchased another tract of land on the hill. The meaning of all this was obvious: Prospect No. 1 had got into oil-sands!

The whole hill began to blossom with advertisements, and real estate agents swarmed to the “field.” A magic word now—no longer cabbage field or sugar-beet field, but “the field!” Speculators set themselves up in tents, or did business from automobiles drawn up by the roadside, with canvas signs on them. There was coming and going all day long, and crowds of people gathered to stare up at the derrick, and listen to the monotonous grinding of the heavy drill that went round and round all day—“Ump-um—ump-um—ump-um—ump-um”—varied by the “puff-puff” of the engine. “Keep out—this means you!” declared a conspicuous sign; Mr. D. H. Culver and his employees had somehow lost all their good breeding.

But suddenly there was no possibility of secrecy; literally all the world knew—for telegraph and cable carried the news to the farthest corners of civilization. The greatest oil strike in the history of Southern California, the Prospect Hill field! The inside of the earth seemed to burst out through that hole; a roaring and rushing, as Niagara, and a black column shot up into the air, two hundred feet, two hundred and fifty—no one could say for sure—and came thundering down to earth as a mass of thick, black, slimy, slippery fluid. It hurled tools and other heavy objects this way and that, so the men had to run for their lives. It filled the sump-hole, and poured over, like a saucepan boiling too fast, and went streaming down the hill-side. Carried by the wind, a curtain of black mist, it sprayed the Culver homestead, turning it black, and sending the women of the household flying across the cabbage-fields. Afterwards it was told with Homeric laughter how these women had been heard to lament the destruction of their clothing and their window-curtains by this million-dollar flood of “black gold”!

Word spread by telephone to Beach City; the newspapers bulletined it, the crowds shouted it on the street, and before long the roads leading to Prospect Hill were black with a solid line of motor-cars. The news reached Angel City, the papers there put out “extras,” and before nightfall the Beach City boulevard was crowded with cars, a double line, all coming one way. Fifty thousand people stood in a solid ring at what they considered a safe distance from the gusher, with emergency policemen trying to drive them further back, and shouting: “Lights out! Lights out!” All night those words were chanted in a chorus; everybody realized the danger—some one fool might forget and light a cigarette, and the whole hill-side would leap into flame; a nail in your shoe might do it, striking on a stone; or a motor-truck, with its steel-rimmed tires. Quite frequently these gushers caught fire at the first moment.

But still the crowds gathered; men put down the tops of their automobiles, and stood up in the seats and conducted auction rooms by the light of the stars. Lots were offered for sale at fabulous prices, and some of them were bought; leases were offered, companies were started and shares sold—the traders would push their way out of the crowd to a safe distance on the windward side, where they could strike a match, and see each other’s faces, and scrawl a memorandum of what they agreed. Such trading went on most of the night, and in the morning came big tents that had been built for revival meetings, and the cabbage fields became gay with red and black signs: “Beach Co-operative No. 1,” “Skite Syndicate, No. 1, ten thousand units, $10.”

Meantime the workmen were toiling like mad to stop the flow of the well; they staggered here and there, half-blinded by the black spray—and with no place to brace themselves, nothing they could hold onto, because everything was greased, streaming with grease. You worked in darkness, groping about, with nothing but the roar of the monster, his blows upon your body, his spitting in your face, to tell you where he was. You worked at high tension, for there were bonuses offered—fifty dollars for each man if you stopped the flow before midnight, a hundred dollars if you stopped it before ten o’clock. No one could figure how much wealth that monster was wasting, but it must be thousands of dollars every minute. Mr. Culver himself pitched in to help, and in his reckless efforts lost both of his ear-drums. “Tried to stop the flow with his head,” said a workman, unsympathetically. In addition the owner discovered, in the course of ensuing weeks, that he had accumulated a total of forty-two suits for damages to houses, clothing, chickens, goats, cows, cabbages, sugar-beets, and automobiles which had skidded into ditches on too well-greased roads.

II

The house numbered 5746 Los Robles Boulevard belonged to Joe Groarty, night watchman for the Altmann Lumber Company of Beach City. Mrs. Groarty had “taken in” washing to help support her seven children; now that they were grown up and scattered, she kept rabbits and chickens. Joe usually left for his job at six p. m.; but on the third day after the “strike” he had got up the nerve to give up his job, and now he was on his front-porch, a mild, grey-haired old fellow, wearing a black suit, with celluloid collar and black tie, his costume for Sundays and holidays, weddings and funerals. Mrs. Groarty had had no clothing suitable for this present occasion, so she had been driven down-town in her husband’s Ford, and had spent some of her oil expectations for an evening-gown of yellow satin. Now she felt embarrassed because there was not enough of it, either at the top where her arms and bosom came out, or below, where her fat calves were encased in embroidered silk stockings, so thin as to seem almost nothing. It was what “they” were wearing, the saleswomen had assured her; and Mrs. Groarty was grimly set upon being one of “them.”

The house was in the conventional “bungalow style,” and had been built by a wealthier family, in the days of the real estate boom. It had been offered at a sacrifice, and Mrs. Groarty had fastened upon it because of the wonderful living-room. They had put their savings into a cash payment, and were paying the balance thirty dollars a month. They had got a deed to the property, and were up to date on their payments, so they were safe.

When you passed the threshold of the house, the first thing you saw was shine; the most marvelous gloss ever seen on wood-work—and to heighten the effect the painter had made it wavy, in imitation of the grain of oak; there must have been ten thousand lines, each one a separate wiggle of a brush. The fire-place was of many-colored stones, highly polished and gleaming like jewels. In the back of the room, most striking feature of all, was a wooden staircase, with a balustrade, also shiny and wavy; this staircase went up, and made a turn, and there was a platform with a palm-tree in a pot. You would take it for granted that it was a staircase like all other staircases, intended to take you to the second story. You might go into the Groarty home a hundred times, and see it both day and night, before it would occur to you there was anything wrong; but suddenly—standing outside on some idle day—it would flash over you that the Groarty home had a flat roof over its entire extent, and at no part was there any second story. Then you would go inside, inspired by a new, malignant curiosity, and would study the staircase and landing, and realize that they didn’t lead anywhere, their beauty was its own excuse for being.

Mrs. Groarty stood by the centre-table of her living-room, awaiting the arrival of the expected company. There was a bowl of roses in a vase on this table, and immediately in front of it, conspicuous under the electric lamp, was a handsome volume bound in blue cloth and stamped with gold letters: “The Ladies’ Guide: A Practical Handbook of Gentility.” It was the only book in the Groarty home, and it had been there only two days; an intelligent clerk in the department-store, after selling the satin robe, had mentioned to the future “oil-queen” the existence of this bargain in the literature department. Mrs. Groarty had been studying the volume at spare moments, and now had it set out as an exhibit of culture.

The first to arrive was the widow Murchey, who had only to come from the end of the block, where she lived in a little bungalow with her two children; she was frail, and timid of manner, and wore black wristbands. She went into raptures over Mrs. Groarty’s costume, and congratulated her on her good fortune in being on the south slope of the hill, where one could wear fine dresses. Over on the north side, where the prevailing winds had blown the oil, you ruined your shoes every time you went out. Some people still did not dare to light their kitchen fires, for fear of an explosion.

Then came the Walter Blacks, Mr. and Mrs. and their grown son, owners of the southwest corner lot; they were in real estate in the city. Mr. Black wore a checked suit, an expansive manner, and a benevolent protective gold animal as watch-fob on his ample front. Mrs. Black, also ample, had clothes at home as good as Mrs. Groarty’s, but her manner said that she hadn’t put them on to come out to any cabbage-patch. They were followed by Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, who had a little cottage in back of the Groarty’s, fronting on Eldorado Road, the other side of the block; Mr. Dumpery was a quiet little man, with shoulders bowed and hands knotted by a life-time of toil. He was not very good at figures, and was distressed by these sudden uncertainties which had invaded his life.

Next came the Raithels, who had a candy-store in town, a very genteel young couple, anxious to please everybody, and much distressed because it had so far proven impossible; they were the owners of one of the “little lots.” Then Mr. Hank, a lean and hatchet-faced man with an exasperating voice; he owned the next “little lot,” and because he had been a gold miner, considered himself an authority on oil leases. After him came his enemy, Mr. Dibble, the lawyer, who represented the absent owner of the northwest corner, and had made trouble by insisting on many technicalities difficult for non-lawyers to understand; he had tried hard to separate the north half of the block, and was regarded as a traitor by those of the south half. Then came Mr. Golighty, one of the “medium lots.” His occupation was not known, but he impressed everyone by his clothing and cultured manner; he was a reconciler, with a suave, rotund voice, and talked a great deal, the only trouble being that when he got through you were a little uncertain as to what he had said.

The Bromleys arrived, an elderly couple of means, driving a big car. They brought with them the Lohlkers, two little Jewish tailors, whom ordinarily they would have talked with only in the tailor-shop; but with these allies they controlled four of the “medium lots,” which was sufficient for a drilling site, and cutting right across the block, had enabled them to threaten the rest with a separate lease. Behind them came the Sivons, walking from their house on the northeast corner; they were pretentious people, who looked down on the rest of the neighborhood—and without any cause, for they drove a second-hand car, three years out of date. They were the people who had got this lease, and everyone was sure they were getting a big “rake-off” on the side; but there was no way to prove it, and nothing you could do about it, for the reason that all the others who had brought leasing propositions had been secretly promised a similar “rake-off.”

With them came Mr. Sahm, a plasterer, who lived in a temporary “garage-house” on the “little lot” adjoining the Sivons. His dwelling amounted to nothing, nevertheless he had been the one who had clamored most strenuously that the houses should be moved at the lessor’s expense; he had even tried to put in a provision for compensation for the rows of beans and tomatoes he had planted on his lot. The others had sought to hoot him down, when to their dismay the silent Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, arose, declaring that it seemed to him a quite sensible request; he had seven rows of corn, himself, and beans in full blossom, and he thought the contract should at least contain a provision that the first well should be drilled on some lot which was not planted, so as to give the gardeners time to reap the benefit of their labor.

III

It was seven-thirty, the hour set for the meeting; and everybody looked about, waiting for somebody else to begin. At last a stranger rose, a big six-footer with a slow drawl, introducing himself as Mr. F. T. Merriweather, attorney for Mr. and Mrs. Black, owners of the southwest corner; by his advice, these parties wished to request a slight change in the wording of the lease.

“Changes in the lease?” It was the hatchet-faced Mr. Hank who leaped up. “I thought it was agreed we’d make no more changes?”

“This is a very small matter, sir—”

“But Mr. Ross is to be here in fifteen minutes, ready to sign up!”

“This is a detail, which can be changed in five minutes.”

There was an ominous silence. “Well, what is your change?”

“Merely this,” said Mr. Merriweather; “it should be explicitly stated that in figuring the area for the apportioning of the royalty, due regard shall be paid to the provision of the law that oil rights run to the centre of the street, and to the centre of the alley in the rear.”

“What’s that?” Eyes and mouths went open, and there was a general murmur of amazement and dissent. “Where do you get that?” cried Mr. Hank.

“I get it from the statutes of the State of California.”

“Well, you don’t get it from this lease, and you don’t get it from me!” There was a chorus of support: “I should think not! Whoever heard of such a thing? Ridiculous!”

“I think I speak for the majority here,” said old Mr. Bromley. “We had no such understanding; we assumed that the area of the lots to be taken was that given on the maps of the company.”

“Certainly, certainly!” cried Mrs. Groarty.

“I think, Mrs. Groarty,” replied Mr. Dibble, the lawyer, “there has been an unfortunate accident, owing to your unfamiliarity with the oil-laws of the State. The provisions of the statute are clear.”

“Oh, yes, of course!” snapped Mrs. Groarty. “We don’t need to be told what you would say, seeing as you represent a corner lot, and the corner lots will get twice as much money!”

“Not so bad as that, Mrs. Groarty. Don’t forget that your own lot will run to the centre of Las Robles Boulevard, which is eighty feet wide.”

“Yes, but your lot will run to the centre of the side street also—”

“Yes, Mrs. Groarty, but El Centro Avenue is only sixty feet wide.”

“What it means is just this, you make your lots ninety-five feet lots, instead of sixty-five feet lots, as we all thought when we give up and consented to let the big lots have a bigger share.”

“And you were going to let us sign that!” shouted Mr. Hank. “You were sitting still and working that swindle on us!”

“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” boomed the voice of Mr. Golighty, the conciliator.

“Let me git this straight,” broke in Abe Lohlker, the tailor. “Eldorado Road ain’t so wide as Los Robles Boulevard, so us fellers on the east half don’t git so much money as the others.”

“That amounts to practically nothing,” said Mr. Merriweather. “You can figure—”

“Sure I can figger! But then, if it don’t amount to nothin’, what you comin’ here bustin’ up our lease about it for?”

“I can tell you this right now!” cried Mr. Hank. “You’ll never get me to sign no such agreement.”

“Nor me,” said Miss Snypp, the trained nurse, a decided young lady with spectacles. “I think us little lots have put up with our share of imposition.”

“What I say,” added Mr. Hank, “let’s go back to the original agreement, the only sensible one, share and share alike, all lots equal, same as we vote.”

“Let me point out something, Mr. Hank,” said Mr. Dibble, with much dignity. “Am I correct in the impression that you own one of the little lots adjoining the alley?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Well, then, have you figured that the law entitles you to an extra fifteen feet all along that alley? That puts you somewhat ahead of the medium lots.”

Mr. Hank’s lantern jaw dropped down. “Oh!” he said.

And Mrs. Groarty burst into laughter. “Oh! Oh! That changes it, of course! It’s us medium lots that are the suckers now—us that make up half the lease!”

“And us little lots that ain’t on the alley!” cried Mrs. Keith, the wife of a baseball player. “What about my husband and I?”

“It looks to me we’re clean busted up,” said Mr. Sahm, the plasterer. “We don’t know who we belong with no more.” Like most of the men in the room, he had got out a pencil and paper, and was trying to figure this new arrangement; and the more he figured, the more complications he discovered.

IV

It had been the Walter Browns who had started the idea of a “community agreement” for this block. Two or three lots were enough for a well, but for such a lease you could only get some small concern, and like as not you would fall into the hands of a speculator, and be bartered about, perhaps exploited by a “syndicate” and sold in “units,” or tied up in a broken contract, and have to sit by and watch while other people drained the oil from under your land. No, the thing to do was to get a whole block together; then you had enough for half a dozen wells, and could deal with one of the big companies, and you would get quick drilling, and more important yet, you would be sure of your royalties when they were earned.

So, after much labor, and pulling and hauling, and threatening and cajoling, and bargaining and intriguing, the owners of the twenty-four lots had met at the Groarty home, and had signed their names, both husbands and wives, to a “community agreement,” to the effect that none of them would lease apart from the others. This document had been duly recorded in the county archives; and now day by day they were realizing what they had done to themselves. They had agreed to agree; and from that time on, they had never been able to agree to anything!

They met at seven-thirty every evening, and wrangled until midnight or later; they went home exhausted, and could not sleep; they neglected their business and their house-keeping and the watering of their lawns—what was the use of working like a slave when you were going to be rich? They held minority meetings, and formed factional groups, and made pledges which they broke, more or less secretly, before the sun had set. Their frail human nature was subjected to a strain greater than it was made for; the fires of greed had been lighted in their hearts, and fanned to a white heat that melted every principle and every law.

The “lease-hounds” were on their trail, besieging their homes, ringing the telephone, following them in automobiles. But each new proposition, instead of satisfaction, brought worry, suspicion and hate. Whoever proposed it, must be trying to cheat the rest; whoever defended it, must have entered into league with him. No one of them but knew the possibilities of treasons and stratagems; even the mildest of them—poor, inoffensive Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, who, dragging his steps home from the trolley, with fingers sore and back aching from the driving of several thousand shingle-nails on a roof, was met by a man driving a palatial limousine. “Step in, Mr. Dumpery,” said the man. “This is a fine car, don’t you think? How would you like to have me get out and leave you in it? I’ll be very glad to do that if you’ll persuade your group to sign up with the Couch Syndicate.” “Oh, no,” said Mr. Dumpery, “I couldn’t do that, I promised Miss Snypp I’d stick by the Owens plan.” “Well, you can forget that,” said the other. “I’ve just had a talk with Miss Snypp, and she is willing to take an automobile.”

They had got into a condition of perpetual hysteria, when suddenly hope broke upon them, like the sun out of storm-clouds; Mr. and Mrs. Sivon brought a proposition from a man named Skutt, who represented J. Arnold Ross, and made them the best offer they had yet had—one thousand dollars cash bonus for each lot, one-fourth royalty, and an agreement to “spud in” the first well within thirty days, under penalty of another thousand dollars per lot, this forfeit to be posted in the bank.

All of them knew about J. Arnold Ross; the local papers had had articles telling how another “big operator” was entering the new field. The papers printed his picture, and a sketch of his life—a typical American, risen from the ranks, glorifying once more this great land of opportunity. Mr. Sahm, the plasterer, and Mr. Dumpery, the carpenter, and Mr. Hank, the miner, and Mr. Groarty, the night watchman, and Mr. Raithel, the candy-store keeper, and Messrs. Lohlker and Lohlker, ladies’ and gents’ tailors, felt a glow of the heart as they read these stories. Their chance had come now, it was the land of opportunity for them!

There was another agonizing wrangle, as a result of which the big and medium lots decided to drop their differences; they voted against the little lots, and drew up a lease on the basis of each lot receiving a share of royalty proportioned to its area. They notified Mr. Skutt that they were ready, and Mr. Skutt arranged for the great Mr. Ross to meet them at a quarter to eight the following evening and sign the papers. And now, here they were, exactly on the minute appointed—and they were in another mess! Here were four of the “little lots,” set unexpectedly above the “medium lots”; as a result of which, four “big lots” and four “big little lots” were in favor of the lease, and four “little little lots” and twelve “medium lots” were against it!

Here was Miss Snypp, her face brick-red with wrath, shaking her finger at Mr. Hank. “Let me tell you, you’ll never get me to put my signature on that paper—never in this world!” And here was Mr. Hank, shouting back: “Let me tell you, the law will make you sign it, if the majority votes for it!” And here was Mrs. Groarty, forgetting all about the Practical Handbook of Gentility, glaring at Mr. Hank and clenching her hands as if she had him by the throat: “And you the feller that was yellin’ for the rights of the little lots! You was for sharin’ and sharin’ alike—you snake in the grass!” Such was the state to which they had come, when suddenly every voice was stilled, clenched hands were loosened, and angry looks died away. A knock upon the door, a sharp, commanding knock; and to every person in the room came the identical thought: J. Arnold Ross!

V

Not many of these men would ever read a book on etiquette; they would learn about life from action—and here was an occasion, the most instructive that had so far come to them. They learned that when a great man comes into a room, he comes first, preceding his subordinates. They learned that he wears a majestic big overcoat, and stands in silence until he is introduced by a subordinate. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the lease-agent, Skutt, “this is Mr. J. Arnold Ross.” Whereupon Mr. Ross smiled agreeably, taking in the entire company: “Good evenin’, ladies and gentlemen.” Half a dozen men arose, offering him a chair; he took a large one, quite simply, and without wasting time in discussion—realizing, no doubt, how he would be embarrassing the hostess if he called attention to a shortage of chairs.

Behind him stood another man, also big. “Mr. Alston D. Prentice,” said Skutt, and they were doubly impressed, this being a famous lawyer from Angel City. Also there had entered a little boy, apparently a son of Mr. Ross. The women in the room many of them had little boys of their own, each one destined to grow up into a great oil man; therefore they watched the Ross boy, and learned that such a boy stays close by his father, and says nothing, but takes in everything with eager roving eyes. As soon as possible he gets himself a perch in the window-sill, where he sits listening, as attentively as if he were a man.

Mrs. Groarty had got all the chairs her neighbors could spare, and had visited the “morticians” and rented a dozen camp-chairs; but still there was a shortage, and the etiquette book did not tell you what to do. But these rough and ready Western men had solved the problem, having sought out the wood-shed, which was behind the garage, and fetched some empty “lug-boxes,” such as you got when you bought peaches and apricots and plums for canning. Set up on end, these made satisfactory seats, and the company was soon settled.

“Well, folks,” said Mr. Skutt, genially. “Everything ready?”

“No,” said the acid voice of Mr. Hank. “We ain’t ready. We can’t agree.”

“What?” cried the “lease-hound.” “Why, you told me you had got together!”

“I know. But we’re busted open again.”

“What is the matter?”

Half a dozen people started to tell what was the matter; The voice of Mr. Sahm prevailed over the rest. “There’s some people come here with too good lawyers, and they’ve raked up what they claim is laws that the rest of us won’t stand for.”

“Well now,” said Mr. Skutt, politely, “Mr. Prentice here is a very good lawyer, and perhaps he can help clear up the matter.”

So, more or less in chorus, they explained, and made known their protests at the same time. Then Mr. Ross’ lawyer, speaking ex cathedra, advised them that the statement of the law was absolutely correct, the lease as it stood would be interpreted to mean the area to the middle of the streets and alleys; but of course there was nothing to prevent their making a different arrangement if they saw fit, and so specifying in the lease.

And then the fat was in the fire; they began to argue their rights and wrongs, and their animosities flamed so hotly that they forgot even the presence of J. Arnold Ross, and of his eminent lawyer. “I said it once, and I’ll say it again,” declared Miss Snypp—“Never! Never!”

“You’ll sign if we vote it!” cried Mr. Hank.

“You try it and see!”

“You mean you think you can break the agreement?”

“I mean I’ve got a lawyer that says he can break it any day I tell him.”

“Well, I’ll say this,” put in Mr. Dibble; “speaking as a lawyer—and I think my colleagues, Mr. Prentice and Mr. Merriweather will back me—that agreement is iron-clad.”

“Well, at least we can tie you up in the courts!” cried Mr. Sahm. “And keep you there for a year or two!”

“A fat lot o’ good that’ll do you!” sneered Mr. Hank.

“Well, we’d as soon be robbed by one set of thieves as another,” declared Miss Snypp.

“Now, now, folks!” put in Ben Skutt, hastily. “Surely we’re none of us goin’ to cut off our noses to spite our faces. Don’t you think you better let Mr. Ross tell you about his plans?”

“Sure, let’s hear Mr. Ross!” cried Mr. Golighty; and there was a chorus—yes, by all means they would hear Mr. Ross. If anyone could save them, it was he!

VI

Mr. Ross arose, slowly and gravely. He had already taken off his big overcoat, and folded it and laid it neatly on the rug beside his chair; the housewives had made note of that, and would use it in future domestic arguments. He faced them now, a portly person in a comfortable serge suit, his features serious but kindly, and speaking to them in a benevolent, almost fatherly voice. If you are troubled by the fact that he differs from you in the use of language, bear in mind that it is not the English but the southwestern American language that he is using. You would need to play the oil-game out in that country, in order to realize that a man may say, “I jist done it onst, and I’m a-goin’ to do it again,” and yet be dressed like a metropolitan banker, and have the calm assurance of a major-general commanding, and the kindly dignity of an Episcopal bishop. Said Mr. J. Arnold Ross:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I traveled over jist about half our state to get here this evenin’. I couldn’t get away sooner, because my new well was a-comin’ in at Lobos River, and I had to see about it. That well is now flowin’ four thousand barrel, and payin’ me an income of five thousand dollars a day. I got two others drillin’, and I got sixteen producin’ at Antelope. So, ladies and gentlemen, if I say I’m an oil man, you got to agree.

“You got a great chanct here, ladies and gentlemen; but bear in mind, you can lose it all if you ain’t careful. Out of all the fellers that beg you for a chanct to drill your land, maybe one in twenty will be oil men; the rest will be speculators, fellers tryin’ to get between you and the oil men, to get some of the money that ought by rights come to you. Even if you find one that has money, and means to drill, he’ll maybe know nothin’ about drillin’, and have to hire out the job on contract—and then you’re dependin’ on a contractor that’s tryin’ to rush the job through, so as to get to another contract jist as quick as he can.

“But, ladies and gentlemen, I do my own drillin’, and the fellers that work for me are fellers I know. I make it my business to be there and see to their work. I don’t lose my tools in the hole, and spend months a-fishin’; I don’t botch the cementin’ off, and let water into the hole, and ruin the whole lease. And let me tell you, I’m fixed right now like no other man or company in this field. Because my Lobos River well has jist come in, I got a string of tools all ready to put to work. I can load a rig onto trucks, and have them here in a week. I’ve got business connections, so I can get the lumber for the derrick—such things go by friendship, in a rush like this. That’s why I can guarantee to start drillin’, and put up the cash to back my word. I assure you whatever the others promise to do, when it comes to the showdown, they won’t be there.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not up to me to say how you’re a-goin’ to divide the royalty. But let me say this; whatever you give up, so as to get together, it’ll be small compared to what you may lose by delay, and by fallin’ into the hands of gamblers and crooks. Ladies and gentlemen, take it from me as an oil man, there ain’t a-goin’ to be many gushers here at Prospect Hill; the pressure under the ground will soon let up, and it’ll be them that get their wells down first that’ll get the oil. A field plays out very quick; in two or three years you’ll see all these here wells on the pump—yes, even this discovery well that’s got you all crazy. So, take my word for it, and don’t break up this lease; take a smaller share of royalty, if you must, and I’ll see that it’s a small share of a big royalty, so you won’t lose in real money. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I had to say.”

The great man stood, as if waiting to see if anyone had anything to answer; then he sat down, and there was a pause in the proceedings. His had been weighty words, and no one quite had the courage to break the spell.

At last Mr. Golighty arose. “Friends,” he said, “we have been hearing common sense, from a gentleman in whom we all have confidence; and I for one admit myself convinced, and hope that we may prove ourselves a group of business people, capable of making a wise decision, in this matter which means so much to all of us.” And so Mr. Golighty was started on one of his long speeches, the purport of which appeared to be that the majority should rule.

“But that’s just the trouble,” said Mr. Sahm; “what is the majority?”

“We take a wote,” said Mr. Chaim Lohlker, “and we find out.”

Mr. Merriweather, the lawyer, had been consulting in whispers with his clients. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he now declared, “I am authorized by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Black to say that they have been greatly impressed by what Mr. Ross has said, and they wish to make any concession necessary to harmony. They are willing to waive the point which I raised at the beginning of this discussion, and to sign the lease as it stands.”

“But what does that mean?” demanded Mrs. Groarty. “Are they to get a royalty on a ninety-five foot lot?”

“Our offer is to sign the document as it stands, and the question of interpretation may be decided later.”

“Oho!” said Mr. Groarty. “A fine concession that—and when we’ve just heard Mr. Prentice tell us that the law reads your way!”

“We agreed to sign it,” said Mr. Hank, doing his best to make his voice sound pleasant.

“Oh, listen to who’s talking!” cried Miss Snypp. “The gentleman that was saying, less than a half an hour ago, that we should go back to our original arrangement—‘the only sensible one, share and share alike, all lots equal, same as we vote.’ Have I quoted you correct, Mr. Hank?”

“I agreed to sign this lease,” declared the ex-goldminer, stubbornly.

“And for my part,” said the trained nurse, “I said it once and I’ll say it again, never on this earth!”

VII

Old Mrs. Ross, Bunny’s grandmother, was accustomed to protest strenuously against a boy being taken about on these business trips. It was enough to destroy all the sweetness of his nature, she declared; it would make him a hardened cynic in his childhood, all this sordidness and hatefulness of money-grabbing. But Bunny’s father answered that that was life, and there was no good fooling yourself; Bunny would have to live in the world some day, and the quicker he learned about it the better. So there the boy sat, on his perch in the window-sill, watching, and recalling his grandmother’s words.

Yes, they were a mean bunch, sure enough; Dad was right when he said you had to watch out every minute, because somebody would be trying to take something away from you. These people had simply gone crazy, with the sudden hope of getting a lot of money in a hurry. Bunny, who had always had all the money he could use, looked down with magnificent scorn upon their petty bickering. You couldn’t trust such people around the corner, he decided; there was nothing they wouldn’t do to you. That fat old woman in the yellow satin dress, with her fat red arms and her fat legs cased in silk—it wouldn’t take much more to have her clawing somebody’s face. And that hatchet-faced man with the voice like a buzz-saw—he would be capable of sticking a knife into you on a dark night!

Dad wanted his son to understand every detail of these business arrangements: the terms of the lease, the provisions of the law, the size of the different lots, the amounts of money involved. He would talk about it afterwards, and it would be a kind of examination, to see how much the boy had really understood. So Bunny listened attentively, and put this and that together, remembering the points of the lease as he had heard his father going over them with Ben Skutt and Mr. Prentice while they were driving out to the field in the latter’s car. But the boy could not keep his mind from going off to the different personalities involved, and their points of view, and the hints one got of their lives. That old fellow with the stooped shoulders and the gnarled hands—he was some kind of poor workingman, and you could see he was unhappy over this arguing; he wanted somebody he could trust, and he looked this way and that, but there was no such person in the crowd. That young woman with the nose-glasses, she was a hard one—what did she do when she wasn’t quarreling? That elderly couple that looked rich—they were very much on their dignity, but they had come to get their share, all the same, and they weren’t having any generous emotions towards the “little lots”!

The old gentleman drew his chair over beside Dad and began a whispered conversation. Bunny saw Dad shake his head, and the old gentleman drew away. Dad spoke to Skutt, and the latter rose and said: “Mr. Ross wishes me to make clear that he isn’t interested in any proposition for leasing a portion of the block. He wouldn’t put down a well without room for offset wells. If you people can’t agree, he’ll take another lease that I’ve found him.”

This struck a chill to them, and stopped the wrangling. Dad saw it, and nodded to his “lease-hound,” who went on: “Mr. Ross has an offer of a lease on the north side, which has very good prospects, because we believe the anticline runs that way. There are several acres which belong to one party, so it will be easy to agree.”—Yes, that scared the wits out of them; it was several minutes before they were quarreling again!

Where Bunny sat in the window-sill, he could see the lights of the “discovery well,” now shut off and awaiting the building of tanks; he could hear through the open window the hammering of the riveters on the tanks, and of carpenters building new derricks along the slope. His attention was wandering, when suddenly he was startled by a whispered voice, coming from the darkness, apparently right alongside him: “Hey, kid!”

Bunny peered around the edge of the window, and saw a figure, flattened against the side of the house. “Hey, kid,” said the whisper again. “Listen to me, but don’t let nobody know you’re listenin’. They mustn’t know I’m here.”

Bunny’s thought was, “A spy! Trying to find out about the lease!” So he was on the alert; he listened to a steady, persistent whisper, intense and moving:

“Hey, kid! I’m Paul Watkins, and the lady what lives here is my aunt. I dassn’t let her know I’m here, see, cause she’ll make me go back home. I live on a ranch up in the San Elido, and I run away from home ’cause I can’t stand it, see. I got to get a job, but first I got to have somethin’ to eat, ’cause I’m near starved. And my aunt would want me to have it, ’cause we’re friends, see—only she’d want me to go back home, and I can’t stand it. So I want to get somethin’ to eat out of the kitchen, and when I earn some money, I’ll mail it to her, so I’ll just be borrowin’, see. What I want you to do is to unlock the kitchen door. I won’t take nothin’ but a piece of pie, and maybe a sandwich or somethin’, see. All you got to do is, tell my aunt to let you go into the kitchen and get a drink of water, and then turn the key in the door and go back into the house. You come out the front door if you want to, and come round and make sure it’s all like I tell you. Say kid, be a good scout, ’cause I’m up against it, it’s sure tough not to have a meal all day, and I been hitch-hikin’ and walkin’ a lot o’ the time, and I’m done up. You come out and I’ll tell you about it, but don’t try to talk to me here, ’cause they’ll see your lips movin’, see, and they’ll know there’s somebody out here.”

Bunny thought quickly. It was a delicate ethical question—whether you had a right to unlock somebody else’s back door, so that a possible thief could get in! But of course it wasn’t really a thief, if it was your aunt, and she would give it to you anyhow. But how could you know if the story was true? Well, you could go out, like the fellow said, and if he was a thief you could grab him. What decided Bunny was the voice, which he liked; even before he laid eyes on Paul Watkins’ face, Bunny felt the power in Paul Watkins’ character, he was attracted by something deep and stirring and powerful.

Bunny slid off the window-sill, and walked over to Mrs. Groarty, who was wiping the perspiration from her forehead after a vicious tirade. “Please, ma’am,” he said, “would you be so good as to excuse me if I go into the kitchen and get a drink of water?”

He thought that would cover the case, but he failed to allow for the fact that Mrs. Groarty was preparing for a career of elegance, and losing no chance of observing the ways of the wealthy, even to the drinking of a glass of water. Her heart warmed to the son of J. Arnold Ross, and all the vinegar went out of her voice. “Certainly, dear,” she said, and rose and led the way to the kitchen.

Bunny looked about. “My, what a pretty room!” he exclaimed—which was true enough, because it was all enameled white paint.

“Yes, it is nice, I’m glad you think so,” said the mistress of it, as she took a glass from a shelf and set the faucet to running.

“A real big kitchen,” said Bunny; “that’s always a comfort.” He took the glass of water with thanks, and drank part of it. So polite and natural! thought Mrs. Groarty. Not a bit stuck-up!

And Bunny went to the back door. “I suppose you’ve got a big screen-porch here. Kind of hot indoors, don’t you think?” He unlocked the door, and opened it, and looked out. “The breeze feels good,” he said. “And you can see all the wells from here. Won’t it be fun when they get to drilling right on this block!”

What a friendly little fellow! Mrs. Groarty was thinking; and she said yes, and it would be soon, she hoped. Bunny said that perhaps she’d catch cold, with that lovely evening dress she had on; so he shut the door again; and his hostess was so charmed by the agreeable manners of the aristocracy that she failed to notice that he did not lock the door. He put the empty glass on the drain-board of the sink, and said no thanks, he didn’t wish any more, and followed Mrs. Groarty back to the crowded living-room.

“What I say is this—” it was the voice of Mr. Sahm, the plasterer. “If you really want to sign the lease as it was, sign it as we all understood it; let’s figure the land we own, and not the street we don’t own.”

“In other words,” said Mrs. Walter Black, sarcastically, “let’s change the lease.”

“In other words,” said Miss Snypp, even more sarcastically, “let’s not fall into the trap you big lots set for us.”

VIII

It was to be expected that a thirteen-year old boy would grow weary of such a wrangle; so no one paid the least attention when J. Arnold Ross, junior, made his way to the front door and went out. He reached the back door just as Paul Watkins was closing it softly behind him. “Thanks, kid,” whispered the latter, and stole away to the wood-shed, with Bunny close behind him. Paul’s first sentence was: “I got a piece of ham and two slices of bread, and one piece of pie.” He already had his mouth full.

“That’s all right, I guess,” said Bunny, judiciously. He waited, and for a while there was no sound, save that of a hungry creature chewing. The stranger was only a shadow with a voice; but outside, in the starlight, Bunny had noted that the shadow was a head taller than himself, and thin.

“Gee, it’s tough to be starvin’!” said the voice, at last. “Do you want any of this?”

“Oh no, I had my supper,” said Bunny. “And I’m not supposed to eat at night.”

The other went on chewing, and Bunny found it mysterious and romantic; it might have been a hungry wolf there in the darkness! They sat on boxes, and when the sounds of eating ceased, Bunny said: “What made you run away from home?”

The other answered with another question, a puzzling one: “What church do you belong to?”

“How do you mean?” countered Bunny.

“Don’t you know what it means to belong to a church?”

“Well, my grandmother takes me to a Baptist church sometimes, and my mother takes me to a ’Piscopal one when I’m visiting her. But I don’t know as I belong to any.”

“My Gosh!” said Paul. It was evident he was deeply impressed by this statement. “You mean your father don’t make you belong to no church?”

“I don’t think Dad believes in things like that very much.”

“My Gosh! And you ain’t scared?”

“Scared of what?”

“Why, hell-fire and brimstone. Of losin’ your soul.”

“No, I never thought about it.”

“Say, kid, you dunno how queer that hits me. I just been makin’ up my mind to go to hell, and not give a damn. Do you cuss?”

“Not very often.”

“Well, I cussed God.”

“How do you do that?”

“Why, I said, ‘Damn God!’ I said it half a dozen times, see, and I thought sure the lightnin’ would come down and strike me. I said: I don’t believe, and I ain’t a-goin’ to believe, and I don’t give a damn.”

“Well, but if you don’t believe, why should you be scared?” Bunny’s mind was always logical like that.

“Well, I guess I didn’t know whether I believed or not. I don’t know now. It didn’t seem like I could set my poor frail mind up against the Rock of Ages. I didn’t know there was anybody had ever been that wicked before. Pap says I’m the wickedest boy was ever born.”

“Pap is your father?”

“Yes.”

“What does he believe?”

“The Old Time Religion. It’s called the Four Square Gospel. It’s the Apostolic Church, and they jump.”

“Jump!”

“The Holy Spirit comes down to you, see, and makes you jump. Sometimes it makes you roll, and sometimes you talk in tongues.”

“What is that?”

“Why, you make noises, fast, like you was talkin’ in some foreign language; and maybe it is—Pap says it’s the language of the archangels, but I don’t know. I can’t understand it, and I hate it.”

“And your father does that?”

“Any time, day or night, he’s liable to. It’s his way of foilin’ the tempter. If you say anything at meal-times, like there ain’t enough to eat in the house, or you mention how the interest on the mortgage will be due, and he hadn’t ought to give all the money for the missions, then Pap will roll up his eyes, and begin to pray out loud and let go, as he calls it; and then the Holy Spirit seizes him and he begins to jump and shake all over, and he slides down out of his chair and rolls on the floor, and begins to talk in tongues, like it says in the Bible. And then Mom starts to cry, ’cause it scares her, she knows she’s got things to do for the kids, but she dassn’t resist the Spirit, and Pap shouts, Let go, let go—real loud, in the Voice of Sinai, as he says, and then Mom’s shoulders begin to jerk, and her mouth pops down, and she begins to roll in the chair, and shout for the Pentecostal Baptism. And that turns the kids loose, they all begin to jump and to babble; and gee, it scares you, somethin’ starts to grab you, and make you jerk whether you want to or not. I rushed out of the house, and I shook my fist tip at the sky and I yelled: ‘Damn God! Damn God!’ And then I waited for the sky to fall in, and it didn’t, and I said, I don’t believe it, and I ain’t a-goin’ to make myself believe it, not if I get sent to hell for it.”

“Is that the reason you ran away?”

“That’s one of the reasons. You can’t get nowhere, livin’ like we do. We got a big ranch, but it’s mostly rocks, and we’d have a hard time anyhow; you plant things, and the rain fails, and nothin’ but weeds come up. Why, if there’s a God, and he loves his poor human creatures, why did he have to make so many weeds? That was when I first started to cussin’—I was hoin’ weeds all day, and I just couldn’t help it, I found myself sayin’, over and over: ‘Damn weeds! Damn weeds! Damn weeds!’ Pap says it wasn’t God that made ’em, it was the devil; but then, God made the devil, and God knew what the devil was goin’ to do, so ain’t God to blame?”

“It seems like it to me,” said Bunny.

“Gee, kid, but you’re lucky! You never knew you had a soul at all! You sure missed a lot of trouble!” There was a pause, and then Paul added: “I had a hard time runnin’ away, and I ’spose I’ll go back in the end—it’s tough to think of your brothers and sisters starvin’ to death, and I don’t see what else can happen to ’em.”

“How many are there?”

“There’s four, besides me; and they’re all younger’n me.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m sixteen. The next is Eli, he’s fifteen; and the Holy Spirit has blessed him—he has the shivers, and they last all day sometimes. He sees the angels, comin’ down in clouds of glory; and he healed old Mrs. Bugner, that had complications, by the layin’ on of his hands. Pap says the Lord plans great blessings through him. Then there’s Ruth, she’s thirteen, and she had visions too, but she’s beginnin’ to think like I do; we have sensible talks—you know how it is, you can sometimes talk to people that’s your own age, things you can’t ever say to grown-ups.”

“Yes, I know,” said Bunny. “They think you don’t understand anything. They’ll talk right in front of you, and what do they think is the matter with your brains? It makes me tired.”

“Ruth is what makes it hard for me to stay away,” continued the other. “She said for me to go, but gee, what’ll they all do? They can’t do hard work like I can. And don’t you think I’d run away from hard work; it’s only that I want to get somewhere, else what’s the use of it? There ain’t any chance for us. Pap hitches up the wagon and drives us all to Paradise, where the Pentecostal Mission is, and there they all roll and babble all day Sunday, most, and the Spirit commands them to pledge all the money they’ve got to convert the heathen—you see, we’ve got missions in England and France and Germany and them godless nations, and Pap’ll promise more than he’s got, and then he’s got to give it, ’cause it don’t belong to him no more, it’s the Holy Spirit’s, see. That’s why I quit.”

There was silence for a space; then Paul asked: “What’s that big crowd of folks in there for?”

“That’s the oil lease; didn’t you know about the oil?”

“Yes, we heard about the strike. We’re supposed to have oil on our ranch—at least, my Uncle Eby used to say he’d come onto signs of it; but he’s dead, and I never seen ’em, and I never expected no luck for our family. But they say Aunt Allie here is a-goin’ to be rich.”

A sudden vision flashed over Bunny—of Mrs. Groarty, in her shiny robe of yellow satin, and her large bare arms and bosom. “Tell me,” he said, “does your aunt roll?”

“Gosh, no!” said the other. “She married a Romanist, and Pap calls her the Whore of Babylon, and we’re not supposed to speak to her no more. But she’s kind, and I knew she’d gimme some grub, so when I found I couldn’t get a job, I come here.”

“Why couldn’t you get a job?”

“ ’Cause everybody lectures you and tells you to go back home.”

“But why do you tell them about it?”

“You have to. They ask where you live, and why ain’t you at home; and I ain’t a-goin’ to lie.”

“But you can’t starve!”

“I can before I’ll go crooked. I had a fuss with Pap, and he says, if you depart from the Holy Word, the devil gets you, and you lie and cheat and steal and fornicate; and I says, ‘Well, sir, I’ll show you. I think a fellow can be decent without no devil.’ I made up my mind, and I’m a-goin’ to show him. I’ll pay back Aunt Allie, so I’m only borrowin’ this grub.”

Bunny held out his hand in the darkness. “You take this,” he said.

“What is it?”

“Some money.”

“No, sir, I don’t want no money, not till I earn it.”

“But listen, Paul, my Dad’s got a lot of money, and he gives me what I ask him for. He’s come here to lease this block from your aunt, and he won’t miss this little bit.”

“No, sir, I ain’t a-goin’ to turn into no bum; I didn’t run away for that. You think ’cause I took some food out of my aunt’s pantry—”

“No, I don’t think that at all! And you can call this a loan, if you want to.”

“You put up your money,” said the other, with a note of harshness in his voice. “I ain’t a-goin’ to call no loans, and you done enough for me already; so forget it.”

“Well, but Paul—”

“Do what I say, now!”

“But then, you’ll come to the hotel tomorrow and have lunch with me?”

“No, I can’t come to no hotel, I don’t look decent.”

“But that don’t matter, Paul.”

“Sure it matters! Your Dad’s a rich man, and he wouldn’t want no ranch-boy at his hotel.”

“Dad wouldn’t care—honest, he wouldn’t! He says I don’t know enough boys, I stay by myself and read too much.”

“Yes, but he don’t want no boys like me.”

“He says I’ve got to work, Paul—honest, you don’t know Dad. He’d like to have you come; he’d like us to be friends.”

There was a pause, while Paul weighed this proposition, and Bunny waited, as anxiously as if it were the sentence of a court. He liked this boy! He had never met any boy he liked so much as this one! And did the boy like him?

As it happened, the sentence of the court was never pronounced. Paul suddenly started to his feet, crying, “What’s that?” Bunny also sprang up. From the direction of Mrs. Groarty’s house had come a clamor of voices, rising above the pounding of hammers and the sounds of labor in the neighborhood. The yells grew louder, and yet louder, and the boys dashed to the open window of the house.

Everybody in the room was on his or her feet, and all seemed to be shouting at once. It was impossible to see many in the crowd, but two men close by the window made a little drama all by themselves. They were Mr. Sahm, the plasterer, owner of one of the “little little lots,” and Mr. Hank, the ex-goldminer, owner of one of the “big little lots”; they were shaking their fists at each other, and Mr. Sahm, the party of the first part, was shouting at Mr. Hank, the party of the second part, “You’re a dirty, lying, yellow skunk!” To which the party of the second part answered, “Take that, you white-livered puppy!” and hit the party of the first part, Biff! a crack on the nose. The party of the first part countered with a nasty uppercut to the jaw of the party of the second part, Bang! And so they went to it, Biff, bang! Bang, biff!—and the two boys gazed through the open window, horrified, enraptured. Whoopee! A scrap!

IX

There was a general appearance as if everybody in the room were fighting; but that could not have been the case, for there were several left to separate Messrs. Sahm and Hank, and to shove them into opposite corners. Before this process was entirely completed, Bunny heard a voice calling his name from the front of the house. “All right, Dad!” he answered, and ran to meet his father.

The three men of the Ross party were descending the front steps, and proceeding down the walk. “Come on,” said the father; “we’re a-goin’ back to the hotel.”

“Gee, Dad! What happened?”

“They’re a bunch of boobs, and you can’t do anything with them. I wouldn’t take their lease if they offered it as a gift. Let’s get out of here.”

They were walking towards their car, which was parked a little way down the road. Suddenly Bunny halted. “Oh, Dad,” he cried; “wait just a minute! Please, Dad, there’s a boy I met, and I want to tell him something. Wait for me, please!”

“Well, be quick,” said Dad. “I got another lease to see about tonight.”

Bunny raced back, as fast as his legs could move. A panic had seized him. “Paul! Paul!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

There was no sound, and no sign of the other boy. Bunny ran to the wood-shed, he ran all the way round the house, shouting, “Paul! Paul!” He dashed into the screen-porch, and opened the back door, and peered into the empty, white-enameled kitchen; he ran back to the wood-shed, and then to the garage in front of it; he stood gazing across the dark cabbage fields and calling at the top of his lungs: “Paul! Paul! Where are you? Please don’t go away!” But there was no reply.

Then Bunny heard his father’s voice again, in a tone that was not to be neglected; so he went, with sinking heart, and climbed into his place in the automobile. All the way back to the hotel, while the men were discussing the new lease they planned to make, Bunny sat in silence, with tears stealing down his cheeks. Paul was gone! He might never see Paul again! And oh, such a wonderful boy! Such a wise boy—he knew so many things! A clear-sighted boy, and so interesting to talk to! And an honest boy—he wouldn’t lie or steal! Bunny was ashamed, recollecting several times in his life when he had told lies—nothing very serious, but little things, that seemed so petty and mean, in the sudden clear light of Paul’s uprightness.

And Paul wouldn’t take any of Dad’s money! Dad thought that everybody in the world would be glad to get his money; but this boy had refused it! He must have been angry with Bunny for pressing it upon him, else he wouldn’t have run away like that! Or else, for whatever reason, he didn’t like Bunny; and so Bunny would never see him again!

CHAPTER III
THE DRILLING

I

Once more the valleys and gorges of Guadalupe Grade resounded to the flying echoes of honking horns. This time it was not one car, but a whole fleet of them, a dozen seven-ton trucks, broad and solid, with broad and solid double wheels, and trailers on behind, that carried even more tons. The first load towered high, a big stationary engine, held in place by heavy timbers bolted fast at the sides; that truck went carefully round the curves, you bet! Behind it came the “mud-hogs” and the “draw-works”; and then the “string” of drilling tools, hollow tubes of the best steel, that were screwed end to end and went down into the earth, a mile or more, if need be. These tubes extended over the end of the trailers, where red flags waved in warning; on the short curves they swept the road, and if you met a car coming in the opposite direction, you had to stop while the other car crept carefully by; if there was not room enough, the other car would have to back up to a place where the road was straighter. All this required continuous clamor of horns; you would have thought some huge flock of prehistoric birds—did the pterodactyls make noises?—had descended upon Guadalupe Pass, and were hopping along, crying: “Honk! Honk! Honk!”

What they were really saying was: “Dad is waiting for us! Dad has signed his lease, and the derrick is under way, and his ‘rig’ must be on time! Clear the road!” Dad would not trust to railroads for a rush job like this; they switched your stuff onto sidings, and you spent a week telephoning and interviewing dumb officials. But when you hired motor-trucks, you owned them for the time being, and they came right through. There was insurance to cover all possible accidents—including the value of any man you might chance to send rolling down a mountain-side in a Ford car!

So here came the dozen valiant tooters, toiling slowly up the grade, at far less than the ordained speed of fifteen miles per hour. Their radiators were hissing with steam, and every mile or so they would have to stop and cool off. But they got to the summit all right; and then came the slow crawl downwards, a man going ahead with a red flag, warning other cars into safe pockets on the road, to wait till the whole fleet had got by. So they got out of the pass, and onto the straight road, where they could go flying like any other cars; then it was a mighty roaring and a jolly sight. “Honk! Honk! Get out of the way! Dad is waiting!”

Perched on top of the drilling tools were young fellows in blue-jeans and khaki, giving abundant evidence that their last well had not been a dry hole, but had given its due yield of smeary treasures. However, they had got their faces clean, and they met the sunny landscape with no less sunny smiles. They sang songs, and exchanged jollifications with the cars they passed, and threw kisses to the girls in the ranch-houses and the filling-stations, the orange-juice parlors and the “good eats” shacks. Two days the journey took them, and meantime they had not a care in the world; they belonged to Old Man Ross, and it was his job to worry. First of all things he saw that they got their pay-envelopes every other Saturday night—and that the envelopes contained one dollar per day more than anybody else nearby was getting; moreover, you got this pay, not only while you were drilling, but while you were sitting on top of a load of tools, flying through a paradise of orange-groves at thirty miles an hour, singing songs about the girl who was waiting for you in the town to which you were bound.

II

Dad had signed up with the man on the North slope, Mr. Bankside, a gentleman who knew what he wanted, and didn’t waste your time. It was not so close to the discovery well, therefore Dad would have to pay only a sixth royalty, and a bonus of five thousand dollars on the two and one-half acres.

Dad and Bunny called at the offices of the Sunset Lumber Company, and had a very special private interview with the president of this concern. Mr. Ascott was a heavy gentleman with flushed cheeks and a manner of strenuous cordiality; he rumpled Bunny’s hair, and swapped cigars in gold-foil, and discussed the weather and the prospects of the new field, so that you’d have thought he and Dad were life-long chums. Until at last Dad got down to business, and said that he positively had to have the lumber for a derrick delivered on the ground within three days; whereupon Mr. Ascott threw up his hands and declared that such an order could not be filled for God Almighty himself. The demand for derrick material had simply emptied all the yards, and orders were piling up a score a day. But Dad interrupted—he knew all that, but this was something special, he had jist got himself into a contract with a big forfeit posted at the bank, and he didn’t believe in steel derricks, but the lumber men would sure have to help him, unless they wanted to lose him for good. He wanted to place an order for half a dozen more derricks, to be delivered in the course of the next three months; and moreover, Mr. Ascott must understand that this well Dad proposed to drill was going to extend the field, and lead to new developments, and a big increase in the lumber business, so it was really a public service Dad was performing, and they must all stand together and help him. Moreover, Dad was forming a little syndicate to handle a part of this first well—jist a quiet affair for a few people that knew a good thing when they saw it, and would appreciate getting in on the ground floor; and Mr. Ascott knew Dad for a man of his word, and no piker.

Mr. Ascott said that yes, he did; and Dad said that he had come to that field to give most of his time to it, and he was a-goin’ to make a big thing there, and he wanted to get a little organization together—they would all stand by one another, and that was the way to make things go in this world. Mr. Ascott said that of course, co-operation was the word in modern business, he granted that; and he wrinkled up his forehead, and studied some papers on his desk, and did some figuring on a pad, and asked at just what hour Dad had to have that lumber. And Dad explained that his cement-man had the cellar and the foundations half done, and his boss-carpenter was a-gettin’ a crew together—in a matter like this he wouldn’t trust no contractor. It would suffice if Mr. Ascott would have the sills there by Thursday night.

Mr. Ascott said they were having a lot of trouble because the roads about Prospect Hill were in such bad condition; and Dad said he knew that, and something would have to be done about it quick, he was jist a-goin’ to see the county superintendent of roads. So then Mr. Ascott said all right, he would do his part; and Dad invited him to come down and look the field over, and let Dad put him onto a few good things down there; and they shook hands, and Bunny had his hair rumpled again—something which in the course of business he had to pretend that he didn’t mind.

So that was that. And as they got into their car and drove away, Dad repeated his maxim that grease is cheaper than steel. Dad meant by that, you must let people have a share of your profits, so they would become a part of your “organization,” and do quickly whatever you said. And meantime they had come to the office of the superintendent of roads, where they had another very special private interview. This official, Mr. Benzinger, a sharp little man with nose-glasses, was not dressed like a man of money, and Bunny knew it by the difference in the tone Dad took. There was no exchanging of gold-foil cigars, and no talk about the weather; but Dad got right down to business. He had come to Beach City to put through a job that would employ hundreds of men, and mean millions of dollars to the community; the question was, would the road authorities co-operate to make this possible.

Mr. Benzinger answered that of course, the authorities wanted to do everything to that end—it was the purpose for which they were in office; the trouble was that this “strike” at Prospect Hill had caught them without any funds for rush work. Dad said that might be, but there must be some way to handle such a situation, everybody’d ought to get together.

Mr. Benzinger hesitated, and asked just what it was that Mr. Ross wanted. So Dad explained that he was jist about to drill on such and such a tract, and he drew a little map showing the streets that he needed to have graded, and the holes filled up with crushed rock, so his sills could be delivered on Thursday night. Mr. Benzinger said that might be arranged, perhaps, and asked his secretary, the only other person in the room, to step out and ask Mr. Jones to come in; Dad caught the meaning of that, and as soon as the secretary was gone, he pulled a little roll of bills out of his pocket, remarking that Mr. Benzinger would have to work overtime on the matter, and be put to extra trouble and expense, and it was only fair that Dad should make it up to him; he hoped Mr. Benzinger would understand that they would have many dealings in future, as Dad believed in taking care of his friends. Mr. Benzinger put the bills quietly into his pocket, and said that he understood fully, and the county authorities wished to give every help to men who came in to build up the community and its industries; Dad might count upon it that the work on those streets would start in the morning.

So then they shook hands, and Dad and Bunny went out, and Dad told Bunny that he must never under any circumstances mention what he had seen in that office, because every public official had enemies who were trying to take his job away, and would try to represent it that Dad had paid him a bribe. But of course it wasn’t anything of the sort; it was the man’s business to keep the roads in repair, and what Dad gave him was jist a little tip, by way of thanks, so to speak. You wouldn’t feel decent not to give him something, because you were going to make a lot of money yourself, and these here poor devils had to live on a beggar’s salary. No doubt Mr. Benzinger had a wife and children at home, and they were in debt; maybe the wife was sick, and they had no way to pay the doctor. The man would have to stay late at his office, and go out tonight and hustle up some men to do that job, and maybe get scolded by his superiors for having acted without authority; the superiors were doubtless in the pay of some of the big companies, which didn’t want roads built except to leases of their own. There was all kinds of wires like that being pulled, said Dad, and you had to be on the watch every minute. Never imagine that you’d be allowed to come into a new place and take out several million dollars worth of wealth from the ground, and not have all kinds of fellers a-tryin’ to get it away from you!

That all sounded reasonable, and Bunny listened while Dad impressed his favorite lesson: take care of your money! Some day an accident might happen to Dad, and then Bunny would have the whole thing on his shoulders; so he could not begin too early to realize that the people he met would be trying, by devices more or less subtle, to get a hold of his money. Bunny, not thinking of opposing his father’s arguments, but merely getting things straight in his own mind, was moved to remark: “But Dad, you remember that boy Paul? He certainly wasn’t trying to get our money, for I offered him some, and he wouldn’t take it; he went away without my seeing him again.”

“Yes, I know,” said Dad; “but he told you his whole family is crazy, and he’s jist crazy a little different, that’s all.”

III

This was a moral problem which Bunny debated within himself: was Paul Watkins crazy, because of the way he behaved? If so, there must be a crazy streak in Bunny also, for he had been enormously impressed by Paul, and could not help thinking about him. He had paid a tribute to Paul’s sense of honor, by resolving that he, Bunny, would permit himself the luxury of not being a liar—not even in trivial things. Also, the meeting with Paul had caused Bunny to become suddenly aware what an easy time he was having in life. The very next morning, when he opened his eyes, lying in the deep soft mattress of the hotel-bed, with its heavy linen sheets so smooth and white, and its warm blankets, soft as fleece, and striped the color of ripe strawberries—at once his thought was: how had Paul slept that night, without shelter and without cover? Had he lain on the ground? But grandmother, if she saw you even sitting on the ground in the evening, would cry out that you would “catch your death!” And down in the spacious dining-room of the hotel, the thought of Paul without breakfast had quite ruined the taste of grape-fruit in crushed ice, and cereal and thick cream, and bacon and eggs, and wheat-cakes with maple syrup. Paul would be going hungry, because he was too proud to eat food until he had earned it; and some strange perversity caused Bunny, in the midst of comfort, to yearn toward this fierce anchorite who spurned the flesh!

The morning after the meeting at Mrs. Groarty’s, Bunny had sat under a palm-tree in front of the hotel, hoping that Paul would come by. Instead, there had come Mrs. Groarty and her husband, bringing Mr. Dumpery, and followed by Mr. and Mrs. Bromley, with their temporary friends the Jewish tailors. It was a deputation from the “medium lots,” explaining that they had continued their meeting until one o’clock that morning, and had decided to rescind their community agreement, and go each man for himself; now the “medium lots” wanted Dad to take their lease. Bunny told them that Dad was out in the field with the geologist; they might wait for him, but Bunny knew how emphatic Dad was about offset wells, so there was no chance of his taking a small lease.

After which Bunny took a seat on the bench next to Mrs. Groarty, for the purpose of finding out whether Paul had revealed himself to her. Bunny confessed to her that he had done something very wrong the previous evening; he had failed to lock the kitchen door after looking out on the porch. Following his program of telling the exact truth, he stated that somebody had gone into her kitchen and taken some food; Bunny had promised not to tell who it was, but it was someone who was very hungry, and Bunny had felt sorry about it. If Mrs. Groarty would let him—and he hauled out his little purse.

Mrs. Groarty was all aglow with pleasure at the delicacy of feeling of the aristocracy; she had quite fallen in love with this strange little fellow, who was so pretty to look at, with sensitive red lips like a girl’s, and at the same time had the manners of an elderly marquis, or something like that, as Mrs. Groarty had come to know such persons in moving pictures. She refused his money, at the same time thinking what a shame her own fortune had not been made earlier in life, so that her children could have worn such lovely clothes, and learned to express themselves with old-fashioned elegance!

Two or three days later, while Bunny was poking about the “field,” watching the interesting sights, he happened to pass the Groarty home, and saw the future oil-queen feeding her rabbits. “Oh, little boy!” she called; and when Bunny had come near, she said: “I had a letter from Paul.”

“Where is he?” cried Bunny, in excitement.

“The letter was mailed in San Paulo. But he says not to look for him, because he’s hitch-hiking, and he’ll be gone.”

“And how is he?”

“He says he’s all right and not to worry. The poor child, he sent me two-bits in stamps, to pay for that food he took! He says he earned the money—bless him!” Tears ran down the lady’s ample cheeks; and Bunny learned the difficult lesson that human nature is a complicated thing, so that the same fat lady can be at one moment a hyena of greed, and at the next a mater dolorosa.

These two sat down on a rabbit-hutch, and had a good talk. Bunny told Mrs. Groarty just how it had happened, and it was a relief to get it off his conscience. Mrs. Groarty in turn told him about the Watkins family, and how they had moved from Arkansas, traveling in the old fashion, by wagon, when Mrs. Groarty was a girl; before that, she had been driven, as a baby in arms, from the mountains of Tennessee. Their place at Paradise, in the San Elido country, was a goat-ranch, with a spring in a little rocky valley; there was only a couple of acres you could cultivate, and for part of that you had to pump irrigating water by hand. It was a desert country, and she didn’t see how they could possibly get along without Paul’s work; she would send them a little of her oil money, but she didn’t know whether Abel—that was her brother, Paul’s father—would take anything from her, he was so crazy with his religion.

Bunny asked whether he had always been a “roller”; and the other answered no, it was a notion he had taken up, just a few years ago. As for Mrs. Groarty, when she had married her present husband, three years back, she had found her home in the one true faith which had never changed through the ages; it was a comfortable faith, and let you alone, and you weren’t always getting crazy new notions and splitting up into sects. They had a lovely church in Beach City, and Father Patrick had such a kind heart and a big, splendid voice—had Bunny ever been to a Catholic service? Bunny said he hadn’t; and Mrs. Groarty might perhaps have found a handsome and wealthy convert, had it not been that she was just then being so sorely tempted by the powers of this world.

Yes—Satan had brought her there, and set her on a rabbit-hutch, and was showing her all the kingdoms of the earth! Right across the street, at number 5743 Los Robles Boulevard, the Couch Syndicate had set up a big tent, plastered with red signs, and there were automobiles driving up all day, with people to buy “units” at ten dollars each. Mrs. Groarty’s group of “medium lots” had not yet leased, she explained; they had several offers—the best from Sliper and Wilkins, and had Bunny ever heard anything about these operators? And was Dad really quite decided that the best oil prospects lay on the north side? Mrs. Groarty and her husband were thinking of putting their bonus money, when they got it, into some units of “Eureka Pete”—the Eureka Petroleum Company—which was promising a quick drilling on the north slope. And Bunny found himself suddenly recollecting Dad’s warning: “Look out for people who mistake you for an oil well, and try to put you on the pump!”

IV

Mr. Benzinger had sent two truck-loads of Mexicans and fixed up the roads; and Mr. Ascott had kept his promise and delivered the lumber for the derrick; and Dad’s boss-carpenter had got his gang, and they had cut mortise-joints in the sills, and drilled holes through them, and set them with bolts; then stage by stage the towering derrick had come into being, 122 feet high, straight and true and solid. There was a ladder, and a platform half-way up, and another place to stand at the top; it was all nice and clean and new, and Dad would let you climb, and you could see the view, clear over the houses and the trees, to the blue waters of the Pacific—gee, it was great! And then came the fleet of motor-trucks, thundering in just at sunset, dusty and travel-stained, but full of “pep”—judging by the racket they made, tooting a greeting to J. Arnold Ross and his son. The ditch by the roadside had been filled with crushed rock, making a place where they could drive in to the field; and there they stood, twelve of them lined up in a row.

There were bright electric lights on the derrick, and men waiting, the sleeves of their khaki shirts rolled up. They went to it with a will; for they were working under the eye of the “old man,” the master of the pay-roll and of their destinies. They respected this “old man,” because he knew his business, and nobody could fool him. Also they liked him, because he combined a proper amount of kindliness with his sternness; he was simple and unpretentious—when the work was crowded, you would have him eating his beans and coffee on a stool in the “eats” joint alongside you. He was a “real guy”; and with this he combined the glamour of a million dollars. Yes, he had “the stuff,” barrels of it—and what is a magician who pulls rabbits and yards of ribbon out of his sleeves, compared with one who can pull out a couple of dozen oil-derricks, and as many miles of steel casing, and tanks, and fleets of motor-trucks, and roads for them to run on?

Also they liked the “kid,” because he put on no more airs than his Dad, but was jolly, and interested in what you were doing, and asked sensible questions and remembered your explanations. Yes, a kid like that would learn the business and carry it on; the old man was teaching him right. He knew all the crew by their first names, and took their joshing, and had a suit of old clothing, duly smeared with grease, which he would put on, and tackle any job where a half-sized pair of hands could get a hold.

But there was no joshing now; this was a time for breaking records. There was a big cement block for the engine, and a wooden block on top of that, to take up the vibration; and now the truck with the engine on was backed into place, and blocked firm, and the skids made solid, and in a jiffy the engine was slid into place and ready for business. At the same time another crew had got the big steam boiler ready. There was a tank of fuel oil at hand, and the feed-pipe was hitched up, and she was ready to make steam. And meantime the next truck was backed into place, and the skids put under the “draw-works”; when Bunny came back the next morning he found the big “drum” bolted into place, and the running tackle up in the derrick, and they were unloading the “drill-stem.” They would fit a steel chain about three of the heavy pipes at once, and a pulley with a steel hook would come down and seize the chain; the engine would start thumping, and the chain and the steel cable would draw tight, and the pipe would slide off the truck. These pipes were twenty feet long, and weighed nineteen pounds to the foot, and when you had your well a mile deep, you could figure it for yourself, there was fifty tons of steel, and your derrick had to carry that weight, and your steel cables had to lift it, and your drum and engine had to stand the strain. People kicked at the price of gasoline, but they never thought about the price of drill-stem and casings!

All these things Bunny had heard a hundred times, but Dad never tired of telling them. He was never entirely content unless the boy was by his side, learning the business. You mustn’t fool yourself with the idea that you could hire experts to attend to things; for how could you know that a man was an expert, unless you knew as much as he did? Some day your foreman might drop dead, or some other fellow would buy him away from you, and then where would you be? Be your own expert, said Dad!

The machinery which did the turning was called a “rotary table”; it was connected with the engine by a steel chain, exactly like the sprocket-chain of a bicycle, except that the links were as big as your fist. The rotary table had a hole through the centre, where the drill-stem went through; there was a corresponding hole in the derrick-floor—and soon there would be one in the ground! The hole in the rotary-table was square, and the top drill-stem, known as your “Kelly joint,” was square, and fitted this hole; you lowered it through—but first you screwed in your “collar” and “bit,” the tool which did the actual cutting. They were starting with a “disc-bit”—it had two steel things like dinner-plates, set opposite each other, and as they went round and round, the weight of the pipe caused them to chew their way into the earth. You started with an eighteen-inch “bit,” and as it flopped round, it cut you a hole two feet across.

Well, the time came when the last tool was on hand, and the last bolt made tight, and the drilling tools ready for their long journey into the bowels of the earth. This was a great moment, akin to the launching of a ship, or the inauguration of the first president of a republic. Your friends gathered, and the workers from nearby jobs, and a crowd of sightseers. The crew had been hustling for three weeks, with this as their goal, and now they stood, both the day shift and the night shift, proud of their past, and eager for their future. The engineman had his hand at the lever, and his eye on Dad; Dad gave him a nod, and he shoved the lever, and the engine started, and the gears made a roaring racket, and the bit hit the ground—“Spud! Spud!” At least that is what men imagine they hear, and so they call the operation “spudding in.” “All aboard for China!” sang the foreman; and everybody who had clean hands shook hands with Dad—including Mr. Bankside, whose land they were drilling, and Mrs. Bankside and the whole Bankside family. They carried Dad and Bunny to their home, which was on the lease, and they opened a bottle of champagne, and drank a wee sip to the health of the Ross-Bankside Number 1, which was already a half-dozen feet down in the ground.

V

It was cool at the beach in summer, and back at Lobos River it was hot as the original fires; so the family was going to move. Dad wasted very little time on such a matter; he dropped in at a real estate agent’s, and asked for the best furnished house in town, and drove out to an imitation palace on the ocean-front, and looked it over, and went back to the office and signed a six month’s lease for twenty-five hundred dollars.

Outside, this house was plaster applied to chicken-wire, or something that looked like it; inside, it was shiny like the home of Mrs. Groarty, only it was imitation mahogany instead of imitation oak. There was a big entrance hall, and a drawing-room on one side, and on the other a dining-room, with elaborate up-to-date “built-in” features. To these the owner had added furniture regardless of expense or period: spindley-legged gilded French things, done in flowered silk; mid-century American black walnut, with roses and rosettes; black Chinese teak-wood, carved with dragons. There were statues of nude ladies, in highly polished marble, and also a marble clergyman in a frock coat and a string tie. Upstairs were six bed-rooms, each done in a different color by a lady from the best department-store in town. Some people might have found the place lacking in the elements of home, but Bunny never thought of such a thing—he had learned to be happy in a hotel room, with the use of the lobby. All his life that he could remember, home had been a place which you rented, or bought with the idea of holding it as a real estate speculation. As the Indians in the Hudson Bay country kill a moose in the winter-time, and move to the moose, so Dad started an oil well, and moved to the well.

First came Mr. Eaton, the tutor; he was used to getting a telephone call, informing him where the carcase of the moose was to be found. He would pack his two suit-cases and his steamer-trunk, and take the train or the motor-bus to his pupil. He was a rather delicate young man, very retiring, with pale blue eyes, and pockets that bagged because he put books in them. He had been engaged with the express restriction that oil was to come before culture; in other words, he was to teach his pupil at such times as Dad was not doing it. Dad was not quite clear on the subject of book knowledge; at times he would say it was all “bunk,” but at other times he would pay it a tribute of embarrassment. Yes, he was a “roughneck,” of course, and Bunny would have to know more than he; but at the same time he was jealous of that knowledge, troubled by fear it might be something he would disapprove of. He was right in this, for Mr. Eaton told Bunny quite shamelessly that there were things in the world more important than oil.

Then came the family limousine, with grandmother and Aunt Emma, driven by Rudolph, who was a combination of chauffeur and gardener, and would put on a frock coat and be a butler at parties. Beside him on the front seat rode Sing, the Chinese cook, who was too precious to be trusted to motor-bus or train. Nellie, the house-maid, could be more easily replaced, so she brought herself. A truck brought the trunks and miscellaneous belongings—Bunny’s bicycle and Aunt Emma’s hat-boxes, and grandmother’s precious works of art.

Old Mrs. Ross was seventy-five years of age, and her life had been that of a ranch-woman, in the days before automobiles and telephones and machinery. She had slaved in poverty, and raised a family, and seen one daughter die in child-birth, and a son of typhoid in the Spanish war, and another son as a drunkard; now “Jim” was all she had left, and he had made a fortune late in his life, and lifted her to leisure at the end of hers. You might have been a long time guessing what use she would make of it. Out of a clear sky she announced that she was going to be a painter! For sixty years, it appeared, she had cherished that dream, while washing dishes, and spanking babies, and drying apricots and muscat grapes.

So now, wherever they lived, grandmother had a spare room for a “studio.” A wandering artist had taught her the handling of crude and glaring colors. This artist had painted desert sunsets, and the mountains and rocky coasts of California; but old Mrs. Ross never painted anything she had ever seen. What she was interested in was gentility—parks, and lawns, and shady avenues with ladies in hoop-skirts, and gentlemen with wide-bottomed trousers. Her masterpiece was six feet by four, and always hung in the dining-room of the rented home; it showed in the background an extremely elegant two-story house, with two-storied porches having pillars on which you could see every curlicue. In front ran a circular drive, with a fountain in the middle, and water which was very plainly splashing. Around the drive rolled a victoria—or maybe it was a landau or a barouche—with a lady and a gentleman being driven by a Negro coachman. Behind the vehicle raced a little dog, and playing on the lawn were a boy, and a girl in wide skirts, having a hoop in her hand. Also there were iron deer on the lawn—you never got tired of looking at this picture, because you could always find something new in it; Dad would show it to visitors, and say: “Ma painted that; ain’t she a wonder, for an old lady seventy-five?” Agents who had come with leasing propositions, or lawyers with papers to be gone over, or foremen coming for orders, would examine it carefully, and never disagreed with Dad’s judgment.

Aunt Emma was the widow of the son who had died a drunkard; and to her also prosperity had come late in life. Dad set no limits—the ladies charged anything they wanted, and even drew checks on Dad’s account. So Aunt Emma went to the fanciest shops and got herself raiment, and went out to uphold the prestige of the Ross family in the town or city where they were staying. There were ladies’ clubs, and Aunt Emma would attend their functions, and listen to impressive personalities who rose and said, “Madam Chairman,” and read papers on the Feminine Element in Shakespeare’s Plays, and the Therapeutic Value of Optimism, and What Shall We Do for Our Youth? Once every month the two ladies gave a tea-party, and Dad always managed to be “spudding in” a new well, or seeing to a difficult job of “cementing off” on that afternoon.

Aunt Emma particularly patronized the drug-store counters where they sold cosmetics, and she knew by name the fashionable young ladies who presided there; also she knew the names of the latest products they handled, pronouncing these names in quite naive and shameless American—“Roodge finn dee Theeayter” and “Pooder der Reeze ah lah corbeel flurry”—which, it must be added, was the only way she could have got the sales-ladies to know what she meant. Her dressing-table was covered with rows of delicate little boxes and jars and bottles, containing paints and powders and perfumes and beauty clays and enamels, and she alone knew what else. One of Bunny’s earliest memories was of Aunt Emma, perched on a chair, looking like an enlarged parokeet in a harness. She was only half dressed, paying no attention to him, because he was so little; so he observed how she was laced and strapped up in armor—tight corsets and dress-shields and side-garters and tightly laced little boots. She sat, erect and serious, putting things on her cheeks and eye-brows, and dabbing herself with little puffs of pink and white powder; and at the same time telling Bunny about her husband, deceased many years ago. He had had many virtues, in spite of his one tragic weakness; he had had a kind heart, so sweet and generous—“yes, yes,” said Aunt Emma, “he was a good little man; I wonder where he is now.” And then, dab, dab, she was patting the tears away from her cheeks and making them pink again!

VI

Far down in the ground, underneath the Ross-Bankside No. 1, a great block of steel was turning round and round. The under surface of it had blunt steel teeth, like a nutmeg-grater; on top of it rested a couple of thousand feet of steel tubing, the “drill-stem,” a weight of twenty tons pressing it down; so, as it turned, it ate into the solid rock, grinding it to powder. It worked in the midst of a river of thin mud, which was driven down through the center of the hollow tubing, and came up again between the outside of the tubing and the earth. The river of mud served three purposes: it kept the bit and the drill-stem from heating; it carried away the ground-up rock; and as it came up on the outside of the drill-stem, it was pressed against the walls of the hole, and made a plaster to keep the walls rigid, so that they did not press in upon the drill-stem. Up on the top of the ground was a “sump-hole,” of mud and water, and a machine to keep up the mixture; there were “mud-hogs,” snorting and puffing, which forced it down inside the stem under a pressure of 250 pounds to the square inch. Drilling was always a dirty business; you swam in pale grey mud until the well came in, and after that you slid in oil.

Also it was an expensive business. To turn those twenty tons of steel tubing, getting heavier every day as they got longer—that took real power, you want to know. When the big steam engine started pulling on the chain, and the steel gears started their racket, Bunny would stand and listen, delighted. Some engine, that! Fifty horsepower, the cathead-man would say; and you would imagine fifty horses harnessed to an old-fashioned turn-table with a pole, such as our ancestors employed to draw up water from a well, or to run a primitive threshing-machine.

Yes, it took money to drill an oil well out here in California; it wasn’t like the little short holes in the East, where you pounded your way down by lifting up your string of tools and letting them drop again. No siree, here you had to be prepared to go six or seven thousand feet, which meant from three hundred to three hundred and fifty joints of pipe; also casing, for you could not leave this hole very long without protection. There were strata of soft sand, with water running through, and when you got past these you would have to let down a cylinder of steel or wrought iron, like a great long stove pipe; joint after joint you would slide down, carefully rivetting them together, making a water-proof job; and when you had this casing all set in cement, you would start drilling with a smaller bit, say fourteen inches, leaving the upper casing resting firmly on a sort of shelf. So you would go, smaller and smaller, until, when you got to the oil-sands, your hole would have shrunk to five or six inches. If you were a careful man, like Dad, you would run each string of casing all the way up to the derrick-floor, so that in the upper part of the hole you would have four sets of casing, one inside the other.

All day and all night the engine labored, and the great chain pulled, and the rotary-table went round and round, and the bit ate into the rock. You had to have two shifts of men, twelve hours each, and because living quarters were scarce in this sudden rush, they kept the same bed warm all the time. A crew had to be on the job every moment, to listen and to watch. The engine must have plenty of water and gas and oil; the pump must be working, and the mud-river circulating, and the mixing-machine splashing, and the drill making depth at the proper rate. There were innumerable things that might go wrong, and some of them cost money, and some of them cost more money. Dad was liable to be waked up at any hour of the night, and he would give orders over the telephone, or perhaps he would slip into his clothes and drive out to the field. And next morning, at breakfast, he would tell Bunny about it; that fellow Dan Rossiger, the night-foreman, he sure was one balky mule; he jist wouldn’t make any time, and when you kicked, he said, “All right, if you want a ‘twist-off’.” And Dad had said, “ ‘Twist-off’ or no ‘twist-off,’ I want you to make time.” And so, sure enough, there was a “twist-off,” right away! Dad vowed that Dan had done it on purpose; there were fellows mean enough for that—and, of course, all they had to do was to speed up the engine.

Anyhow, there was your “twist-off”; which meant that you had to lift out every inch of your two thousand feet of pipe. You pulled it up, and unscrewed it, four joints at a time—“breaking out,” the men called that operation; each four joints, a “stand,” were stood up in the derrick, and the weary work went on. You couldn’t tell where the break was, until you got to it; then you screwed off the broken piece, and threw it away, and went to your real job, “fishing” for the remainder of your drill-stem, down in the hole. For this job you had a device called an “overshot,” which you let down with a cable; it was big and heavy, and went over the pipe, and caught on a joint when you pulled it up—something like an ice-man’s tongs. But maybe you got it over, and maybe you didn’t; you spent a lot of time jiggling it up and down—until at last she caught fast, and up came the rest of your stem! Then you unscrewed the broken piece, and put in a sound piece, and let it all back into the hole, one stand at a time, until you were ready to start again. But this time you went at the rate Dan Rossiger considered safe, and you didn’t nag at him for any more “twist-offs!”

Meantime Dad would be spending the day at his little office down in the business part of the town. There he had a stenographer and a bookkeeper, and all the records of his various wells. There came people who wanted to offer him new leases, and hustling young salesmen to show him a wonderful new device in the way of an “under-reamer,” or to persuade him that wrought casing lasts longer than cast steel, or to explain the model of a new bit, that was making marvelous records in the Palomar field. Dad would see them all, for they might “have something,” you never could be sure. But woe to the young man who hadn’t got his figures just right; for Dad had copies of the “logs” of every one of his wells, and he would pull out the book, and show the embarrassed young man exactly what he had done over at Lobos River with a Stubbs Fishtail number seven.

Then the postman would come, bringing reports from all the wells; and Dad would dictate letters and telegrams. Or perhaps the phone would ring—long distance calling Mr. Ross; and Dad would come home to lunch fuming—that fellow Impey over at Antelope had gone and broke his leg, letting a pipe fall on him: that chap with the black moustache, you remember? Bunny said, yes, he remembered; the one Dad had bawled out. “I fired him,” said Dad; “and then I got sorry for his wife and children, and took him back. I found that fellow down on his knees, with his head stuck between the chain and the bull-wheel—and he knew we had no bleeder-valve on that engine! Jist tryin’ to get out a piece of rope, he said—and his fingers jammed up in there! What’s the use a-tryin’ to do anything for people that ain’t got sense enough to take care of their own fingers, to say nothing of their heads? By golly, I don’t see how they ever live long enough to grow black moustaches on their faces!” So Dad would fuss—his favorite theme, the shiftlessness of the working-class whom he had to employ. Of course he had a purpose; drilling is a dangerous business at best, and Bunny must know what he was doing when he went poking about under a derrick.

There came a telegram from Lobos River; Number Two was stuck. First, they had lost a set of tools, and then, while they were stringing up for the fishing job, a “roughneck” had dropped a steel crowbar into the hole! They were down four thousand feet, and “fishing” is costly sport at that depth! Seemed like there was a jinx in that hole; they had “jammed” three times, and they were six weeks behind their schedule. Dad fretted, and he would call up the well every couple of hours all day, but nothing doing; they tried this device and that, and Dad phoned them to try something else, but in vain. The hole caved in on them, and they had to clean out and fish ahead, run after run. They had caught the tools and jarred them out, but the crowbar was still down there, wedged fast.

The third evening Dad said he guessed he’d have to run over to Lobos River; it was time to set a new casing anyhow, and he liked to oversee those cement fellows. Bunny jumped up, crying, “Take me, Dad!” And Dad said, “Sure thing!” Grandmother made her usual remark about Bunny’s education going to pot; and Dad made his usual answer, that Bunny would have all his life to learn about poetry and history—now he was going to learn about oil, while he had his father to teach him. Aunt Emma tried to get Mr. Eaton to say something in defense of poetry and history, but the tutor kept a discreet silence—he knew who held the purse-strings in that family! Bunny understood that Mr. Eaton didn’t mind about it; he was preparing a thesis that was to get him a master’s degree, and he used his spare time quite contentedly, counting the feminine endings in certain of the pre-Elizabethan dramatists.

VII

Well, they made the trip back to the old field; and Bunny remembered all the adventures of the last ride, the place where they had had lunch, and what the waitress had said, and the place where they had stopped for gas, and what the man had said, and the place where they had run into the “speed-cop.” It was like fishing—that is, for real fish, like you catch in water, not in oil wells; you remember where you got the big fish, and you expect another bite there. But the big fish always come at a new place, said Dad, and it was the same with “speed-cops.” A cop picked them up just outside Beach City, passing a speed-trap at forty-seven miles; and Dad grinned and chaffed the cop, and said he was glad he hadn’t been really going fast.

They got to Lobos River that evening; and there was the rig, fishing away—screwing the stands of pipe together and working down into the hole with some kind of grabbing device on the end, and then hauling up and unscrewing—stand after stand, fifty or sixty of them, one after another—until at last you got to the bottom one, only to find that you had missed your “fish!”

Well, Dad said his say, in tones that nobody could help hearing. If he couldn’t find men who would take care of their own bones, it was doubtless too much to hope they would take care of his property. They stood there, looking like a lot of school-boys getting a birching—though of course the “roughneck” who was wholly to blame had been turned loose on the road long ago.

There was a salesman from a supply house there with a patent device which he guaranteed would bring up the obstacle the first run; so they tried it, and left the device in the hole—it had held on too tight! Evidently there was a pocket down there, and the crowbar had got wedged crossways; so they’d have to try a small chunk of dynamite, said Dad. Ever listen to an explosion four thousand feet under the ground? Well, that was how they got the crowbar loose; and then they had a job of cleaning out, and drilling some more, and setting a casing to cover the damaged place in the hole.

Thus, day by day, Bunny got his oil lessons. He wandered about the field with Dad and the geologist and the boss driller, while they laid out the sites for future wells; and Dad took an envelope and pencil, and explained to Bunny why you place your wells on the four corners of a diamond, and not on the four corners of a square. You may try that out for yourself, drawing a circle about each well, to indicate the territory from which the oil is drained; you will see that the diamond shape covers the ground with less overlapping. Wherever you overlap, you are drilling two holes to get the same barrel of oil; and only a dub would do that.

They drove back to Beach City, and found that Bertie had come home. Bertie was Bunny’s sister, two years his senior, and she had been visiting the terribly fashionable Woodbridge Rileys, up north. Bunny tried to tell her about the fishing-job, and how things were going at Lobos River, but she was most cruelly cutting—described him as a “little oil gnome,” and said that his finger-nails were a “dead give-away.” It appeared that Bertie had become ashamed of oil; and this was something new, for of old she had been a good pal, interested in the business, and arguing with Bunny and bossing him as any older sister should. Bunny didn’t know what to make of it, but gradually he came to understand that this was a part of the fashionable education Bertie was getting at Miss Castle’s school.

Aunt Emma was to blame for this. She had granted Jim’s right to confine Bunny’s training to the making of money, but Bertie at least should be a young lady—meaning that she should learn how to spend the money which Dad and Bunny were going to make. So Aunt Emma got the name of the most expensive school for young female money-spenders, and from that time on the family saw little of Bertie; after school she went to visit her new rich friends. She couldn’t bring them to her home, there being no real butler—Rudolph was a “farm-hand,” she declared. She had picked up some wonderful new slang; if she didn’t like what you said, she would tell you that you were “full of prunes”—this was away back in history, you understand. She would give a pirouette and show off her fancy lingerie, with violet-colored ribbons in it; she would laugh gleefully: “Aren’t I a speedy young thing?”—and other phrases which caused grandmother to stare and Dad to grin. She would be pained by her father’s grammar: “Oh, Dad, don’t say ‘jist’!” And Dad would grin again, and reply: “I been a-sayin’ it jist fifty-nine years.” But all the same, he began a-sayin’ it less frequently; which is how civilization progresses.

Bertie condescended to drive out to the field, and see the new derricks that were going up. They went for a walk, and whom should they meet but Mrs. Groarty, getting out of her elderly Ford car in front of her home. Bunny was naively glad to see her, and insisted upon introducing Bertie, who displayed her iciest manner, and, as they went on, scolded Bunny because of his horrid vulgar taste; he might pick up acquaintance with every sort of riff-raff if he chose, but certainly he need not make his sister shake hands with them! Bunny could not understand—he never did succeed in understanding, all his life long, how people could fail to be interested in other people.

He told Bertie about Paul, and what a wonderful fellow he was, but Bertie said just what Dad had said, that Paul was “crazy.” More than that, she became angry, she thought that Paul was a “horrid fellow,” she was glad Bunny hadn’t been able to find him again. That was an attitude which Bertie was to show to Paul all through Paul’s life; she showed it at the very first instant, and poor Bunny was utterly bewildered. But in truth, it was hardly reasonable to expect that Bertie, who was going to school in order to learn to admire money—to find out by intuition exactly how much money everybody had, and to rate them accordingly—should be moved to admiration by a man who insisted that you had no right to money unless you had earned it!

Bertie was following her nature, and Bunny followed his. The anger of his sister had the effect of setting Paul upon a lonely eminence in Bunny’s imagination; a strange, half-legendary figure, the only person who had ever had a chance to get some of Dad’s money, and had refused it! Every now and then Bunny would stop by and sit on a rabbit-hutch, and ask Mrs. Groarty for news about her nephew. One time the stout lady showed him a badly scrawled note from Ruth Watkins—Paul’s sister, whom he loved—saying that the family had had no word; also that they were having a hard time keeping alive, they were having to kill a goat now and then—and Mrs. Groarty said that was literally eating up their capital. Later on there was another letter from Ruth, saying that Paul had written to her; he was up north, and still on the move, so no one could get hold of him; he sent a five-dollar bill in a registered letter, and specified that it was to go for food, and not for missions. It wasn’t easy to save money when you were only getting a boy’s pay, Paul said; and again Bunny was moved to secret awe. He went off and did a strange secret thing—he took a five-dollar bill, and folded it carefully in a sheet of paper, and sealed it up in a plain envelope, and addressed it to “Miss Ruth Watkins, Paradise, California,” and dropped it into a mail-box.

Mrs. Groarty was always glad to see Bunny, and Bunny, alas, knew why—she wanted to use him for an oil well! He would politely pay her with a certain amount of information. He asked Dad about Sliper and Wilkins, and Dad said they were “four-flushers”; Bunny passed this information on, but the “medium lots” went ahead and signed up with this pair—and very soon wished they hadn’t. For Sliper and Wilkins proceeded to sell the lease to a syndicate, and so there was a tent on the lot next to the Groarty home, and free lunches being served to crowds of people gathered up in the streets of Beach City by a “ballyhoo” man. “Bonanza Syndicate No. 1,” it was called; and they hustled up a derrick, and duly “spudded in,” and drilled a hundred feet or so; and Mrs. Groarty was in heaven, and spent her thousand dollars of bonus money for a hundred units of another syndicate, the “Co-operative No. 3.” The crowds trampled her lawn, but she didn’t care—the company would move her home when they drilled the second well, and she was going into a neighborhood that was “much sweller”—so she told Bunny.

But then, on his next visit, he saw trouble in the stout lady’s features. The drilling had stopped; the papers said the crew was “fishing,” but the men said they were “fishing for their pay.” The selling of “units” slowed down, the “ballyhoo” stopped, and then the syndicate was sold to what was called a “holding company.” The drilling was not resumed, however, and poor Mrs. Groarty tried pitifully to get Bunny to find out from his father what was happening to them. But Dad didn’t know, and nobody knew—until six months or so later, long after Dad had brought in his Ross-Bankside No. 1 with triumphant success. Then the newspapers appeared with scare headlines to the effect that the grand jury was about to indict D. Buckett Kyber and his associates of the Bonanza Syndicate for fraudulent sales of oil stock. Dad remarked to Bunny that this was probably a “shake-down”; some of the officials, and maybe some of the newspaper men, desired to be “seen” by Mr. Kyber. Presumably they were “seen,” for nothing more was heard of the prosecution. Meantime, the owners of the lease could not get anyone to continue the drilling, for the block next to them had brought in a two hundred barrel well, which was practically nothing; the newspapers now said that the south slope looked decidedly “edgy.”

So Bunny, in the midst of his father’s glory, would pass down the street and encounter poor Mr. Dumpery, coming home from the trolley with dragging steps, after having driven some thousands of shingle-nails into a roof; or Mr. Sahm, the plasterer, tending his little garden, with its rows of corn and beans that were irrigated with a hose. Bunny would see Mrs. Groarty, feeding her chickens and cleaning out her rabbit-hutches—but never again did he see the fancy evening-gown of yellow satin! He would go inside, and sit down and chat, in order not to seem “stuck-up”; and there was the stairway that led to nowhere, and the copy of “The Ladies’ Guide: A Practical Handbook of Gentility,” still resting on the centre-table, its blue silk now finger-soiled, and its gold letters tarnished. Bunny’s eyes took in these things, and he realized what Dad meant when he compared the oil-game to heaven, where many are called and few are chosen.

VIII

Scattered here and there over the hill were derricks, and the drilling crews were racing to be the first to tap the precious treasure. By day you saw white puffs from the steam-engines, and by night you saw lights gleaming on the derricks, and day and night you heard the sound of heavy machinery turning, turning—“ump-um—ump-um—ump-um—ump-um.” The newspapers reported the results, and a hundred thousand speculators and would-be speculators read the reports, and got into their cars and rode out to the field where the syndicates had their tents, or thronged the board-rooms in town, where prices were chalked up on blackboards, and “units” were sold to people who would not know an oil-derrick from a “chute the chutes.”

Who do you think stood first in the newspaper reports? You would need to make but one guess—Ross-Bankside No. 1. Dad was right there, day and night, knowing the men who were working for him, watching them, encouraging them, scolding them if need be—and so Dad had not had a single accident, he had not lost a day or night. The well was down to thirty-two hundred feet, and in the first stratum of oil-sand.

They were using an eight-inch bit, and for some time they had been taking a core. Dad was strenuous about core-drilling; he insisted that you must know every inch of the hole, and he would tell stories of men who had drilled through paying oil-sands and never known it. So the drill brought up a cylinder of rock, exactly like the core you would take out of an apple; and Bunny learned to tell shale from sandstone, and conglomerate from either. He learned to measure the tilt of the strata, and what that told the geologist about the shape of things down below, and the probable direction of the anticline. When there were traces of oil, there had to be chemical analyses, and he learned to interpret these reports. Every oil-pool in the world was different—each one a riddle, with colossal prizes for the men who could guess it!

Dad guessed that he was right over the pool, and so he had ordered his “tankage.” There was going to be a rush for this, as for everything else, and Dad had the cash—and still more important, the reputation for having the cash! He would get his “tankage” onto the lease, and if he were disappointed in his hopes for oil—well, somebody else would get it, and they would be glad to take the “tankage” off his hands. So there came a stream of heavy trucks, and stacked up on the field were flat sheets of steel, and curved sheets, all fitting exactly. You may be sure the buyers of “units” did not fail to make note of that! They were hanging round the derrick day and night, trying to pick up hints; they followed the men to their homes, and tried to bribe them, or to get into conversation with their wives. As for Bunny, he was about the most popular boy in Beach City; it was wonderful how many kind gentlemen, and even kind ladies there were, anxious to buy him ice-cream, or to feed him out of boxes of candy! Dad forbade him to say a word to strangers, or to have anything to do with them; and presently Dad banned discussions at the family table—because Aunt Emma was chattering in the ladies’ clubs, and the ladies were telling their husbands, besides gambling “on their own!”

The core showed more signs, and Dad gave orders to build the foundations of the tanks; then he ordered the tanks put up, and the clatter of riveting machines was heard, and magically there rose three ten thousand barrel tanks, newly-painted with flaming red lead. And then—hush!—they were in the real oil-sands; Dad set a crew of Mexicans to digging him a trench for a pipe-line; and the lease-hounds and the dealers in units discovered that, and the town went wild. In the middle of the night Dad was routed out of bed, and he called Bunny, and they jumped into their old clothes and went racing out to the well, and there were the first signs of the pressure, the mud was beginning to jump and bubble in the hole! The drilling had stopped, and the men were hastily screwing on the big “casing-head” that Dad had provided. He wasn’t satisfied even with that—he set them to fastening heavy lugs to the head, and he hustled up a couple of cement-men and built great blocks of cement over the lugs, to hold her down in spite of any pressure. There wasn’t going to be a blow-out on Ross-Bankside No. 1, you bet; whatever oil came through that hole was going into the tanks, and from there into Dad’s bank account!

It was time for the “cementing off,” to make the well water-proof, and protect the precious oil-sands. Down there under the ground was a pool of oil, caught under a layer of impermeable rock, exactly like an inverted wash-basin. The oil was full of gas, which made the pressure. Now you had drilled a hole through the wash-basin, and the oil and gas would come to you—but only on condition that you did not let any surface water down to kill the pressure. All the way down you had been tapping underground streams and pools of water; and now you had to set a big block of cement at the bottom of the hole, solid and tight, filling every crevice, both inside and outside your casing. Having got this tight, you would drill a hole through it, and on down into the oil-sands, thus making a channel through which the oil could flow up, and no water could leak down. This was the critical part of your operation, and while it was going on the whole crew was keyed up, and the owner and his son, needless to say.

First you put down your casing, known as the “water-string.” If you were a careful man, like Dad, you ran this “string” all the way up to your derrick-floor. Next you began pumping down clean water; for many hours you pumped, until you had washed the dirt and oil out of the hole; and then you were ready for the cement-men. They came with a truck, a complete outfit on wheels, ready to travel to any well. Another truck brought the sacks of cement, a couple of hundred of them; the job called for pure cement, no sand. They got everything ready before they started, and then they worked like so many fiends—for this whole job had to be put through in less than an hour, before the cement began to set.

It was an ingenious scheme they had, very fascinating to watch. They fitted inside the casing a cast-iron “packer,” having rubber discs at the top and bottom, so that it floated on the water in the casing; the cement went on top of this. The sacks were jerked open, and dumped into the hopper of the mixing machine, and the mixer began to revolve, and the river of grey liquid to pour into the hole. It ran fast, and the heavy pumps set to work, and drove it down, stroke after stroke. In half an hour they had filled several hundred feet of the casing with cement; after which they put on a rubber “packer,” fitting tight to the casing; and again the heavy pumps went to work, and drove the mass of cement, between the two “packers,” down into the hole. When they came to the bottom, the bottom packer would drop, and the cement would pour in, and the pressure of the top packer would force it into every cranny of the hole, and up between the outside of the casing and the earth—one or two hundred feet high it would rise, and when it set, there you would have your “water shut-off.”

What could be more fun to watch than a job like this? To know what was going on under the ground; to see the ingenuity by which men overcame Nature’s obstacles; to see a crew of workers, rushing here and there, busy as beavers or ants, yet at the same time serene and sure, knowing their job, and just how it was going!

The job was done; and then you had to wait ten days for your cement to get thoroughly set. The state inspector came and made his tests, to be sure you had got a complete “shut-off”; if you hadn’t, he would make you do it over again—some poor devils had to do it twenty or thirty times! But nothing like that happened to Dad; he knew about “cementing off”—and also about inspectors, he added with a grin. Anyhow, he got his permit; and now Ross-Bankside No. 1 was drilling into the real oil-sands, going down with a six-inch hole. Every few hours they would test for pressure, to be sure they had enough, but not too much. You were right on the verge of triumph now, and your pulse went fast and you walked on tiptoe with excitement. It was like waiting for Christmas morning, to open your stocking, and see what Santa Claus had brought! There were crowds staring at the well all day, and you put up rude signs to make them keep their noses out.

Dad said they were deep enough now, and they proceeded to set the last casing—it was known as the “liner,” and had holes like a sieve, through which the treasure would flow. They were working late into the night, and both Dad and Bunny had old clothes on, and were bathed in oil and mud. At last they had the “liner” all ready, and the tools out, and they started to “wash” the well, pumping in fresh water and cleaning out the mud and sand. That would go on for five or six hours, and meantime Dad and Bunny would get their sleep.

When they came back, it was time to “bail.” You understand, the pressure of the gas and oil was held down by the column of water, two thirds of a mile deep. Now they had what they called a “double-section bailer,” which was simply a bucket fifty feet long. They would let that down, and lift out fifty feet of the water-column, and dump it into the sump-hole. Then they would go down for another fifty; and presently they would find they didn’t have to go down so far, the pressure was shoving the column of water up in the hole. Then you knew you were getting near to the end; one or two more trips of the bailer, and the water would be shot out of the hole, and mud and water and oil would spout up over the top of the derrick, staining it a lovely dripping black. You must drive the crowds off the lease now, and shout “Lights out!” to the fools with cigarettes.

There she came! There was a cheer from all hands, and the spectators went flying to avoid the oily spray blown by the wind. They let her shoot for a while, until the water had been ejected; higher and higher, way up over the derrick—she made a lovely noise, hissing and splashing, bouncing up and down!

It was just at sundown, and the sky was crimson. “Lights out!” Dad kept calling—nobody must even start a motor-car while she was spouting. Presently they shut her off, to try the valve of the casing-head; they worked on, late into the night, letting her spout, and then shutting her off again; it was mysteriously thrilling in the darkness. At last they were ready to “bring her in”—which meant they would screw up the “flow-line” between the casing-head and the tank, and let the oil run into the latter. Just as simple as that—no show, no fuss, you just let her flow; the gauge showed her coming at the rate of thirty thousand gallons every hour, which meant that the first tank was full by noon the next day.

Yes, that was all; but the news affected Beach City as if an angel had appeared in a shining cloud and scattered twenty-dollar gold pieces over the streets. You see, Ross-Bankside No. 1 “proved up” the whole north slope; to tens of thousands of investors, big and little, it meant that a hope was turned into glorious certainty. You couldn’t keep such news quiet, it just didn’t lie in the possibility of human nature not to tell; the newspapers bulletined the details—Ross-Bankside was flowing sixteen thousand barrels a day, and the gravity was 32, and as soon as the pipe-line was completed—which would be by the end of the week—its owner would be in possession of an income of something over twenty thousand dollars every twenty-four hours. Would you need to be told that the crowds stared at Dad and at Bunny, everywhere they went about the streets of the city? There goes the great J. Arnold Ross, owner of the new well! And that little chap is his son! Say, he’s got thirteen dollars coming to him every minute of the day or night, whether he’s awake or asleep. By God, a fellow would feel he could afford to order his lunch, if he was to have an income like that!

Bunny couldn’t help but get a sense of importance, and think that he was something special and wonderful. Little thrills ran over him; he felt as if he could run up into the air and fly. And then Dad would say: “Take it easy, son! Keep your mouth shut, and don’t go a-gettin’ your head swelled. Remember, you didn’t make this here money, and you can lose it in no time, if you’re a lightweight.” Dad was a sensible fellow, you see; he had been through all this before, first at Antelope, and then at Lobos River. He had felt the temptation of grandeur, and knew what it must be to a boy. It was pleasant to have a lot of money; but you must set up a skeleton at the feast, and while you quaffed the wine of success, you must hear a voice behind you whispering, “Memento mori!”

CHAPTER IV
THE RANCH

I

Soon after this it was time for Bunny to visit his mother.

Bunny’s mother did not bear Dad’s name, as other boys’ mothers do; she was called Mrs. Lang, and lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of Angel City. There was an arrangement whereby she had a right to have Bunny with her one week in every six months; Bunny always knew when this time was approaching, and looked forward to it with mixed emotions. His mother was sweet, and gave him the petting which he missed at other times; “pretty little Mamma,” was her name for herself. But in other ways the visit was embarrassing, because there were matters supposed to be kept hidden from Bunny, but which he could not help guessing. Mamma would question him about Dad’s affairs, and Bunny knew that Dad did not wish his affairs talked about. Then too, Mamma complained that she never had enough money; Dad allowed her only two hundred dollars a month, and how could a young and charming grass-widow exist on such a sum? Her garage bill was always unpaid, and she would tell Bunny about it, and expect him to tell Dad—but Dad would evade hearing. And next time, Mamma would cry, and say that Jim was a tyrant and a miser. The situation was especially difficult just now, because Mamma had read about the new well in the papers, and knew just how much money Dad had; she unfolded to Bunny a plan, that he should try to persuade Dad to increase her allowance, but without having Dad suspect that she had suggested it. And this, right after Bunny had renounced the luxury of small lies!

Also there was the mystery about Mamma’s friends. There were always gentlemen friends who came to see her while Bunny was there, and who might or might not be agreeable to Bunny. When he came home, Aunt Emma would ask him questions, from which it was evident that she wanted to know about these gentlemen friends, but didn’t want Bunny to know that she wanted to know. Bunny noticed that Dad never referred to such matters; he never asked any questions about Mamma, and Aunt Emma always did her asking out of Dad’s presence.

All this had a peculiar effect upon Bunny. Just as Dad kept a safe deposit box at the bank, into which nobody ever looked but himself, so Bunny kept a secret place in his own mind. Outwardly, he was a cheerful and frank little fellow, if somewhat too mature for his years; but all the time he was leading a dual life—picking up ideas here and there, and carrying them off and hiding them, as a squirrel does nuts, so that he may come back at a later season and crack them open and nibble them. Some nuts were good and some were bad, and Bunny learned to judge them, and to throw away the bad ones.

One thing was plain: there was something which men and women did, which they were all in a conspiracy to keep you from knowing that they did. It was a dark corner of life, mysterious and rather hateful. In the beginning, Bunny was loyal to his father, not trying to find out what his father didn’t want him to know. But this could not continue indefinitely, for the mind automatically seeks understanding. It was not merely that the birds and the chickens and the dogs in the street gave you hints; it was not merely that every street-boy knew, and was eager to explain; it was that the stupid grown-ups themselves persisted in saying things which you couldn’t help getting. It was Aunt Emma’s fixed conviction that every lady was after Dad; “setting her cap at him,” or “making sheep’s eyes at him”—she had many such phrases. And Dad always showed a queer embarrassment whenever he had been the least bit polite to any lady; he seemed to be concerned lest Bunny should share Aunt Emma’s suspicions. But the truth was, Bunny was irritated by his aunt, and learned to evade her questions, and not tell what Dad had said to the nice lady in the hotel at Lobos River, and whether or not the lady had had dinner with them. These worldly arts Bunny acquired, but all the time he was in secret revolt. Why couldn’t people talk plainly? Why did they have to be pretending, and whispering, and making you uncomfortable?

II

Within a week after bringing in Ross-Bankside No. 1, Dad had a new derrick under way on the lease, and in another week he had it rigged up, and the old string of tools was on its way into the earth again. Also he had two new derricks under way, and two new strings in process of delivery. There would be four wells, standing on the four corners of a diamond-shaped figure, three hundred feet on the side. It was necessary to call house-movers, and take the Bankside homestead to another lot; but that didn’t trouble Mr. Bankside, who had already moved himself to an ocean-front palace near Dad, and bought himself a whole outfit of furniture, and a big new limousine, also a “sport-car,” in which to drive himself to the country club to play golf every afternoon. The Bankside family was accustoming itself to the presence of a butler, and Mrs. Bankside had been proposed at the most exclusive of the ladies’ clubs. Efficiency was the watch-word out here in the West, and when you decided to change your social status, you put the job right through.

Dad and Bunny made another trip to Lobos River, and not without some difficulty they conquered the “jinx” in Number Two, and brought in a very good well. There were to be two more derricks here, and more tools to be bought and delivered. That was the way in the oil business, as fast as you got any money, you put it back into new drilling—and, of course, new responsibilities. You were driven to this by the forces inherent in the game. You were racing with other people, who were always threatening to get your oil. As soon as you had one well, you had to have “offset wells” to protect it from the people on every side who would otherwise get your oil. Also, you might have trouble in marketing your oil, and would begin to think, how nice to have your own refinery, and be entirely independent. But independence had its price, for then you would have to provide enough oil to keep the refinery going, and you would want a chain of filling-stations to get rid of your products. It was a hard game for the little fellow; and no matter how big you got, there was always somebody bigger!

But Dad had no kick just now; everything was a-comin’ his way a-whoopin’. Right in the midst of his other triumphs it had occurred to him to take one of his old Antelope wells and go a little lower, and see what he found; he tried it—and lo and behold, at eight hundred feet farther down the darn thing went and blew its head off. They were in a new layer of oil-sands; and every one of these sixteen old wells, that had been on the pump for a couple of years, and were about played out, were ready to present Dad with a new fortune, at a cost of only a few thousand dollars each!

But right away came a new problem; there was no pipe-line to this field, and there ought to be one. Dad wanted some of the other operators to go in with him, and he was going up there and make a deal. Then Bunny came to him, looking very serious. “Dad, have you forgotten, it’s close to the fifteenth of November.”

“What about it, son?”

“You promised we were going quail-shooting this year.”

“By gosh, that’s so! But I’m frightfully rushed jist now, son.”

“You’re working too hard, Dad; Aunt Emma says you’re putting a strain on your kidneys, the doctor has told you so.”

“Does he recommend a quail diet?”

Bunny knew by Dad’s grin that he was going to make some concession. “Let’s take our camping things,” the boy pleaded, “and when you get through at Antelope, let’s come home by the San Elido valley.”

“The San Elido! But son, that’s fifty miles out of our way!”

“They say there’s no end of quail there, Dad.”

“Yes, but we can get quail a lot nearer home.”

“I know, Dad; but I’ve never been there, and I want to see it.”

“But what made you hit on that place?”

Bunny was embarrassed, because he knew Dad was going to think he was “queer.” Nevertheless, he persisted. “That’s where the Watkins family live.”

“Watkins family—who are they?”

“Don’t you remember that boy, Paul, that I met one night when you were talking about the lease?”

“Gosh, son! You still a-frettin’ about that boy?”

“I met Mrs. Groarty on the street yesterday, and she told me about the family; they’re in dreadful trouble, they’re going to lose their ranch to the bank because they can’t meet the interest on the mortgage, and Mrs. Groarty says she can’t think what they’ll do. You know Mrs. Groarty didn’t get any money herself—at least, she spent her bonus money for units, and she isn’t getting anything out of them, and has to live on what her husband gets as a night watchman.”

“What you want to do about it?”

“I want you to buy that mortgage, Dad; or anything, so the Watkinses can stay in their home. It’s wicked that people should be turned out like that, when they’re doing the best they can.”

“There’s plenty o’ people bein’ turned out when they don’t meet their obligations, son.”

“But when it’s not their fault, Dad?”

“It would take a lot of bookkeeping to figger jist whose fault it is; and the banks don’t keep books that way.” Then seeing the protest in Bunny’s face, “You’ll find, son there’s a lot o’ harsh things in the world, that ain’t in your power to change. You’ll jist have to make up your mind to that, sooner or later.”

“But Dad, there’s four children there, and three of them are girls, and where are they to go? Paul is away, and they haven’t any way to let him know what’s happened. Mrs. Groarty showed me a picture of them, Dad; they’re good, kind people, you can see they’ve never done anything but work hard. Honest, Dad, I couldn’t be happy if I didn’t help them. You said you’d buy me a car some day, and I’d rather you took the money and bought that mortgage. It’s less than a couple of thousand dollars, and that’s nothing to you.”

“I know, son; but then you’ll get them on your hands—”

“No, they’re not like that, they’re proud; Mrs. Groarty says they wouldn’t take money from you, any more than Paul would. But if you bought the mortgage from the bank, they couldn’t help that. Or you might buy the ranch, Dad, and rent it back to them. Paul says there’s oil on that ranch—at least his Uncle Eby had seen it on top of the ground.”

“There’s thousands of ranches jist like that in California, son. Oil on top of the ground don’t mean anything special.”

“Well, Dad, you’ve always said you wanted to try some wild-catting; and you know, that’s the only way you’ll ever get what you talk about—a whole big tract that belongs to you, with no royalties to pay, and nobody to butt in. So let’s take a chance on Paradise, and drive through there and camp out a few days and get some quail, and we’ll see what we think of it, and we’ll help those poor people, and give your kidneys a rest at the same time.”

So Dad said all right; and he went away thinking to himself: “Gosh! Funny kid!”

III

The San Elido valley lay on the edge of the desert, and you crossed a corner of the desert to get to it; a bare wilderness of sun-baked sand and rock, with nothing but grey, dusty desert plants. You sped along upon a fine paved road, but the land was haunted by the souls of old-time pioneers who had crossed it in covered wagons or with pack-mules, and had left their bones beside many a trail. Even now, you had to be careful when you went off into side-trails across these wastes; every now and then a car would get stuck with an empty radiator, and the people would be lucky to get out alive.

You could get water if you sunk a deep well; and so there were fruit ranches and fields of alfalfa here and there. There came long stretches where the ground was white, like salt; that was alkali, Dad said, and it made this country a regular boob-trap. The stranger from the East would come in and inspect a nice fruit ranch, and would think he was making a good bargain to get the land next door for a hundred dollars an acre; he would set out his fruit-trees and patiently water them, and they wouldn’t grow; nothing would grow but a little alfalfa, and maybe there was too much alkali for that. The would-be rancher would have to pull up the trees, and obliterate the traces of them, and set a real-estater to hunting for another boob.

Strapped to the running-board of Dad’s car, on the right hand side where Bunny sat, was a big bundle wrapped in a water-proof cover; they were camping out—which meant that the mind of a boy was back amid racial memories, the perils and excitements of ten thousand years ago. Tightly clutched in Bunny’s two hands were a couple of repeating shot-guns; he held these for hours, partly because he liked the feel of them, and partly because they had to be carried in the open—if you shut them up in the compartment they would be “concealed weapons,” and that was against the law.

Near the head of the valley a dirt road went off, and a sign said: “Paradise, eight miles.” They wound up a little pass, with mountains that seemed to be tumbled heaps of rock, of every size and color. There were fruit ranches, the trees now bare of leaves, with trunks calcimined white, and young trees with wire netting about them, to keep away the rabbits. The first rains of the season had fallen, and new grass was showing—the California spring, which begins in the fall.

The pass broadened out; there were ranch-houses scattered here and there, and the village of Paradise—one street, with a few scattered stores, sheltered under eucalyptus trees that made long shadows in the late afternoon light. Dad drew up at the filling station, which was also a feed-store. “Can you tell me where is the Watkins ranch?”

“There’s two Watkinses,” said the man. “There’s old Abel Watkins—”

“That’s the one!” exclaimed Bunny.

“He’s got a goat-ranch, over by the slide. It ain’t so easy to find. Was you plannin’ to get there tonight?”

“We shan’t worry if we get lost,” said Dad; “we got a campin’ outfit.”

So the man gave them complicated directions. You took the lane back of the school-house, and you made several jogs, and then there were about sixteen forks, and you must get the right one, and you followed the slide that took the water down to Roseville, and it was the fourth arroyo after you had passed old man Tucker’s sheep-ranch, with the little house up under the pepper trees. And so they started and followed a winding road that had apparently been laid out by sheep, and the sun set behind the dark hills, and the clouds turned pink, and they dodged rocks that were too high for the clearance of the car and crawled down into little gullies, and up again with a constant shifting of gears. There was no need to ask about the quail, for the hills echoed with the melodious double call of the flocks gathering for the night.

Presently they came to the “slide,” which was a wooden runway carrying water—with many leaks, so that bright green grass was spread in every direction, and made food for a big flock of sheep, which paid no attention to the car, nor to all the tooting—the silly fools, they just would get under your wheels! And then came a man riding horseback; a big brown handsome fellow, with a fancy-colored handkerchief about his neck, and a wide-brimmed hat with a leather strap. He was bringing in a herd of cattle, and as he rode, his saddle and his stirrup-straps went “Squnch, squnch,” which was a sort of thrilling sound to a boy, especially there in the evening quiet. Dad stopped, and the man stopped, and Dad said “Good evening,” and the man answered, “Evenin’.” He had a pleasant, open face, and told them the way; they couldn’t miss the arroyo, because it was the only one that had water, and they would see the buildings as soon as they had got a little way up. And as they went on Bunny said, “Gee, Dad, but I wish we could live here; I’d like to ride a horse like that.” He knew this would fetch Dad, because the man looked jist the way Dad thought a man ought to look, big and sturdy, colored brown and red like an Injun. Yes, it wouldn’t take much to persuade Dad to buy the Watkins ranch for his son!

Well, they went wabbling on down the sheep-trail, counting the arroyos, whose walls loomed high in the twilight, crowned with fantastic piles of rocks. The lights of the car were on, and swung this way and that, picking out the road; until at last there was an arroyo with water—you knew it by the bright green grass—and they turned in, and followed a still more bumpy lane, and there ahead were some buildings, with one light shining in a window. It was the ranch where Paul Watkins had been born and raised; and something in Bunny stirred with a quite inexplicable thrill—as if he were approaching the birth-place of Abraham Lincoln, or some person of that great sort!

Suddenly Dad spoke. “Listen, son,” he said. “There might be oil here—there’s always one chance in a million, so don’t you say nothin’ about it. You can tell them you met Paul if you want to, but don’t say that he mentioned no oil, and don’t you mention none. Let me do all the talkin’ about business.”

It was a “California house,” that is, it was made of boards a foot wide, running vertically, with little strips of “batting” to cover the cracks. It had no porch, whether front or back, nothing but one flat stone for a step. The paint, if there had ever been any, was so badly faded that you saw no trace of it by the lights of the car. On the other side of the lane, and farther up the little valley, loomed a group of sheds, with a big pen made of boards, patched here and there with poles cut from eucalyptus trees. From this place came the stirring and murmuring of a great number of animals crowded together.

The family stood in the yard, lined up to stare at the unaccustomed spectacle of an automobile entering their premises. There was a man, lean and stooped, and a boy, somewhat shorter, but already stooped; both of them clad in faded blue shirts without collar, and denim trousers, very much patched, held up by suspenders. There were three girls, in a descending row, in nondescript calico dresses; and in the doorway a woman, a little wraith of a woman, sallow and worn. All six of them stood motionless and silent, while the car came into the yard, and stopped, and the engine fell to a soft purring. “Good evening,” said Dad.

“Howdy, brother,” said the man.

“Is this the Watkins place!”

“Yes, brother.” It was a feeble, uncertain voice, but it thrilled Bunny to the depths, for he knew that this voice was accustomed to “babble” and “talk in tongues.” Suppose the family were to “let go,” and start their “jumping” and “rolling” while Bunny was there!

“We’re huntin’,” Dad explained, “and we was told this would be a good place to camp. You got good water?”

“None better. Make yourself to home, brother.”

“Well, we’ll go up the lane jist a bit, somewheres out of the way. You got a big tree that’ll give us shade?”

“Eli, you show ’em the oak-tree, and help ’em git fixed.”

And again Bunny was thrilled; for this was Eli, that had been blessed of the Holy Spirit, and had the “shivers,” and had healed old Mrs. Bugner, that had complications, by the laying on of hands. Bunny remembered every detail about this family, the most extraordinary he had ever come upon outside of a story-book.

IV

Eli moved up the lane, the car following. There was a big live oak tree with a clear space underneath, and Dad placed the car so that the lights streamed upon the space—you never needed to worry about darkness, when you were camping with a car! They stopped, and Bunny slid over the top of his door, and went to work on the straps which held the big bundle to the running-board. He had it off in a jiffy, and unrolled it, and quite magical were the things which came out of it. There was a tent, made of such light water-proofed silk that a structure eight feet square rolled up to a bundle which might have been a suit of clothes. There were the tent poles, made in several joints which screwed together; and the stakes, and a little camp hatchet to drive them with. There were three warm camping-blankets, besides the water-proof cover, which also made a blanket. There were two pneumatic pillows, and a pneumatic mattress, which you sat and puffed at until you were red in the face—it was great sport! Finally there was a canvas bag containing a set of camp utensils, all made of aluminum, and fitting one into another, everything with detachable handles; and aluminum boxes with several compartments for grub. When all these things were set in order, you could be as comfortable in the midst of a desert or on top of a mountain as in the best hotel room.

Mr. Watkins told Eli to help, but Dad said never mind, they knew jist what to do, and it was easy. So then Mr. Watkins told Eli to fetch a pail of water; and next he asked if they’d like some milk—they had only goat’s milk, of course. Dad said that was fine; and Bunny was transported to the Balkans, or whatever exciting places he had read about, where the people live on goat’s milk. Mr. Watkins said for Ruth to go git some; and Bunny was thrilled again, because Ruth was the sister that Paul loved, and that he said had “sense.” Mr. Watkins called after her to fatch some “aigs” too; and Dad said they’d like some bread—and then Bunny got a shock, for the old man said they didn’t git no bread, they hadn’t room to raise grain, and corn didn’t fill out good up here in the hills, so all they had was taters. And Dad said potatoes would do jist as good, they’d boil some for supper; and Mr. Watkins said they’d git ’em quicker if the missus was to bile ’em on the stove—thus showing a complete misapprehension of the significance of a camping-trip. Dad said no, they’d want a fire anyway; and Mr. Watkins said they was gettin’ a nip o’ frost every night now, and for Eli to rustle ’em up a lot of wood. This was easily done, for as soon as you went a few feet up the side of the arroyo you came upon desert brush, much of which was dead and dry, and Eli tore some of the bushes loose and dragged them down and broke them to pieces over his knee. Then he fetched a couple of stones—that also was easy, for you could hardly walk a dozen feet on the Watkins ranch without hitting your toe on a stone.

Very soon they had a fire going, and the potatoes boiling merrily in the pot, and a jar of bacon open and sizzling in the frying pan. Dad did the cooking—it was a dignified occupation, while Bunny hustled about and set the plates and things on the water-proof cover which served as a table cloth without a table. When the bacon was done, Dad cracked the eggs on the side of the pan, and fried them “with their eyes open.” And there was the goat’s milk, rich and creamy, cold from the “spring-house;” you didn’t mind the strong flavor, because you persuaded yourself it was romantic. The milk was served in aluminum cups which were part of the camping outfit; and also there was a plate of honey and comb—sage-honey, brown, and strong of flavor—which Ruth had brought.

Dad invited the family to come and have something, but the old man said no thanks, they had all et. Dad said would they please at least sit down, because they didn’t seem comfortable jist standin’ there; so Eli and the three girls, and their mother, who had joined them, all sat down on stones at a modest distance from the light, and Mr. Watkins sat on a stone a little closer, and while they ate Dad talked with him about the state of the weather, and of the crops, and about their way of life up here in the hills.

And when Dad and Bunny were done, and stretched themselves on the blankets, feeling fine and comfortable, Mr. Watkins offered to have the tent put up by Eli, but Dad again said not to mind, it was very simple and would only take a few minutes. Then Mr. Watkins said that one of the gals would wash up for them, and Dad said all right, he’d like that; so Bunny got the pans and plates together, and the middle-sized girl, who went by the name of Meelie, carried them off to the house. And then they chatted some more; and Bunny saw that Dad was skilfully finding out about the family, and getting their confidence.

Suddenly came a critical moment in the acquaintance; there was a pause, and in a voice different from his usual one, solemn and burdened with feeling, Abel Watkins said: “Brother, may I ask a personal question?”

“Yes, sure,” said Dad.

“Brother, are you saved?”

Bunny caught his breath; for he remembered what Paul had said about Mr. Watkins’ way—if you said anything contrary to his religion, he would roll up his eyes and begin to pray out loud and “let go.” Bunny had told Dad about this; and evidently Dad had figured out what to do. He replied in a tone no less solemn: “Yes, brother, we are saved.”

“You been washed in the Blood?”

“Yes, brother, we been washed.”

“What is your church, brother.”

“It is called the Church of the True Word.”

There was a pause. “I dunno as I know that there message,” said Mr. Watkins.

“I am sorry,” said Dad. “I should like to explain it, but we’re not permitted to talk about our faith with strangers.”

“But brother!” Mr. Watkins was evidently bewildered by that. “We are told in the Book that ‘The Lord has called us for to preach the Gospel unto them;’ and also, ‘the Gospel must first be published among all nations.’ ”

“Brother,” said Dad, still with the utmost earnestness, “I understand that; but according to our faith, we get to know men in friendship, and talk about our religion later. We all have to respect the convictions of others.”

“Yes, brother,” said Mr. Watkins; and his voice sort of faded away, and you could see he did not know what to say next. He looked at the members of his family, as if seeking support from them; but they hadn’t yet said anything, except “Yes, Pap,” when he gave them an order.

So it was up to Dad to relieve the embarrassment. “We come here to look for quail,” he said. “I hear aplenty of ’em about.”

V

It was growing so cold that the little fire no longer sufficed for comfort; so the Watkins family took their departure, and Dad and Bunny set up the tent, and stowed their goods in it, and Bunny did his job of puffing at the mattress until it was full. The stars were shining, so they made their bed in the open. After spreading the blankets, they took off their shoes and outside clothing, and laid them in the tent, and crawled under the blankets in a hurry—gee, but that cold made you jump! Bunny snuggled up into a ball, and lay there, feeling the night breeze on his forehead; and he remarked: “Say, Dad, what is the Church of the True Word?”

Dad chuckled. “The poor old crack-brain,” he said; “I had to get some way to shut him up.”

They lay still, and pretty soon Dad was breathing deeply. But the boy, though he was tired, did not go to sleep at once. He lay thinking: Dad’s code was different from the one which Bunny had decided to follow. Dad would lie, whenever he considered it necessary; he would argue that the other person could not use the truth, or had no right to it in the particular circumstances. And yet, this also was plain, Dad didn’t want Bunny to follow that same code. He would tell Bunny to say nothing, but he would never tell Bunny to lie; and as a rule, when he had to do any lying, he would do it out of Bunny’s presence! There were lots of things like that; Dad smoked cigars, and he took a drink now and then, but he didn’t want Bunny to smoke or to drink. It was queer.

Bunny’s head and face were cold, but the rest of him was warm, and he was drifting, drifting off; his thoughts became a blur—but then suddenly he was wide awake again. What was that? The mattress was rocking; it rolled you from side to side, so that you had to put out your elbows. “Dad!” cried Bunny. “What’s that?” And Dad came suddenly awake; he sat up, and Bunny sat up—putting his two hands out to keep himself steady. “By jiminy!” cried Dad. “An earthquake!”

Sure enough, an earthquake! And say, it was queer to feel the solid ground, that you counted on, shaking you about like that! The tree began to creak over their heads, as if a wind were rocking it; they jumped up and got out from under. A clamor arose, a bleating and moaning—the goats, who liked this sensation even less than the humans, having no ideas of earth structures and geological faults to steady their minds. And then came another kind of clamor—from the Watkins family, who apparently had rushed out of their cabin. “Glory hallelujah! Jesus, save us! Lord, have mercy!”

Dad said, “It’s all over now; let’s crawl in, or we’ll have them folks up here praying over us.”

Bunny obeyed, and they lay still. “Gee, that was a terrible earthquake!” whispered the boy. “Do you think it knocked down any cities?”

“It was likely jist local,” answered Dad. “They have lots of them up here in this hill country.”

“Then you’d think the Watkinses would be used to them.”

“They enjoy makin’ a fuss, I guess. They don’t have so much excitement in their lives.” And that was all Dad had to say. He had plenty of excitements in his own life, and was not specially interested in earthquakes, and still less in the ravings of religious maniacs. He was soon fast asleep again.

But Bunny lay and listened. The Watkins family had “let go,” and were having a regular holy jumping service, out there under the cold white stars. They shouted, they prayed, they laughed and sang, they cried “Glory! Glory!” and “Amen!” and “Selah!” and other words which Bunny did not understand, but which may have been Greek or Hebrew, or else the speech of the archangels. The voice of old Abel Watkins dominated, and the shrill screams of the children made a chorus, and the bleating of the goats was like a lot of double basses in an orchestra. Cold chills ran up and down Bunny’s back; for, after all, the scientific mind in him, which knew about earth structures and geological faults, was only a century or two old, while the instinctive mind which pronounces incantations, is thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of years old. Priests have wrought frenzies and pronounced dooms, and because the priests believed them and the victims believed them, they have worked, and therefore they were believed more than ever. And now here was an incantation against earthquakes—and people down on their knees, with their hands in the air and their bodies swaying—

“Chariots to glory, chariots to glory,

Chariots to glory with the Holy Lamb!”

Bunny dozed off at last; and when he opened his eyes again, the dawn was pink behind the hills, and Dad was slipping into his khaki hunting-clothes. Bunny didn’t stop to rub his eyes, he popped out of bed and got his clothes on quick—that cold just froze your bones!

He clambered up the hill-side and began pulling dead brush, and got a fire going and the saucepan on. And then came Eli, bringing the clean plates and things, and asking whether they wanted last night’s milk, which was cold, or this morning’s milk, which was warm. “And say, did you feel that yearthquake!” asked Eli, in excitement. “Say, that was a terrible yearthquake! Does you-all have yearthquakes in you-all’s parts?”

Eli had pale yellow hair, which had not been cut for some time, and had not been combed since the “yearthquake.” He had pale blue eyes which protruded slightly, and gave him an eager look. He had a long neck with a conspicuous Adam’s apple. His legs had grown too fast for the pair of worn trousers which were supposed to cover them, and which revealed Eli’s shoes without socks. He stood there, staring at every detail of the equipment and clothing of these city strangers, and at the same time attempting to probe their souls. “What does this yere True Word teach about yearthquakes?”

Dad was busy frying the bacon and eggs, and he said they would like some of this morning’s milk—which was a way to get rid of Eli. But it didn’t take Eli long to come back, and he stood and followed every morsel of food as it went into their mouths; and he told them that the family had “prayed a mighty power” over that yearthquake, and yearthquakes meant the Holy Spirit was growing weary of fornications and drunkenness and lying in the world, and had they been doing any of them things? Bunny had but a vague idea concerning fornications, but he knew that Dad had told a whopping big lie just a short time before that “yearthquake,” and he chuckled to himself as he thought what a portent the Watkinses would make out of that, if they knew!

The old man came, to make sure they were all right. Mr. Watkins was a bigger and taller edition of his son, with the same prominent pale blue eyes and large Adam’s apple; his face was weather-beaten, heavily lined with care, and you could see he was a kind old man, honest and good, for all his craziness. He too talked about the “yearthquakes,” and told about one which had shaken down brick and concrete buildings in Roseville a couple of years ago. Then he said that Meelie and Sadie were going out to school, and they would bring in some bread if the strangers wanted it. So Dad gave him a dollar, and they had a little argument, because Mr. Watkins said they wouldn’t take only the regular price what they got for the eggs and the milk and the taters at the store, and they didn’t want no pay for the camping out, because that wasn’t no trouble to them, they was glad to see strangers; it was a lonely life they lived up in these here hills, and if it wasn’t for the Lord and His Gospel, they would have very little pleasure in life.

VI

Dad and Bunny strapped on their cartridge belts, which went over their shoulders, and they loaded up the repeating shot-guns, and set out up the little valley and over the hills. Bunny didn’t really care very much about killing quail, he was sorry for the lovely black and brown birds, that had such proud and stately crests, and ran with such quick twinkling legs, and made such pretty calls at sundown. But Bunny never said anything about these ideas, because he knew Dad liked to hunt, and it was the only way you could get him away from his work, and out into the open, which the doctor said was good for his health. Dad was quick as lightning to swing his gun, and it looked as if he didn’t aim at all, but apparently he did; and he never made the mistake that Bunny did, of trying to shoot at two birds at the same time. Also Dad had time to watch Bunny and teach him—to make sure that they travelled in an even line, and didn’t get turned so that one was out in front of the other’s gun.

Well they tramped the hills and the valleys, and the birds rose, flying in every direction—a whir, and a grey streak—bang, bang—and either they were gone, or else they were down. But you didn’t run to pick them up, because there would be others, they would hide and run, and you moved on, and banged some more, until finally you gathered up all you could find, bundles of soft warm feathers, spotted with blood. Sometimes they were still alive, and you had to wring their necks, and that was the part Bunny hated.

They filled their bags, and then they tramped back to camp, tired and hungry—oh gosh! Eli came, offering to clean the birds for them, and they were glad to let him, and gave him half the birds for the family to eat—it was pitiful to see the light in the eyes of the poor, half-starved youth when he heard this news. It isn’t easy to live altogether in the spirit while you are not fully grown!

Eli took the birds to the house, where there was a chopping-block and pails of water handy; and meantime Bunny stretched out to rest, with his feet up in front. Suddenly he sat up with an exclamation. “Dad! Look at that!”

“Look at what?”

“At my shoe!”

“What is it?”

Bunny pulled his foot up close. “Dad, that’s oil!”

“Are you sure?”

“What else could it be?” He got up and hopped over, so Dad could see for himself. “It’s all up over the top.”

“You sure it wasn’t there before?”

“Of course not, Dad! It’s still soft. I couldn’t pack up my shoes like that and not see. I must have stepped into a regular pool of it. And oh, say—I’ll bet you it was the earthquake! Some oil came up through a crack!”

Bunny took off his shoe, and Dad examined the find. He said not to get too much excited, it was a common thing to find oil pools close to the surface; as a rule they were small, and didn’t amount to anything. But still, oil signs were not to be neglected; so after lunch they would go out again, and retrace their steps, and see what they could find.

It was easy for Dad to say not to get excited; so little did he know about his boy’s mind! This was Bunny’s dream, that he had had for years. You see, Dad was all the time talking about how he was going to get a real oil-tract some day—one that belonged to himself alone. He would figure up and show that when you paid a man a sixth royalty, you were really giving half your net profits—for you had to pay all the costs, not merely of the drilling, but of the upkeep and operation of the well, and the marketing of the oil. The other fellow got half your money—and didn’t do a thing but own the land! Well, some day Dad would get a tract of his own discovery, and have it to himself, so that he could develop it right, and build an oil-town that he could run right, without any interference or any graft.

How was he to find that tract? That was Bunny’s dream! He had lived the adventure in a score of different forms; he would be digging a hole in the ground, and the oil would come spouting up, and he would cover it over to hide it, and Dad would buy the land for miles around, and take Bunny into partnership with him; or else Bunny would be exploring a cave in the mountains, and he would fall into a pool of oil and get out with great difficulty. There were many different ways he had pictured—but never once had he thought of having an earthquake come and split open the ground, just before he and Dad were starting out after quail!

Bunny was so much excited that he hardly noticed the taste of that especially delicious meal of quail and fried potatoes and boiled turnips. Just as soon as Dad had got his cigar smoked, they set forth again, keeping their eyes on the ground, except when they lifted them to study the landmarks, and to figure whether they had taken this opening through the hills or that. They had walked half a mile or so, when a couple of quail rose, and Dad dropped them both, and walked over to pick them up, and then he called, “Here you are, son!” Bunny thought he meant the birds; but Dad called again, “Come over here!” And when the boy was near he said, “Here’s your oil!”

There it was, sure enough; a black streak of it, six or eight inches wide, wiggling here and there, following a crack in the ground; it was soft and oozy, and now and then it bubbled, as if it were still leaking up. Dad knelt down and stuck his finger into it, and held it up to the light to see the color; he broke off a dead branch from a bush and poked it into the crevice to see how deep it was, and how much more came up. When Dad got up again he said, “That’s real oil, no doubt of it I guess it won’t do any harm to buy this ranch.”

So they went back. Bunny was dancing, both outside and inside, and Dad was figuring and planning, and neither of them bothered about the quail. “Did Mrs. Groarty ever tell you how much land there is in this ranch?” asked Dad.

“She said it was a section.”

“We’ll have to find out where it runs. And by the way, son, don’t make any mistake, now, not a word to any one about oil, not even after I buy the place. It won’t do any harm to get a lot of land in these here hills. You don’t have to pay much for rocks.”

“But listen, Dad; you’ll pay Mr. Watkins a fair price!”

“I’ll pay him a land price, but I ain’t a-goin’ to pay him no oil price. In the first place, he’d maybe get suspicious, and refuse to sell. He’s got nothin’ to do with any oil that’s here—it ain’t been any use to him, and wouldn’t be in a million years. And besides, what use could a poor feeble-minded old fellow like that make of oil money?”

“But we don’t want to take advantage of him, Dad!”

“I’ll see that he don’t suffer; I’ll jist fix the money so he can’t give it away to no missionaries, and I’ll always take care of him, and of the children, and see they get along. But there’s purely not a-goin’ to be no oil-royalties! And if any of them ask you about me, son, you jist say I’m in business—I trade in land, and all kinds o’ stuff. Tell them I got a general store, and I buy machinery, and lend money. That’s all quite true.”

They walked on, and Bunny began to unfold the elements of a moral problem that was to occupy him, off and on, for many years. Just what rights did the Watkinses have to the oil that lay underneath this ranch? The boy didn’t say any more to his father, because he knew that his father’s mind was made up, and of course he would obey his father’s orders. But he debated the matter all the way until they got back to the ranch, where they saw the old man patching his goat-pen. They joined him, and after chatting about the quail for a bit, Dad remarked: “Mr. Watkins, I wonder if you’d come into the house and have a chat with me, you and your wife.” And when Mr. Watkins said he would, Dad turned to Bunny, saying: “Excuse me, son—see if you can get some birds by yourself.” And Bunny knew exactly what that meant—Dad thought that his son would be happier if he didn’t actually witness the surgical operation whereby the pitiful Watkinses were to be separated from their six hundred and forty acres of rocks!

VII

Bunny wandered up the arroyo, and high on the slope he saw the goats feeding. He went up to watch them; and so he got acquainted with Ruth.

She sat upon a big boulder, gazing out over the rim of the hills. She was bare-headed and bare-legged, and you saw that she was outgrowing the patched and faded calico dress which was her only covering. She was a thin child, and gave the impression she was pale, in spite of her brownness; it was an anaemic brown, without much red in it. She had the blue eyes of the family, and a round, domed forehead, with hair pulled straight back and tied with a bit of old ribbon. She sat tending the flocks and herds, as boys and girls had done two thousand years ago in Palestine, which she read about in the only book to be found in the Watkins household. One week out of three she did this, ten or twelve hours a day, taking turns with her sisters. Very seldom did anyone come near, and now she was ill at ease as the strange boy came climbing up; she did not look at him, and her toes were twisted together.

But Bunny had the formula for entrance to her heart. “You are Ruth, aren’t you?” he asked, and when she nodded, he said “I know Paul.”

So in a flash they were friends. “Oh, where?” She clasped her hands together and gazed at him.

Bunny told how he had been at Mrs. Groarty’s—saying nothing about oil, of course—and how Paul had come, and just what had happened. She drank in every word, not interrupting; Ruth never did say much, her feelings ran deep, and made no foam upon the surface. But Bunny knew that her whole soul was hanging on his story; she fairly worshiped her brother. “And you never seen him again?” she whispered.

“I never really saw him at all,” said Bunny; “I wouldn’t know him now, if I was to meet him. You don’t know where he is?”

“I’ve had three letters. Always it’s a new place, and he says he ain’t stayin’ there. Some day, he says, he’ll come to see me—jest me. He’s scairt o’ Pap.”

“What would Pap do?”

“Pap would whale him. He’s terrible set agin him. He says he’s a limb of Satan. Paul says he don’t believe what’s in the Book? Do you believe it?”

Bunny hesitated, remembering Dad and his “True Word.” He decided he could trust Ruth that far, so he told her he didn’t think he believed quite everything. And Ruth, gazing into his eyes with intense concern, inquired: “What is it makes yearthquakes?”

So Bunny told what Mr. Eaton had taught him about the earth’s crust and its shrinking, and the faults in the strata, that were the first to yield to the strain. He judged by the wondering look on her face that this was the first hint of natural science that had ever come to her mind. “So you don’t have to be scairt!” she said.

And then Bunny saw the signs of another idea dawning in her mind. Ruth was gazing at him, more intently than ever, and she exclaimed, “Oh! It was you sent that money!”

“Money?” said he, innocently.

“Four times they come a letter with a five-dollar bill in it, and no writin’. Pap said it was the Holy Spirit—but it was you! Warn’t it?”

Thus directly attacked, Bunny nodded his confession; and Ruth colored, and began to stammer her embarrassed thanks—she didn’t see how they could ever repay it—they were having such a hard time. Bunny stopped her—that was all nonsense, Dad had more money than he knew what to do with. Bunny explained that Dad was offering to buy the ranch from her parents, and pay off the mortgage, and let them live there for as long as they wanted to, for a very small rent. The tears began to run down Ruth’s cheeks, and she had to turn her head away; she could not control herself, and it was embarrassing, because she had nothing with which to wipe the tears away, every bit of her dress being needed to cover her bare legs. She slid off the boulder, and had a little sobbing fit out of his sight; and Bunny sat troubled, not so much by this display of emotion, as by the ethical war going on in his soul. He told himself, it was really true that his motive in getting Dad to come here had been to help the Watkinses; the oil had been merely a pretext to persuade Dad. For that matter, Dad would have bought the ranch, just to help the family, and without any oil; it might have taken some arguing, but he would have done it! So Bunny comforted himself; but all the time he was thinking of that surgical operation going on down in the cabin, while he sat here letting Ruth think of him as a hero and a savior.

Dad had said, “What use could a poor feeble-minded old fellow like that make of oil money?” Dad would argue the same way about Ruth, Bunny knew: she was healthy and happy, sitting out there in the sun with her bare brown legs; it was the best thing in the world for her—far better than if her legs were covered with costly silk stockings. And that was all right; but then—some little imp was starting arguments in Bunny’s mind—why should other women have the silk stockings? There was Aunt Emma, at her dressing-table, with not only silk stockings, but corsets imported from Paris, and a whole drug-store full of fixings; why would it not be good for Aunt Emma to sit out here in the sun with bare brown legs and tend the goats?

VIII

There was Dad’s voice, calling Bunny; so he said good-bye, and ran down the arroyo. Dad was sitting in the car. “We’re a-goin’ in to Paradise,” he said. “But first, change them oil shoes.” Bunny did so, and put the shoes away in the back of the car. He hopped in, and they drove down the lane, and Dad remarked, with a cheerful smile, “Well, son, we own the ranch.”

Dad was amused by the game he had just played, and told Bunny about it, overlooking the possibility of complications in Bunny’s feelings. Dad had tactfully begun talking to Mr. and Mrs. Watkins about the family’s lack of bread, and that had started Mr. Watkins telling the whole situation. There was a sixteen hundred dollar mortgage against the ranch, with nearly three hundred dollars interest overdue, and they had got a final notice from the bank, that foreclosure proceedings would begin next week. So Dad had explained that he wanted a place for summer camping, where his boy could have an outdoor life, and he would buy the ranch at a fair price. Poor Mrs. Watkins began to cry—she had been born on this place, it seemed, it was her homestead. Dad said she didn’t need to worry, they might stay right on, and have all the farming rights of the place, he would lease it to them for ninety-nine years at ten dollars a year. The old man caught Dad’s hand; he had known the Lord would save them, he said. Dad decided that was a good lead, so he explained that the Lord had sent him, according to the revelation of the True Word; after which Mr. Watkins had done jist whatever the Lord had told Dad to tell him to do!

And J. Arnold Ross had put the affairs of that family in order, you bet—there would be no more nonsense of giving away their money to missionaries! The Lord had told Dad to tell Mr. Watkins that he was to use his money to feed and clothe and educate his children. The Lord had furthermore told him that the equity in his land was not to be paid in cash, but was to consist of certificates of deposit in a trust-company, which would pay them a small income, about fifteen dollars a month—a lot better than having to pay the bank nearly ten dollars a month interest on a mortgage! Moreover, the Lord had directed that this money was to be held in trust for the children; and Bunny’s friend Paul could thank Dad for having saved him a share. Mr. Watkins had said that one of his sons was a black sheep, and unworthy of the Lord’s care, but Dad had stated it as a revelation of the True Word that there was no sheep so black but that the Lord would wash it white in His own good time; and Mr. Watkins had joyfully accepted this revelation, and he and his wife had put their names to a contract of sale which Dad had drawn up. The purchase price was thirty-seven hundred dollars, which had been Mr. Watkins’ own figure—he had said that this hill land was worth five dollars an acre, and he figured his improvements at five hundred. They weren’t really worth that, they were a lot of ruins, Dad said, but he took the old man’s valuation of them. The contract provided that Mr. Watkins was to have water sufficient to irrigate two acres of land, which was jist about all he had under cultivation now; of course, Dad would give him more, if he could use it, but Dad wouldn’t take no chance of disputes about water-rights. In the morning Mr. and Mrs. Watkins would drive out to Paradise, and Dad would hire a four-passenger car there, and drive them to some other town, where they could put the matter into escrow without too much talk.

In the meantime, Dad was on his way to Paradise, to set the town’s one real estate agent to work buying more land for him. “Why don’t you send for Ben Skutt?” asked Bunny; but Dad answered that Ben was a rascal—he had caught him trying to collect a commission from the other party. And anyhow, a local man could do it better—Dad would buy him with an extra commission, let Bunny watch and see how it was worked. Fortunately, Dad had taken the precaution to bring along a cashier’s check for three thousand dollars. “I didn’t know jist how long we might camp,” he said, with his sly humor.

So they came to an office labelled, “J. H. Hardacre, Real Estate, Insurance and Loans.” Mr. Hardacre sat with his feet on his desk and a cigar in his mouth, waiting for his prey; he was a lean, hungry-looking spider, and was not fooled for an instant by Dad’s old khaki hunting-clothes—he knew that here was money, and he swung his feet to the floor and sat right up. Dad took a chair, and remarked on the weather, and asked about the earthquake, and finally said that he had a relative who wanted to live in the open for his health, and Dad had jist bought the Abel Watkins place, and he jist thought he’d like to raise goats on a bigger scale, and could he get some land adjoining? Mr. Hardacre answered right away, there was a pile of that hill-stuff to be had; there was the Bandy tract, right alongside—and Mr. Hardacre got out a big map and began to show Dad with his pencil, there was close to a thousand acres of that, but it was mostly back in the hills, and all rocks. Dad asked what it could be bought for, and Mr. Hardacre said all that hill-stuff was held at five or six dollars an acre. He began to show other tracts, and Dad said wait now, and he got a paper and pencil and began to jot down the names and the acreage and the price. Apparently everything around here could be bought—whenever the man failed to include any tract, Dad would ask “And what about that?” and Mr. Hardacre would say, “That’s the old Rascum tract—yes, I reckon that could be got.” And Dad said, “Let’s list them all,” and a queer look began to come over Mr. Hardacre’s face—it was dawning upon him that this was the great hour of his life.

“Now, Mr. Hardacre,” said Dad, “let’s you and me talk turkey. I want to buy some land, if it can be got reasonable. Of course as soon as people find you want it, they begin to boost the price; so let’s get that clear, I want it jist enough to pay a fair price, and I don’t want it no more than that, and if anybody starts a-boostin’ you jist tell ’em to forget it, and I’ll forget it, too. But all the land you can buy reasonable, you buy for me, and collect your commission from the seller in the regular way, and besides that, you’ll get a five percent commission from me. That means, I want you to be my man, and do everything you can to get me the land at the lowest prices. I don’t need to point out to you that my one idea is to buy quick and quiet, so people won’t have time to decide there’s a boom on. You get me?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hardacre. “But I’m not sure how quietly it can be done; this is a pretty small place, there’s lots of talk, and it takes time to put through a deal.”

“It won’t take no time at all if you jist handle it my way and use good sense. You don’t mention me, you do the buyin’ for an unknown client, and you buy options for cash—that means, if the people are hereabouts, you close the deals right off.”

“But that’ll take quite a bunch of money,” said Mr. Hardacre, a little frightened.

“I got a little change in my pocket,” said Dad, “and I brought a cashier’s check for three thousand, that I can turn into cash in the mornin’. You see, Mr. Hardacre, I happen to be jist crazy about quail shootin’, and I had the idea that if I found plenty of quail, I’d get a little land to shoot over. But get this clear, I can shoot quail on one hill jist as good as on the next—and I don’t let nobody mistake me for a quail!”

Dad took out of his card-case a letter from the president of a big bank in Angel City, advising whomever it might concern that Mr. James Ross was a man of large resources and the highest integrity. Dad had two such letters, as Bunny knew—one in the name of James Ross and the other in the name of J. Arnold Ross; the former was the one he used when he bought oil lands, and no one had ever yet got onto his identity in time!

Dad’s proposition was this: He would make a contract with Mr. Hardacre, whereby Mr. Hardacre was authorized to buy ten-day options upon a long list of tracts, of specified acreage and at specified prices, paying five percent upon the purchase price for each option, and Dad agreeing to take up all these options within three days, and to pay Mr. Hardacre five percent on all purchases. Mr. Hardacre, torn between anxiety and acquisitiveness, finally said he guessed he’d take a chance on it, and if Dad threw him down, it would be easy for him to go into bankruptcy! He sat at his rusty typewriter and made two copies of the agreement, with a long list of tracts that were to cost Dad something over sixty thousand dollars. They read that over twice, and Dad signed it, and Mr. Hardacre signed it with a rather shaky hand, and Dad said fine, and counted out ten one hundred dollar bills on the desk, and said for Mr. Hardacre to get to work right away. He would do well to have his options all ready for the other party to sign, and Dad thought he had some blanks in the car—he wasn’t jist sure, but he’d see. He went out, and Mr. Hardacre said to Bunny, quite casual and friendly-like, “What is your father’s business, little man?” And Bunny, smiling to himself, answered, “Oh, Dad’s in all kinds of business, he buys land, and lots of things.” “What other things?” And Bunny said, “Well, he has a general store, and then sometimes he buys machinery, and he lends money.” And then Dad came back; through a stroke of good fortune he happened to have a bunch of option blanks in his car—and Bunny smiled to himself again, for he never yet had seen the time when Dad did not happen to have exactly the right document, or the right tool, or the right grub, or the right antiseptic and surgical tape, stowed away somewhere in that car!

IX

They drove back to camp, and it was coming on to sunset again, and the quail were calling all over the hills. They passed the horseman bringing in the cattle, and he stopped and had a chat about the earthquake, and then he rode on, his saddle and stirrup-straps going “Squnch, squnch.” And Dad said, “We’ll maybe buy that fellow out before night, and you can ride his horse.” And they went on, and presently came another fellow, this time on foot. He was a young chap, tall and lanky, but stooped as if he had hold of plow-handles; he was wearing country clothes and a straw hat, and he strode rapidly by them, staring hard at both of them, barely nodding in answer to Dad’s friendly “Good evening.” Dad remarked, “Queer-looking chap, that,” and Bunny retained an impression of a face, very serious, with a large prominent nose, and a broad mouth drooping at the corners.

They went on, and came to their camp, and built a fire, and got themselves a gorgeous supper, with a panful of quail and bacon, and hot cocoa, and toast made of the bread which Meelie and Sadie had brought in, and some canned peaches which Bunny had bought. And after supper Bunny saw Ruth down by the goat-pen, and he strolled over to meet her; she gazed about timidly, to make certain no one else was near, and then she whispered, “Paul was here!”

Bunny started, amazed. “Paul?” And then suddenly the truth flashed over him. “That was Paul we passed on the road!” He described the figure to Ruth, and she said yes, that had been Paul; he had taken a “hitch-hike” to see her, as he had promised, and he had brought her fifteen dollars saved from his earnings. “I told him we didn’t have no need for it now; but he left it.”

Then Bunny cried: “Oh, why didn’t he stop and talk to Dad and me? He barely nodded to us!”

Ruth was evidently embarrassed; it was hard to get her to talk about Paul any more. But Bunny persisted, he was so anxious to know Paul, he said, and it seemed as if Paul didn’t like him. Only then was Ruth moved to tell him what Paul had said. “He was mad because Pap had sold the ranch. He says we hadn’t ought to done it.”

“But what else could you do?”

“He says we’d ought to sell the goats, and pay the bank, and raise strawberries, like some o’ the folks is doin’ here. We could git along and be independent—”

“Paul is so proud!” cried Bunny. “He’s so afraid of charity!”

“No, it ain’t exactly that,” said Ruth.

“What is it then?”

“Well—it ain’t very polite to talk about—” Ruth was embarrassed again.

“What is it, Ruth? I want to try to understand Paul.”

“Well, he says your Pap is a big oil man, and he says there’s oil on this ranch, and you know it, for he told you so.”

There was a silence.

“Is your Pap an oil man?”

Bunny forced himself to answer. “Dad’s a business man; he buys land, and all kinds of things. He has a general store, and he buys machinery, and lends money.” That was what Dad had ordered him to say, and it was strictly the truth, as we know; and yet Bunny considered himself a liar while he said it. He was misleading Ruth—gentle, innocent, trusting Ruth, with the wide, candid eyes and the kind, sweet features; Ruth, who was incapable of a hateful thought or a selfish impulse, whose whole life was to be one long immolation in the cause of the brother she loved! Oh, why did it happen that he had to practice deception upon Ruth?

They talked about Paul some more. He had sat up in the hills most of the afternoon and told his sister about himself. He was getting along all right, he said; he had got a job with an old lawyer who didn’t mind his having run away from home, but would help him to keep hidden. This lawyer was what was called a free-thinker—he said you had a right to believe whatever you chose, and Paul was his gardener and handy man, and the old lawyer gave him books to read, and Paul was getting educated. It sounded wonderful, and terrible at the same time—Paul had read a book about the Bible, that showed it was nothing but old Hebrew history and fairy-tales, and full of contradictions and bloody murders and fornications, and things that there was no sense calling God’s word. And Paul wanted Ruth to read it, and Ruth was in an agony of concern—but Bunny noticed it was Paul’s soul she was afraid for, and not her own!

Then Bunny went back to Dad, and told him that was Paul they had passed on the road; and Dad said “Indeed?” and repeated that he was a “queer looking chap.” Dad wasn’t interested, he had no slightest inkling of Bunny’s distress of soul; his thoughts were all on the great discovery, and the deals he was putting through. He lay on his back, with a pillow under his head, gazing up at the stars. “There’s one thing sure, son”—and there was laughter in his voice; “either you and me move up to front row seats in the oil-game, or else, by golly, we’ll be the goat and sheep kings of California!”

CHAPTER V
THE REVELATION

I

Bunny was going to school. Aunt Emma and Grandmother and Bertie had got their way by incessant nagging, and he was no longer to be a “little oil gnome,” and devote his time to learning to make money; he was going to be a boy like other boys, and have a good time, and wear athletic sweaters, and shout at football games, and be part of a great machine. Mr. Eaton had been spurred to a last suicidal effort, and had patched up the weak spots in the mental equipment of his charge, and Bunny had passed some examinations, and was a duly enrolled pupil in the Beach City High School.

This school occupied two blocks on the outskirts of town, and consisted of several buildings arranged on three sides of a Square; elaborate and ornate buildings, a great pride to the city, as well as a strain upon its purse. The school was free, and to it came the sons and daughters of that part of the population which did not have to go to work before the age of eighteen or twenty. This meant all the moderately well-to-do people; and the boys and girls, thus constituting an economic stratum, proceeded to arrange themselves in sub-strata upon the same principle. Their “secret societies” were forbidden by the teachers, but flourished none the less; the basis of admission being wealth and the pleasant things which wealth buys—well-nourished bodies, and fashionable clothing, and easy manners, and a playful attitude towards life.

The young people were collected into small herds, and rushed about from room to room, where culture was handed out to them in properly measured doses. It was an enormous education-factory, and the parents had paid for the best possible equipment, but by some process impossible to explain, it was gradually being taken away from the teachers, and turned over to the pupils. Every year the young people seemed to be less interested in work, and more absorbed in what were called “outside activities”—the athletic-field, the tennis and basket-ball courts, the big swimming pool and the dancing floor. The boys and girls were making for themselves a separate world, having its own standards, its own secret life. They wore pins and badges, and had pass-words and grips with esoteric significance; they had elaborate codes, having to do with the wearing of flowers, or the color of your neck-tie, or the ribbon on your hat, or the angle at which you affixed a postage stamp to an envelope.

It was a herd life, based in part upon money-prestige, like the life of the adults, and in part upon athletic prowess. It consisted in rushing about from one mass-event to another mass-event. You pitted the powers of your team against those of some other team, and the ability of your mob to shout louder than the other mob; you got together and rehearsed these shoutings, while the teams rehearsed the battles over which you were to shout. It was all practice for the later and more real glories of college and university, where the financially and athletically more powerful students would be taken up by the great fraternities, and would perform their social and athletic functions with skill and grace made perfect.

Bunny, as we know, possessed the requirements of a fraternity career; he had Anglo-Saxon features, and plenty of big sweaters, and drove to school in a car of that year’s model. He was taken up by an exclusive society, and was soon in demand for whatever was going on. He was enormously interested in everything; he had never imagined there were so many young people in the world before, and he wanted to know them all. He raced about with them from one thing to another, and watched with open eyes and listened with open ears to everything that came from either the teachers or the pupils. But all the time there was something which set him apart from the rest—something sober and old-fashioned and “queer.” It came, no doubt, from his knowing so much about the oil business; Bertie was right in her cruel remark that he had oil stains under his finger-nails. He would never share the idea of other darlings of luxury, that “money grows on trees;” he knew that it comes by hard and dangerous work. Also, Bunny had to meet the situation at home, which he understood quite clearly; his father wasn’t at all sure that high school was the best place for a boy, and was watching and listening all the time, to see what sort of ideas Bunny was getting. So the boy was always comparing the school’s kind of education with Dad’s kind, and which was really right?

Before starting out in his new career Bunny received what parents know as a “serious talk”; and that was curious and puzzling. First, Dad was going to give him a car, and there must be rules about it. He must give his word never to exceed the speed limit, whether in the city or outside; and that was certainly a curious case of the double standard of morals! But Dad met it frankly; he was mature, and could judge about speeds; moreover, he had important business for his excuse, but Bunny was to start for school early, and the rest of the time he would be driving for pleasure. He might take out others in his car, but he must never let anyone drive the car but himself; Dad had no money to run a free garage for a high school fraternity, and it would be convenient for Bunny to be able to say, once for all, that his father had laid down the law in that matter.

Furthermore, Dad wanted Bunny to promise him not to smoke tobacco or drink liquor until he was twenty-one. Here again was the “double standard,” and Dad was frank about it. He had learned to smoke, but wished he hadn’t; if Bunny wanted to acquire the habit, it was his right, but Dad thought he ought to wait until he was old enough to know what he was doing, and until he had got his full growth. And the same applied to liquor. Dad drank very little now, but there had been a time in his life when he had come close to becoming a drunkard, and so he was afraid of it, and Bunny’s being allowed to go to college—at least on Dad’s money—would have to be dependent upon his promising to avoid the drinking-bouts. Bunny said all right, sure; that was easy enough for him. He would have liked to ask more about Dad’s own story, but he did not quite like to. He had never seen Dad drunk; and it was a startling idea to contemplate.

Finally there was the matter of women; and here, apparently, Dad could not bring himself to be frank. Two things he said: first, Bunny was known to have a father with a pile of money, and this exposed him to one of the worst perils of young men. All kinds of women would be a-tryin’ to get a-hold of him, jist in order to get him to spend money on them, or to blackmail him; and Bunny would be disposed to trust women, so he must be warned about this. Dad told him dreadful stories about rich young men, and the women into whose hands they had fallen, and how it had wrecked their lives and brought shame upon their families. And then, there was the matter of disease; loose women were very apt to have diseases, and Dad told something about this, and about the quacks who prey upon ignorant and frightened boys. If one got into trouble of that sort, one must go to a first-class doctor.

And that was all Dad had to say. Bunny took it gratefully, but he wished there might have been more; he would have liked to ask his father many questions, but he could not bring himself to do it, in the face of his father’s evident shrinking. Dad’s manner and attitude seemed to say that there was something so inherently evil about sex that you jist couldn’t bring yourself to talk about it; it was a part of your life that you lived in the dark, and never dragged out into the light. Bunny’s idea was that his father’s discourse didn’t apply very much to himself. He knew there were dirty boys, but he was not one, and never expected to be.

The matter was made easier for Bunny by the fact that he very soon fell severely in love. There were such swarms of charming young feminine things in the school, it was simply not possible to escape them, especially when your possessions and social standing were such that so many of them set out after you! Some young misses were too bold in their advances, or too obviously coy, and repelled the shy lad; the one who secured him was very demure and still, so that his imagination could endow her with romantic qualities. Rosie Taintor was her name, and she had hair that made a tail half-way down her back, and was fluffy on her forehead, with golden glints; she was even more shy than Bunny, and had little conversation, but that was not necessary, for she had a great power of admiration, and had a phrase by which she expressed it: things were “wonderful”; they grew more and more “wonderful,” with soulful, mysterious whispers; the oil business was especially “wonderful,” and Rosie never tired of being told about it, which pleased Bunny, who had much to tell. Rosie’s father, and also her mother, were dentists, and this is not an especially romantic occupation, so naturally the child thought it thrilling to dash about the country as Bunny did, and direct armies of labor, and command vast treasures to flow out of the earth.

Bunny would take her for rides; and when they were out in the country, where it was safe, Bunny would drive with one hand, and the other hand would rest on Rosie’s, and truly “wonderful” were the thrills that would steal over both of them. They were content to ride that way for hours; or to get out and wander in the hills, and gather wild flowers, and sit and watch the sunset. Bunny was full of reverence, and when once or twice he dared so far as to place a kiss upon his adored one’s cheek, it was with almost religious awe. When the weather was not suitable for outdoor courtship, he would visit her home, where the mother and father had a hobby, the collecting of old English prints; these were framed on all the walls, and there were stacks of them you could look at, quaint eighteenth-century scenes of hunting gentlemen in red coats with packs of hounds, and red-cheeked barmaids serving pots of ale to topers with big pipes. Bunny would look at these for hours—for it took only one hand to turn them over. What is there that is not “wonderful,” when you are so young, and at the same time so good? It made Bunny walk on air, just to buy a new straw hat, and meet his chosen one upon the street, and anticipate her comments!

II

When Dad took his business trips now he took them alone; that is, unless he could arrange them for week-ends and holidays. He didn’t like going alone; and Bunny for his part, always had a part of his mind on Dad, and when Dad got back, he would hear all the details of how things were going.

There were six wells now at Lobos River, and they were all “paying big.” Dad had four more drilling, and had deepened eleven of his old Antelope wells, and had a pipe-line there, through which a river of wealth was flowing to him. On the Bankside lease he had six wells, all on production, and he had paid Mr. Bankside something over a million dollars of royalty, and had only got started, so he said. He had a good well on the next lease, the Ross-Wagstaff, and three more drilling, and out about half a mile to the north he was opening up new territory with the Ross-Armitage No. 1.

It was amazing to see what had happened to the Prospect Hill field. All over the top of the hill and the slopes a forest of oil-derricks had arisen, and had started marching across the fields of cabbages and sugar beets. Seeing them from the distance, in the haze of sunset, you could fancy an army of snails moving forth—the kind which have crests lifted high in the air. When you came near, you heard a roaring and a grumbling, as of Pluto’s realm; at night there was a scene of enchantment, a blur of white and golden lights, with jets of steam, and a glare of leaping flame where they were burning gas that came roaring out of the earth, and which they had no way to use.

Yes, when you drove past, sitting in a comfortable car, you might mistake it for fairyland. You had to remind yourself that an army of men were working here, working hard in twelve hour shifts, and in peril of life and limb. Also you had to remember the pulling and hauling, the intrigue and treachery, the ruin and blasted hopes; you had to hear Dad’s stories of what was happening to the little fellows, the thousands of investors who had come rushing to the field like moths to a candle-flame. Then your fairyland was turned into a slaughter-house, where the many were ground up into sausages for the breakfast of the few!

Dad had a big office now, with a manager and half a dozen clerks, and he sat there, like the captain of a battleship in his conning tower. Whatever might happen to the others, Dad took care of himself and his own. He had come to be known as the biggest independent operator in the field, and all sorts of people came to him with propositions; new, wonderful, glowing schemes—with Dad’s reputation for solidity, he could organize a ten or twenty million dollar company, and the investing public would flock to him. But Dad turned all such things down; he would wait, he told Bunny, until Bunny was grown up, and through with this here education business. They would have a pile of cash by that time and would do something sure enough big. And Bunny said all right, that suited him. He hoped the “something big” might be at Paradise, for then he would have a real share in it. Dad said, sure, the Watkins ranch was his discovery, and when they come to drill there, the well would be known as the Ross Junior.

They had made no move there; they were waiting, because of an unfortunate slip-up in the negotiations for the land. An unkind fate had willed that Mr. Bandy, owner of the big Bandy tract, had been away from home on the day that Mr. Hardacre had collected his options; and when Mr. Bandy got back, and learned about all the sudden purchases, he became suspicious, and decided that he would hold onto his land. At least, it amounted to that, for he raised his price from five dollars an acre to fifty! What made this especially bad, the Bandy tract lay right next to the Watkins section; it was over a thousand acres, and ran near to where Dad and Bunny had found the oil—in fact, Dad thought the streak of oil was on Mr. Bandy’s land, he couldn’t be sure without a survey. They would wait, Dad said, and let Mr. Bandy stay in pickle for a few years. It was like a cat watching a gopher hole, and which would get tired first. Bunny asked which was Mr. Bandy, the cat or the gopher; and Dad replied that if anybody ever mistook Jim Ross for a gopher, he would jist try to show them their mistake.

So they were waiting. Some day that mythical relative of Dad’s, who was an invalid, was coming into those rocky hills and tend a few thousand goats; and meantime most of the ranches were rented to the people who had formerly owned them. Three or four were vacant, but Dad didn’t worry about that; he would leave them to the quail, he said, and told Mr. Hardacre to put up a thousand “No Trespassing” signs over the whole twelve thousand acres he had bought, so as to impress Mr. Bandy with Dad’s gluttonous attitude toward small game.

III

The greater part of the civilized world had gone to war. The newspapers which Dad and Bunny read turned themselves into posters, with streamer-heads all the way across the page, telling every day of battles and campaigns in which thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands of men had lost their lives. To people in California, so peaceful and prosperous, this was a tale of “old, unhappy far-off things,” impossible to make real to yourself. America had officially declared neutrality; which meant that in the “current events” class, where Bunny learned what was going on in the world, the teacher was expected to deal with the war objectively, and to rebuke any child who expressed a partisanship offensive to any other child. To business men like Dad it meant that they would make money out of both sides; they would sell to the Allies direct, and they would sell to the Central powers by way of agents in Holland and Scandinavia, and they would raise a howl when the British tried to stop this by the blockade.

The price of “gas” of course began to mount immediately. It seemed to Bunny a rather dreadful thing that Dad’s millions should be multiplied out of the collective agony of the rest of the world; but Dad said that was rubbish, it wasn’t his fault that people in Europe insisted on fighting, and if they wanted things he had to sell, they would pay him the market price. When speculators came to him, showing how he, with his big supply of cash, could make a quick turn-over, buying shoes, or ships, or sealing-wax, or other articles of combat, Dad would reply that he knew one business, which was oil, and he had made his way in life by sticking to what he knew. When representatives of the warring powers invited him to sign contracts to deliver oil, he would answer that nothing gave him more pleasure than to sign such contracts; but they must change their European bonds into good American dollars, and pay him with these latter. He would offer to take them to the little roadside restaurant where they could see the sign: “We have an arrangement with our bank; the bank does not sell soup, and we do not cash checks.”

On the basis of his father’s reputation for unlimited resources and invincible integrity, Bunny had been chosen treasurer of the freshman football team, a position of grave responsibility, which entitled him to sit on the side-lines and help the cheer-leaders. While on the other side of the world men were staggering about in darkness and mud and snow, blind with fatigue, or with their eyes shot out, or their entrails dragging in the dirt, the sun would be shining in California, and Bunny would be facing a crowd of one or two thousand school children, lined up on benches and shrieking in unison: “Rah, rah, rah, slippery, slam!—wallibazoo, bazim, bazam! Beach City.” He would come home radiant, with barely enough voice left to tell the score; and Aunt Emma would sit beaming—he was being like other boys, and the Ross family was taking its position in society.

The Christmas holidays came; and Dad was working too hard, everybody declared; and Bunny said, “Let’s go after quail!” It wasn’t so hard to pull him loose now, for they had their own game-preserve—it sounded most magnificent, and it would obviously be a great waste not to use it. So they packed up their camping outfit, and drove to Paradise, and pitched their tent under the live oak tree; and there was the ranch, and the Watkins family, the same as before, except that the row of children was a couple of inches taller, and the girls each had a new dress to cover their growing brown legs. Things were a whole lot easier with the family, since they had an income of fifteen dollars a month from the bank, instead of an outgo of ten dollars.

Well, Dad and Bunny went after the quail, and got a bagful; and incidentally they examined the streak of oil, now grown dry and hard, and covered with sand and dust. They went back to camp and had a good feed, and then came Ruth, to get their soiled dishes; she was taking Eli’s place, she explained, because Eli had been called to attend Mrs. Puffer, that was ill with pains in her head. Eli had been doing a power of good with his healing, it had made a great stir, and people were coming from all over to have him lay hands on them. Bunny asked if Ruth had heard from Paul, and she answered that he had come to see her a couple of months ago, and was getting along all right.

She seemed a little shy, and Bunny thought it might be on account of Dad lying there listening, so he strolled back to the house with her, and on the way Ruth confided to him that Paul had brought her a book to read, to show her she didn’t have to believe the Bible if she didn’t want to; and Pap had caught her with that book, and he had took it away and threw it in the fire, and had whaled her good.

Bunny was horrified. “You mean he beat you?” And Ruth nodded; she meant that. “What did he use?” cried Bunny, and she answered that he had used a strap off’n the harness. “And did he hurt you?” She answered that he had hurt right smart, it had been a week afore she was able to sit down. She was a little surprised at his indignation, for it didn’t seem to her out of the way that a girl almost sixteen years old should be “whaled” by her Pap; he meant it for her good, he thought it was his duty to save her soul from hell-fire. And Bunny could see that Ruth wasn’t sure but her Pap might be right.

“What was the book?” he asked, and she told him it was called “The Age of Reason”; it was an old-time book, and maybe Bunny had heard of it. Bunny never had; but naturally, he resolved to find a copy, and read it, and tell Ruth all that was in it.

He went back to his father, and poured out his indignation; but Dad took much the same view of the matter as Ruth. Of course it was a shame for a child to be whipped for trying to get knowledge, but old Abel Watkins was the boss in his own family, and had the right to discipline his children. Dad said he had heard of the book; it was by a famous “infidel” named Tom Paine, who had had something to do with the American Revolution. Dad had never read the book, but it was easy to understand how Mr. Watkins had been outraged by it; if Paul was reading such things, he had surely traveled far.

Bunny couldn’t rest there; it was too horrible that Ruth should be beaten because she tried to use her mind. Bunny kept talking about it all afternoon, there ought to be a law to prevent such a thing. Dad said the law would only interfere in case the father had used unusual and cruel punishment. Bunny insisted that Dad ought to do something, and Dad laughed, and asked if Bunny wanted him to adopt Ruth. Bunny didn’t want that, but he thought Dad should use his influence with the old man. To this Dad answered, it would be foolish to try to reason with a crank like that, the more you argued the more set he would become; what influence Dad possessed, he had got by pretending to agree with the old man’s delusions.

But Bunny wouldn’t drop the subject—Dad could do something if he would, and he absolutely must. And so Dad thought for a bit, and then he said: “I’ll tell you, son; what you and me have got to do is to get a new religion.” Bunny knew this tone—his father was “kidding” him, and so he waited patiently. Yes, Dad said, they would have to elaborate the True Word; they must make it one of the cardinal points in this Word that girls were never to be beaten by men. There would have to be a special revelation, jist on that point, said Dad; and so Bunny began to take an interest. Dad asked him questions about Paul, what Paul believed, and what Paul had said about Ruth, and what Ruth had told him about herself. Bunny realized that Dad was going to try something, and he waited.

They shot some more quail, and came back and built a big camp-fire, and had a jolly supper, and then Dad said, “Now let’s go start that there religion.” So they strolled down to the cabin, Dad in deep thought, and Bunny on tiptoe with curiosity—for you never could tell what Dad would do when he was in a mood of mischief. In after years the boy used to look back upon this moment and marvel; what would their emotions have been, had they been able to foresee the consequences of their jest—a “revival” movement that was to shake the whole State of California, or at any rate the rural portion of it, and of several states adjoining!

IV

Well, old Mr. Watkins invited them cordially to come in; and Sadie and Meelie gave up their chairs and sat on a box or something in a corner of the room. It was the first time that Bunny had been inside the Watkins’ home, and it gave him a shuddering sense of poverty. It was bare boards inside, the same as out; there was a big, unpainted table, and six unpainted chairs, a few shelves with crockery, a few pans hanging on the wall, and a stove that rested on a stone where one leg was broken. That was everything, literally everything—save for a feeble kerosene lamp, which enabled you to see the rest. There were two other rooms to the cabin, one for the husband and wife, and the other for the three girls, who slept in one bed. Attached to the back of the house was a shed with two bunks against the wall, the top one occupied by Eli, and the other vacant, a reminder of the sheep that had strayed.

Eli was in the room, having come back from his expedition. Eli was now eighteen, and had attained the full stature of a man; also his voice was that of a man, except that now and then it cracked and went up in a way that would have been comical, if anybody that listened to Eli ever had a sense of fun. Just now he was telling his parents and wondering sisters how the Holy Spirit had blessed him again, the shivers had seized him, and old Mrs. Puffer had been instantly relieved of her pains. Mr. Watkins said “Amen!” three or four times, very loud, and then he turned to Dad, remarking, “The Lord blesses us in our children.” Dad said yes, that was true, possibly more true than they knew; he asked, had Mr. Watkins ever thought of the possibility that the Lord might send a new revelation into the world? And instantly you could see the family sit up, and fix their eyes upon Dad, the whole six of them, as rigid as so many statues. What did their visitor mean?

Dad explained: there had been two revelations so far, to be found in the old and the new testaments; why mightn’t it be that the Holy Spirit was preparing another? For a long time the followers of the True Word had awaited this fulfillment; the promise was in the Book, for anyone to read. This New Dispensation would supersede the others, and naturally would have to be different from the others, and the followers of the old message might fail to recognize it, jist like the previous case. Didn’t that seem reasonable? Dad asked; and Mr. Watkins answered promptly that it did, and for Dad to go on. So Dad said that this True Word was to be revealed through the minds of men, and would be a message of freedom; the Holy Spirit wanted us to seek boldly, and not be afraid; and presently out of the seeking of many minds the Truth would come—perhaps from some one who had been despised and rejected, that would become the corner stone of the new temple. Dad said all this with the deepest solemnity, and Bunny listened, not a little bewildered; he had never had any idea that Dad knew so much Bible-talk—as much as any preacher!

So it seemed to the Watkins family also. The old man drank in every word, and insisted that Dad should reveal to them all he knew. And Dad told them that they had one son, whose words had been reported to him, and seemed to him to bear the true spirit of the Third Revelation. Dad had met this son, and been struck by his appearance, for he looked jist like what followers of the True Word had been taught to expect—he was tall, and had fair hair and blue eyes, and his look was grave and his voice deep. So Dad believed that the bearer of this message of freedom, to which they were charged to listen, was their eldest son, Paul, whom they mistakenly had driven from among them.

Well, you should have seen the sensation in that family! Old Mr. Watkins sat with his jaw dropped down, as thunder-struck as if Dad had sprouted a pair of angel’s wings before his eyes. Mrs. Watkins’ thin face wore a look of utter rapture, and her two stringy hands were clasped together in front of her chin. As for Ruth, she seemed just about ready to slide off her chair and onto her knees. Everybody seemed to be pleased but one, and that was Eli. Eli was glaring at Dad, and suddenly he sprang from his chair, his face contorted; he shouted, and his voice cracked, and went up shrill and piercing: “Can he show the signs?” And as Dad delayed to answer, he shouted again, “I say, can he show the signs? Has he healen the sick? Has he casted out devils? Do the lame rise up and walk? Do the dying take up their beds? Tell me that! Tell me!”

Well, sir, it floored Dad; for Eli was the last person in the room from whom he would have expected an onslaught. Dad thought of Eli as a gawky farm yokel, who came, with no socks on, and pants that did not reach his shoe-tops, to bring the milk and take away the dirty dishes; but here was Eli, transformed into a prophet of the Lord, and blazing, after a fashion not unknown to prophets, with a white flame of jealousy! “I am him who the Holy Spirit has blessed! I am him who the Lord hath chosen to show the signs! Look at me, I say—look at me! Ain’t my hair fair and my eyes blue? Ain’t my face grave and my voice deep?”—and sure enough, Eli’s voice had gone down again, and Eli was a grown man, a seer of visions and pronouncer of dooms. “I say beware of he that cometh as a serpent creeping in the night, to tempt the souls of they that waver! I say, beware the spawns of Satan, that lure the soul with false doctrine, and blast away the Rock of Ages! I give the signs, that all men may know! I stand by the Four Square Gospel, that was good enough for my fathers and is good enough for me! Glory Hallelujah, and Salvation unto they that has washed their sins in the Blood of the Lamb! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

Eli flung up his hands with a mighty shriek, and old Mr. Watkins rose from his chair, and shouted “Glory! Glory!” And then a horrible thing began to happen, right there before your eyes; a kind of convulsion seized upon Eli, his eyes rolled up, and foam appeared at his lips, and a series of wriggles started at his shoulders and ran out at his finger tips; and his knees began to knock together, and his features to work in a kaleidescope of idiocy. He began to bellow, in an enormous voice, that you would never have dreamed could be contained in a body of his size; and what he said was—but you couldn’t reproduce it, because no one can recollect a jabber of syllables, and anyhow, it would look too silly on a printed page. But it had some kind of spell for old Mr. Watkins, it caused him to throw his two hands up into the air, and jerk his arms as if he were trying to jump up to heaven with them. “Let go! Let go!” he shrieked, and began to double up and straighten out again as if he had been shot through the middle; and old Mrs. Watkins:—poor frail little woman, made of nothing but bones and whipcord covered with skin—began to rock and sway in her chair, and the two little girls slid off onto the floor and wallowed on their stomachs, and Ruth sat white-faced and terrified, gazing at the two strangers, and from them to Eli, bellowing his jabber of syllables like a furious malediction at Dad.

And that was the end of it. Dad backed out, and Bunny with him, and the two of them crept away through the darkness to their camp; and all the way Dad whispered, “Jesus Christ!”

V

The next day was Sunday, or the Sabbath, as the Watkinses called it; and by the time Dad and Bunny had got their breakfast in the morning, the family had hitched up their one old horse to their one old wagon, and departed—the father and mother riding, and the four young people walking ahead, on their way to the weekly debauch at the Apostolic Church of Paradise.

That left Dad and Bunny to hunt quail, undisturbed by public opinion; and in the afternoon they got into their car, and rode about to make an inspection of the domain they had purchased, and to meet some of the neighbors, now their tenants. Dad had a map, showing the various tracts, and as they drove he was laying out roads and other improvements in his mind; some day this country would all be settled, he said—and the thing to begin with was a rock-crusher! There came riding along the fellow on horseback whom they had met the first time; they knew now that it was young Bandy, the son of their enemy, and they exchanged greetings—the cat and the gopher being polite!

They rode up into one of the arroyos where there was a vacant ranch, the Rascum place. They were surprised to find a charming little bungalow, with a good porch in front, completely buried under a bougainvillea vine, which would be a mass of purple blossoms in the spring. “Gee, Dad,” exclaimed Bunny, “this is where we ought to come and stay!” The other answered, there should be somebody to keep it up; there was a well here, and with a little fixing it would be quite a place. There was even a cat, and she looked contented; there were plenty of gophers, Dad said, and it was a good sign for victory over Mr. Bandy! They laughed together.

They followed the “slide” down to Roseville, and saw the old mission there, and had supper, and came round by way of Paradise in the evening; and on the outskirts of the town, just after turning off the highway, they came on a building, standing in a grove of trees, with lights shining in the windows, and a murmur of voices within. One voice rose above the others, a bellowing voice which needed no identifying. It was the “holy jumpers’ ” church, and Eli was preaching. “Oh, Dad,” exclaimed Bunny, “let’s hear him!” So they parked the car and got out, and stood in the shadow of the trees; and this is what they heard:

“—for the days of your trials is ended. Come unto me all ye that travels and is heavy ladened and I will refreshen you. For I am the bearer of the True Word! I bring the signs—the sick shall be healen, and the devils shall be casted out—the lame shall walk and the dying shall take up their beds! Brethren, I am sent for to announce unto you the Third Revelation! Once moreover the Holy Spirit disclothes Himself, the New Gospel is unfolded to you, according to the prophesies hitherto fore explained. There was an Old Dispensation, and it was outgrowed and supercedened, and now the New Testament is outgrowed and supercedened in the same way, and the True Word of freedom is handed unto you, and I am him that is sent to make it known. And woe unto they that doth not heed, for he shall be casted down into the bottomless pit, and it were better that a millstone was hanged about his neck and he was drowned in the sea. Woe unto he that cometh as a serpent creeping in the night, to tempt the souls of they that waver! I say, beware the spawns of Satan, that lure the soul with false doctrine, and blast away the Rock of Ages! I give the signs that all men may know; and he that follows me will I bless, and his pains shall be healen, and he shall see the glory of God and receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the talking in tongues! Glory Hallelujah, and Salvation unto they that has washed their sins in the Blood of the Lamb! Hallelujah!”

The bellowing voice of Eli was drowned in a chorus of acclamation, shouts and shrieks and groans, as if the whole congregation of the Apostolic Church of Paradise were jumping in their seats or rolling on the floor. As a matter of fact, it was but a little while before that very thing was happening; but Dad wouldn’t let Bunny go near to see it, it was too degrading, he said, and they got into their car and drove off. “Gee whiz, Dad!” exclaimed the boy. “Eli was saying every word that you taught him! Do you suppose he really believes it all?”

Dad answered that only the Holy Spirit could tell that. Eli was a lunatic, and a dangerous one, but a kind that you couldn’t put in an asylum, because he used the phrases of religion. He hadn’t wits enough to make up anything for himself, he had jist enough to see what could be done with the phrases Dad had given him; so now there was a new religion turned loose to plague the poor and ignorant, and the Almighty himself couldn’t stop it.

There came next day a man riding out from Paradise, bringing a telephone call for Dad; Ross-Armitage No. 1 was in trouble, and Dad was needed at once. Before they started for home Bunny managed to have a talk with Ruth, and told her a wonderful plan that had occurred to him: Dad said there ought to be some one to live on the Rascum place and keep it up, and Bunny suggested that Dad should buy some goats and stock the place, and rent it to Paul, and let Ruth go there to keep house for him; then Ruth could read all the books she pleased, and there would be nobody to beat her.

Ruth looked happy, but she said Paul would never do that, he wouldn’t take anybody’s charity. Bunny insisted that it wouldn’t be charity at all—Dad really wanted some one on the ranch, and he would make a business arrangement, Paul would work the place, and pay Dad part of the money. But Ruth sighed, and said anyhow, Pap would never let her go; he was more than ever set against Paul, on account of Eli, who was jealous of Paul, and of Paul’s claim to know things. Eli had always been that way, but now he was worse, because the city people had backed Paul, and so Pap didn’t even want her to talk with Bunny or his father, for fear she would lose her faith.

Ruth was just Bunny’s age, almost sixteen, and Bunny said it wouldn’t be but two years before she would be of age, and then she could go where she pleased, Dad said; she could join Paul, or she and Paul could run the Rascum ranch. Bunny told her not to be afraid, but to wait, and not bother with that fool jumping business; it was hateful nonsense, and it wouldn’t hurt her the least bit to think for herself, and use her common sense, and wait till she was grown up. Dad would be glad to help her get an education, and get free from Eli and his prophesying—for Ruth might be sure Dad didn’t like Eli any better than Eli liked Dad!

VI

Three months passed, and Dad brought in the Ross-Armitage No. 1, and made another big success, and proved up a lot of new territory, and was hailed again as a benefactor to the Prospect Hill field. But once more the doctor said he was overworking; it was time for the Easter holidays, and Bunny studied the maps, and brought Dad a proposition—the Blue Mountains were only ten miles from Paradise, and there was no end of trout fishing there, so why not make their headquarters at the Rascum ranch, and get some trout? Dad smiled; Bunny couldn’t keep away from Paradise! To which Bunny answered that Paradise was his discovery; and besides, he wanted to see how Ruth was getting along, and to hear about Paul, and about Eli and his Third Revelation.

Right on top of that came a letter from Mr. Hardacre, the agent, telling how the elder Mr. Bandy had gone out into a field and been attacked by a bull and was badly crippled; Mr. Hardacre didn’t believe that young Bandy wanted to work the ranch, but move to the city, so it might be possible to buy the place, if Mr. Ross still wanted it. Bunny was all on pins and needles at that, but Dad told him to keep his shirt on, that young gophers were a lot easier to catch than old ones; and he wrote Mr. Hardacre he wasn’t specially keen for the land, but he would take it at the same price as the rest; he was coming up fishing in a few days, and would see about it.

So then Dad wrote a letter to Mr. Watkins, asking him to be so good as to have one of the children go and clean the house at the Rascum ranch and get it ready for them. And Dad told Bunny to go with Aunt Emma to a furniture store in Beach City and get a little stuff, including crockery and kitchen things, and have them put it on a truck and run it out to Paradise; Bunny had better put in some canned food, too, everything they’d need, so the place could be ready when they got there. You can imagine what fun Bunny had with that commission; in his thoughts he was fitting out this house, not merely for Dad and him to camp in, but for Paul and Ruth to settle down and make a home!

When you happen to be the son of a successful oil operator, you can make your dreams come true. Dad and Bunny motored out, arriving just at sundown, and went directly to the Rascum place, and there, standing on the front-porch, with the bougainvillea vine now in full blossom, making a glorious purple arch above her head, was Ruth; and alongside her was a man—at a distance Bunny thought it was old Mr. Watkins, but then he saw it was a young man, and Bunny’s heart went up into his mouth. He looked at this big, powerful figure, clad in a blue shirt and khaki trousers held up by suspenders, and with a mop of yellowish touselled hair. Could it be—yes, Bunny could never mistake that sombre face, with prominent big nose and mouth drawn down at the corners; he whispered, excitedly, “It’s Paul!”

And so it was. The pair came forward, and Ruth introduced her brother to Dad, and Paul said, “Good evening, sir,” and waited to be sure that Dad wished to shake hands with him. Then Paul shook hands with Bunny—and it was a strange sensation to the latter, who had lost all at once the Paul he had been dreaming, the boy who might have been a good chum—and had got instead this grown man, who seemed ten years older than himself, and forever out of his reach.

“Did the furniture come?” asked Dad; and Ruth answered that it had, and everything was in order, they’d have had supper ready, if they’d been sure that Mr. Ross would arrive; they’d get it ready right off. Meantime Paul was helping Bunny carry in the bags, and oh, gee—there was the loveliest little bungalow you ever laid eyes on, everything spick and span, even to a pink paper shade over the lamp, and flowers on the center table! Evidently Ruth had put her heart into that job. She asked Dad very shyly what he’d like for supper, and Dad said everything in the place, and very soon the bacon was sizzling in the pan and making a nice friendly smell; and Paul, having emptied the car, stood waiting, and Bunny started in right away to find out all about him, and how he came to be here.

Paul explained that he had turned up yesterday, having come to see Ruth. He had had things out with his father this time; being nineteen now, he thought he was old enough to be allowed to take care of himself. Bunny asked if his father had “whaled” him, and Paul smiled and said his father wasn’t in condition to whale anybody, he was getting worse with rheumatism. He was as bitter and implacable as ever, but told Paul to go his own way to hell, and his father would pray for him. Bunny noticed right away that Paul no longer referred to his father as “Pap,” and that he no longer murdered the English language like the rest of the Watkins family; he talked like an educated man, as indeed he was.

Well, they had supper. Paul and Ruth expected to wait on the table, but Dad made them sit down, and they had a little party, the four of them, and it was great fun. Bunny bombarded Paul with questions about himself and his life; and incidentally told Paul how he had hunted for him that night at Mrs. Groarty’s, and why had he run away? They talked about Paul’s aunt, and the tragedy of her lease, and of the worthless “units” she had bought. Paul had learned from Ruth how Bunny had sent money to her, and Paul expressed his gratitude, and said he would pay it back; he still had that stubborn pride—he would never ask a favor, and he never thrust himself forward, but held back until he was called upon.

He told how he had lived, and how the old lawyer, his benefactor, had died just recently, and had left him a part of his library, all but the law books. It was a most wonderful treasure, a lot of scientific books, and the best old English literature. For nearly three years Paul had had the use of this library, and that had been his life, he had seldom missed an evening reading until after midnight; also he had studied a lot during the day, for he had really had very little work to do, Judge Minter had made a sort of pet of him—having no children of his own, and being stirred by the idea of a boy who wanted to educate himself. The Judge had had an old microscope, and Paul had worked with that, and had made up his mind to a career; he was going to spend a couple more years reading science, and then he would get a job in some laboratory, a janitor’s job, if necessary, and work his way up to do microscopic work.

The things that Paul had learned about! He had read Huxley and Spencer, and he talked about Galton and Weissmann and Lodge and Lankester, and a lot of names Bunny had never even heard of. Poor Bunny’s pitiful little high school knowledge shrank up to nothing; and how silly seemed football victories all of a sudden. Dad didn’t know about these matters either; he was a man well into his fifties, but he had never met a student of science before! It was interesting to see how quickly he took hold of these things. Paul told how investigators were trying to find out whether acquired characteristics could be transmitted by heredity; it was a most important question, and Weissmann had cut off the tails of mice, to see if the next generations would have tails. But Paul said that was silly, because there wasn’t any real change in a mouse when you cut off its tail, no vital quality; the thing to find out was, how long it took the tail to heal up when you cut it off, and whether the new generations of mice could heal up quicker.

Paul said the way to settle the question of inheritance of acquired characteristics was to stimulate the animals to develop some new faculty, and see if new generations would develop it more easily. Dad got the point at once, and said you might learn something by studying trotting horses and their pedigrees; to which Paul replied, exactly. Dad would like to know more about such questions; and Paul had a book with him, which Dad was welcome to read. Ruth was washing the dishes, and Paul went out to get some more wood, and Dad looked at Bunny and said, “That’s a fine young fellow, son”; and then Bunny felt a glow of pride, right up to the roots of his hair—because, you see, Paul was his discovery, just like the Paradise oil field, that was some day going to occupy this spot!

So then Dad settled down to talk business with Paul. Dad wanted some one to occupy this ranch, and Paul said he had thought it over, and would do it if they could make a fair arrangement. Dad asked how he could get along, and Paul said he had saved up three hundred dollars from his wages, and he would get a few goats, and put in some beans this spring, and some strawberries that would bring an income next year; he would pay Dad one-half whatever he got for the crops. They had an argument over that, for Dad thought he ought to pay Paul to act as caretaker, but Paul said he wouldn’t take it on that basis, he would insist on going shares, in the regular way they rented land in these parts. And when Mr. Ross came on hunting or fishing trips, Paul of course would move out into the tent. But Dad said no, he was planning to build himself a shack, a better place than this, and Paul might help the carpenter and earn wages if he wanted to. Paul said he could do the building himself, if Dad said so—everything but hanging the doors and windows; a fellow learned to do about all the jobs there were on a ranch. And Dad asked if Ruth would stay with Paul, and Paul said he would settle here in the house, and go easy, and Ruth would come to see him, until gradually their father got used to the idea. It wouldn’t be possible to keep Paul and Ruth apart—especially now since Eli was away from home nearly all the time.

So Dad asked about Eli, and the development of the Third Revelation. Only three or four days after Eli had made his announcement in the Paradise Church, there had come a deputation from the church at Roseville, saying that they had heard the fame of Eli’s miracles, and would he come and preach to them. And Eli preached, and the “signs” were manifested, and so the new prophet grew bolder. Now he was being driven about the country in somebody’s costly limousine, and in the back part of the car was a stack of the crutches of people who had been “healen.” These crutches would be set up in sight of each new congregation, and nearly always they were added to; and there fell over the head of the prophet a shower of silver dollars and half dollars, and coins, wrapped in banknotes, Eli had now given himself a title; he was the Messenger of the Second Coming, and the hour of Christ’s return to earth was to be made known through him. Sometimes whole congregations would be swept off their feet and converted to the True Word; or again, some would be converted, and there would be a split, and a new church in that place.

“How do you suppose he works it?” Dad asked.

“He really does cure people,” said Paul; “there are some about here you can talk to. I’ve been reading a book on suggestion; it seems that kind of thing has been going on for thousands of years.”

“Does he send any money home to his folks?” Dad asked.

And Paul smiled, rather grimly. “The money is sacred,” he said; “it belongs to the Holy Spirit, and Eli is His treasurer.”

VII

Next morning they set forth after trout; and on the way they stopped to see Mr. Hardacre. Before they went in, Dad cautioned Bunny, “Now don’t you say a word, and don’t make any faces. Jist let me handle this.” They entered, and Mr. Hardacre said that he had an offer from young Bandy, speaking for his father, to sell the ranch for twenty thousand dollars. Bunny’s heart leaped, and it was well that Dad had warned him, for he wanted to cry out, “Take it, Dad! Take it!” But he caught himself, and sat rigid, while Dad said, “Holy smoke, what does the fellow take us for?”

Mr. Hardacre explained, there was about twenty acres of good land on this tract; and Dad said all right, call that a hundred an acre, and the improvements, say four thousand, that meant young Bandy was trying to soak them fourteen dollars an acre for his thousand acres of rocks. He must think he had a sucker on his hook.

“To tell the truth, Mr. Ross,” said the agent, “he knows you’re an oil man, and he thinks you’re going to drill this tract.”

“All right,” said Dad. “You jist tell him to hunt round and find somebody to drill his own tract, and if he gets any oil, I’ll drill mine. Meantime, the land I got now will raise all the quail the law will let me shoot in a season.”

The end was that Dad said he would pay twelve thousand cash, and otherwise he’d forget it; and after they had got into the car and started the engine, Bunny whispered, “Gee whiz, Dad, aren’t you taking a chance?” But Dad said, “You let him stay in pickle a while. I got all the land I can drill right now.”

“But Dad, he might get some one else to drill it!”

“Don’t you worry! You want that land, because you got a hunch; but nobody else has got any hunches around here, and young Bandy’ll get tired after he’s tried a while. Let’s you and me go a-fishin’.”

So they went, and drew beautiful cold shiny trout out of a little mountain lake, and late in the evening they got back to the Rascum place, and Paul fried the fish, and the three of them had a gorgeous supper, and afterwards Dad smoked a cigar and asked Paul all sorts of questions about science. Dad said he wished he had-a got that kind of education when he was young, that was a sort of stuff worth knowing; why didn’t Bunny study biology and physics, instead of letting them fill his head up with Latin and poetry, and history business about old kings and their wars and their mistresses, that wasn’t a bit of use to nobody?

Next morning they said good-bye to Paul, and went back into the mountains, and spent most of the day getting fish; and then they set out for Beach City, and got in just about bed-time. Bunny went back to school, and his new duties as treasurer for the baseball team; and Dad set to work putting four more wells on the Armitage tract, and three on the Wagstaff tract. And meantime the nations of Europe had established for themselves two lines of death, extending all the way across the continent; and millions of men, as if under the spell of some monstrous enchantment, rushed to these lines to have their bodies blown to pieces and their life-blood poured out upon the ground. The newspapers told about battles that lasted for months, and the price of petroleum products continued to pile up fortunes for J. Arnold Ross.

Summer was here, and Bertie had plans for her brother. Bertie was now a young lady of eighteen, a brilliant, flashing creature—she picked out clothing shiny enough for a circus dancer. Her trim little legs were sheathed in the glossiest and most diaphanous silk, and her fancy, pointed shoes were without a scratch. If Bertie got a dress of purple or carmine or orange or green, why then, mysteriously, there were stockings and shoes, and a hat and gloves and even a hand-bag of the same shade; Dad said she would soon be having sport-cars to match. Dad was grimly humorous about the stacks of bills, and not a little puzzled by this splendid young butterfly he had helped to hatch out. Aunt Emma said the child was entitled to her “fling,” and so Dad paid the charges, but he stood as solid as Gibraltar against Bertie’s efforts to push him into her social maelstrom. By golly, no—he was scared to death of them high muckymucks, and especially the women, when they glared at him through their law-nets, or whatever they called them—he felt the size of a potato-bug. What could he say to people that didn’t know an under-reamer from a sucker-rod rotator?

This vulgar attitude had been taken up by Bunny, who thought it was “smart”—so his sister jeered. Of course a young lady of eighteen hardly condescends to be aware of the existence of a kid of sixteen; but there were younger brothers and sisters of Bertie’s rich friends, and she wanted Bunny to scrape the oil from underneath his finger-nails, and come into this fashionable world, and get a more worthwhile girl than Rosie Taintor. Bunny, always curious about new things, tried it for a while, and had to confess that these ineffable rich young persons didn’t interest him very much; he couldn’t see that they knew anything, or could do anything special. Their talk was all about one another, and they had so many cryptic allusions and so much home-made slang that it amounted almost to a new language. Bunny didn’t like any of them well enough to be interested in deciphering it, and he would rather put on his oil clothes and drive out to the wells that were drilling, and if there was no other job for a “roughneck,” he would help the cathead-men and the tool-dressers to scrape out the mass of sand and ground-up rock that came out with the mud, and that was forever choking the way to the sump-hole.

Meantime Bunny was thinking, and pretty soon he had a scheme. “Dad,” said he, “what about that cabin we were going to build at Paradise?”

“Well, what?” asked Dad.

“Paul writes that Ruth has come to stay with him. So next fall, when we want to go after quail, there won’t be any place for us. Let’s go up there now, and have a holiday, and build that cabin now.”

“But son, it’s hot as Flujins up there in summer!” Bunny didn’t know where or what “Flujins” might be; but he answered that Paul was standing it, and anyhow it was good for you to sweat, Dad was getting too heavy, and he could sit under the bougainvillea vine in a Palm Beach suit while Bunny did carpentry work with Paul, and it would be a change, and Bunny would call up Dr. Blakiston and have him order it. Whereupon Dad grinned, and said all right, and he might jist as well adopt that Watkins pair and be done with it.

So they went up to the Rascum ranch, taking their tent along—and Paul and Ruth insisted on giving up the house, and Ruth slept in the tent, and Paul made his bed in the empty hay-mow. Paul had hired a horse and plow, and had a flourishing vegetable garden and big patch of beans, and had set in strawberries which he was tending with a little hand cultivator; they had half a dozen goats, and plenty of milk, and some chickens which Ruth took care of.

And most amazing of all, Paul had got the books from Judge Minter’s library. Most of them were still in boxes, because there was no place for them; but Paul had made some shelves out of a packing-box, and there stood Huxley and Haeckel and Renan, and other writers absolutely fatal to the soul of any person who reads them. But “Pap” had given up, Ruth said, she had got too growed up all of a sudden, too big to be “whaled;” and besides, Pap’s rheumatix was terrible, and Eli couldn’t heal it. Dad said that when they were ordering the lumber for the cabin they would get some stuff for bookshelves, and Paul could build them during the winter. Dad and Paul had another argument, and Dad said this was his house, wasn’t it, and he sure had a right to put some bookshelves in it if he wanted them; Paul could lend him some books when he come up here, and jist help him get a bit of education, even now, as old as he was.

It was a happy family, and a fine place to be, because it took Dad’s mind off his wells, and his trouble with one of his best foremen, that had gone and got married to a fool flapper, and didn’t have his mind on his work no more. They got the lumber from the dealer at Roseville, and Paul was the “boss-carpenter,” and Bunny was the “jack-carpenter,” and Dad kind of fussed around until he got to perspiring too hard, and then he went and sat under the bougainvillea blossoms, and Ruth opened him a bottle of grape-juice, that was part of the fancy stuff he had brought in.

And then in the evening they would drive into Paradise and get the mail, and there came a little local paper that old Mr. Watkins took, and Bunny began to look it over, and gosh-amighty, look at this, Dad—a story on the front page, about the marvelous meeting that Eli had held at Santa Lucia, and how frenzied the worshipers had got, and Eli had made the announcement that he had been commissioned to build the Tabernacle of the Third Revelation, which was to be all of snow-white marble, with a frieze of gold, and was to occupy one entire block in Angel City, and be of exactly the dimensions which had been revealed to Eli in a dream. The dimensions were given, and Dad said they were bigger than any block that Eli would find in Angel City, but no doubt they’d find a way to get round that, and call it a new Revelation. The Roseville “Eagle”—that was the name of the paper—was boastful of Eli, who was “putting the San Elido valley on the map,” it said. The Apostolic Church of Paradise was to be rebuilt out of the “free will offerings” at Eli’s meetings; but the old structure would be preserved, so that pilgrims might come to visit the place where the True Word had been handed down.

And then came Mr. Hardacre, meeting them on the street. He said that young Bandy had got tired of his idea that Dad was going to drill; he wanted to take his parents to the city and be a business man, so the family would take Dad’s offer if it was still open. Dad said all right, to let him know, he’d come in any time, and they’d put it into escrow. Next day Mr. Hardacre drove out to the Rascum place, and said he’d taken the escrow officer out to the Bandy place, and old Mr. Bandy and his wife had signed the agreement to deliver the deed; and so Dad and Bunny got into their car, and drove to the bank, and Dad put up four thousand dollars, and signed a contract to pay eight thousand more when the title search was completed. Then, when they were out of the bank, he grinned and said, “All right, son, now you can drill your tract!”

Of course, Bunny wanted to go right to it—wanted Dad to telephone for his head foreman, and get a road contractor at work! But Dad said they’d finish the cabin first, and meantime he’d be thinking. So Bunny went back to work, nailing shingles on the roof, and he was happy as a youngster could be—except for one uncomfortable thought that was gnawing like a worm in his soul. How could he tell Paul and Ruth about their decision to drill, and would Paul and Ruth consider that Dad had got the Watkins ranch upon false pretences?

Fate was kind to Bunny. Something happened—you could never guess it in a thousand years! Only three days had passed since they put through the Bandy deal, and Dad was still thinking matters over, when Meelie Watkins came walking from her home—with a big blue sun-bonnet to protect her from the mid-day sun—and brought an amazing piece of news. Old Mr. Wrinkum, driving in from town, had stopped by, and told Pap that a big oil concern, the Excelsior Petroleum Company, had leased the Carter ranch, on the other side of the valley, about a mile west of Paradise, and was going to start drilling for oil! Meelie gave this news to Dad, who was sitting under the bougainvillea; and Dad shouted to Bunny and Paul, who were up laying the floor of the cabin. The two came running, and Ruth came running from her chicken-yard, and when they heard the news, Bunny cried, “Excelsior Pete! Why, Dad, that’s one of the Big Five!”

They stared at each other, and suddenly Dad clenched his hands and exclaimed, “By golly, them people don’t drill unless they know what they’re doin’. Bunny, I believe I’ll try a well here on our place, and see what we get!”

“Oh, Mr. Ross!” exclaimed Ruth. “You ought to do it—my Uncle Eby always used to say there was oil here!”

“Is that so?” said Dad. “Well, I’ll take a chance then, jist for fun.” And he looked at Bunny, with just the flicker of a smile. It told Bunny a lot, when he came to think it over; Dad had guessed that Bunny was worried, and exactly what was his dilemma with the Watkinses; and Dad had had the wit to save Bunny’s face, and avoid the need of confessing. Dear, kind old Dad, that was anxious to do everything for his boy—that would even do his lying for him! How could any boy refuse to be content with such a happy solution of his ethical problems?

CHAPTER VI
THE WILD-CAT

I

Dad had thought things over, and studied his bank account, and given his decision; they would drill the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1, and do it quick, and give the “Excelsior Pete” crowd a run for their money; there was no use letting the Big Five think they owned the whole oil industry. Dad would stick here and see things started; so he phoned for his geologist, and hunted up a contractor to figure over a well for water.

Mr. Banning, the geologist, came next day, and gave Bunny’s hopes a knock over the head at the very outset. He said Dad was right in his idea that you couldn’t count very much on that streak of oil on the top of the ground. You might come on oil-sands one or two hundred feet down, but they wouldn’t be likely to amount to much; if that was all you were looking for, you might bring in one of those little drilling-rigs on wheels such as they used back in Pennsylvania! But out here, said Mr. Banning, the real oil-sands lay deep, and you never knew what you’d find till you got there. But he liked the looks of the district, and thought it worth a chance; he spent a couple of days wandering over the hills with Dad and Bunny, studying the slope of the strata, and finally he and Dad chose the side of a hill on the Watkins ranch, not far from the place where Bunny had sat and talked with Ruth while she tended the goats.

The water-well man came, offering to drill a four-inch well for $2.12 a foot; and Dad signed a contract with him, on the basis of his making so many feet a day, and getting a bonus if he went above that, and paying a forfeit if he fell below it. After which Dad and Bunny drove over to pay a visit to Mr. Jeremiah Carey, a rancher near Roseville, who was chairman of the county board of supervisors, which had to do with the all-important question of road construction.

A great part of the road passed through Dad’s own property; and it had been Bunny’s naive idea that Dad would call in a contractor, and pay the price, as in the case of the water well. But Dad said no, that wasn’t the way you did with roads; it was a public road, running from Paradise to Roseville, down along the slide, and it would be graded and paved at public expense. To be sure, Dad would use this road more than anyone else, but also he would pay some of the taxes; all the people owning property along the slide would pay a share, and the new road would increase the value of their property.

All this Dad explained, first to Bunny, and then to Mr. Carey, a friendly old fellow who grew apricots and peaches on the slopes of a ridge overlooking the San Elido valley. Mr. Carey was evidently pleased to meet a famous oil operator, and he took them up to the house and made them sit comfortable in big porch chairs, and called to Mrs. Carey to bring some lemonade for Bunny. Dad produced his gold-foil cigars, and told the chairman of the county board of supervisors what a great thing it was going to mean for this whole section if oil developments came in; he told about the Bankside lease at Prospect Hill, and the million and more which he had paid to the Bankside family, and the palace on the beach front which Mr. Bankside was now occupying; you could see the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Carey open wider and wider, as Dad visioned this slope covered with a forest of oil-derricks. Absolutely, the whole thing depended upon one problem, that of roads. Manifestly, you couldn’t bring in derrick materials and drilling tools and heavy machinery over that sheep-track which they now had, and which had jist broken a spring on Dad’s new motor-car; nor could the county expect Dad to improve a public road at his own expense, in order to have the privilege of paying tens of thousands of dollars of new taxes into the county treasury. To all of which Mr. Carey agreed.

Dad went on to say that it was a question of time; if the county authorities were going to dilly-dally along, and keep him waiting—why then, he had plenty of other tracts he could drill, and he would keep this here Paradise place for a quail-preserve. Mr. Carey looked worried, and said he’d do his best, but of course Mr. Ross understood that public affairs didn’t move in a hurry, you had to issue bonds to pave a new road, and there would have to be a special election to vote them. Dad said that was what he had come to find out about; if that was the case, it was all off so far as he was concerned. Wasn’t there some way this work could be done at once, on the basis of its being repairs to an old road, instead of new paving? And Mr. Carey said of course, they had funds for repair work, he didn’t know just how much, he’d have to consult his associates on the board.

Mr. Carey got up and strolled down to the car with Dad and Bunny; and as they stood there chatting, Dad took out an envelope from his pocket, and said: “Mr. Carey, I’m asking a lot of your time, and it ain’t fair you should work for nothing. I hope you won’t take offense if I ask you to let me pay your gasoline and tire-cost while you’re running about a-seein’ to this.” Mr. Carey hesitated, and said he didn’t know whether that would be exactly proper or not; and Dad said it would be understood, it was jist for Mr. Carey’s time, it wouldn’t change his judgment as to what should be done; they would have other dealings, no doubt, and perhaps some day Dad would come wild-catting on Mr. Carey’s ranch. The other put the envelope into his pocket, and said Dad would hear from him soon.

Now Bunny had been taking a course in school which was called “civics,” and had learned all about how the government of his country was run. There had been many discussions in class, and among other things they had mentioned “corruption of public officials.” Bunny—of course without any hint that he had ever had personal knowledge of such a thing—had asked the lady teacher about the possibility of a business man’s paying a public official extra sums for his time and trouble in public matters; and the lady teacher had been shocked by such a suggestion, and had declared that it would be bribery without question. So now Bunny told Dad, and the latter explained. It was the difference between a theoretical and a practical view of a question. The lady-teacher had never had to drill an oil well, her business didn’t depend on moving heavy materials over a sheep-trail; all she did was jist to sit in a room and use high-soundin’ words, like “ideals” and “democracy” and “public service.” That was the trouble with this education business, the people that taught was people that never done things, and had no real knowledge of the world.

In this case it all came down to one question, did they want to drill the Watkins tract or not. Of course they might wait ten years, till in the course of the county’s development somebody else come in and did what Dad was now a-doin’—put skids under the public authorities, and “greased” the skids. In a great many cases the authorities were greedy, they went out on purpose to hold you up and make you pay; in other cases they was jist ignorant and indifferent; but anyhow, if you wanted things done you had to pay for them. Dad explained the difference between public and private business; in your own business, you were boss, and you drove ahead and pushed things through; but when you ran into public authorities, you saw graft and waste and inefficiency till it made you sick. And yet there was fools always rooting for public ownership; people who called themselves Socialists, and wanted to turn everything over to the government to run, and when they had their way, you’d have to fill out a dozen application blanks and await the action of a board of officials before you could buy a loaf of bread.

Dad said that Bunny would get a practical course in civics, that he could take back to his teacher; they wasn’t going to get their road, jist by paying a tip to one apricot-grower. And sure enough, they didn’t! A couple of days later Dad got Mr. Carey on the phone, and learned that he had interviewed the other board members, and feared there would be some opposition; the board came up for re-election this fall, and there had been a lot of grumbling over the waste of road funds, and nobody wanted to take on any more troubles. There was to be a meeting of the board next week, and meantime, if Dad had any influence, it would be a good time for him to use it. Dad repeated this to Bunny, and explained, he was supposed to call on the other board members and distribute some more envelopes. “But I’ll do it wholesale,” said Dad, “and I’ll do it quick—before the Excelsior Pete crowd wake up to what’s happening. That’s our only chance, I’ve an idea.”

So Dad strolled into the office of Mr. Hardacre, the real estate agent, and through the smoke of a gold-foil cigar he put to that knowing gentleman the problem of what people he, Mr. Hardacre, would call on, in case he wanted to get a road built in San Elido county. Mr. Hardacre laughed and said that first he’d go to see Jake Coffey, and after that he’d go home and rest. Further questions elicited the fact that Jake Coffey was a hay and feed dealer in the town of San Elido, the county seat; also, he was the Republican boss of the county. Dad said all right, thanks, and he and Bunny were soon in the car, and headed for San Elido at Dad’s customary speed. “Now, son,” said he, “you’ll finish your lesson in civics!”

II

Jacob Coffey, Hay, Feed and Grain, Lime, Cement and Plaster, sat in the private office behind his store, with his feet on a center table from which the remains of a poker game had not yet been cleaned. He was a hard-bitten individual with tight-shut mouth and other features to correspond; his skin was tanned to leather, and all his teeth were gold, so far as they showed. He got his feet off the table and stood up; and when he heard Dad’s name, he said: “I was rather expecting you’d call.” Dad said: “I only jist heard about you. I came at fifty miles an hour.” So they were friends, and Mr. Coffey accepted a gold-foil cigar instead of his half-chewed one, and they sat down to business.

“Mr. Coffey,” said Dad, “I am an independent oil man; what the Big Five call one of the ‘little fellers’—though not so little that I won’t show here in San Elido county. I’ve bought twelve thousand acres, and want to prospect for oil. If there’s any here, I’ll put a couple of hundred wells on the tract, and employ a thousand men, and pay a few million dollars in wages, and double real estate values for five or ten miles around. Now, Excelsior Pete is here; and of course they’ll fight to keep me or anyone else out. The thing I want to show you political fellers is that these big companies never put up the dough unless they have to, and it most all goes to the state machine, anyhow. Like everything else, they need a little competition to keep them softened up. Us independents pay more, and we make the big fellows pay more too. I assume I’m talking to a man who knows this game.”

“You may assume it,” said Mr. Coffey, drily. “Exactly what do you want?”

“For the present, jist one thing—a road to Paradise. It’s a case of no road, no drilling, and that’s no bluff, but a fact you can understand, because you haul heavy material yourself, and you may have tried to deliver over that there sheep-trail.”

“I have,” said Mr. Coffey.

“Well, then, no words needed. I want a road, and I want it without no red tape—I want the county to start work within the next ten days, and jist push the job right through, so that I can get in here and drill my well, now while I got a rig to spare. Maybe that’s never been done before, but it’s what I want, and I’ve come to ask what it’s worth. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” said Mr. Coffey, and his hard face yielded to a slight smile. It was evident that he liked Dad’s business methods.

He told his side of the case; and Bunny understood that he was bargaining, drawing a fancy picture of the tremendous difficulties involved. The county machine had been having a peck of trouble of late, some damned fool had stolen some money—a silly thing to take the county’s money, said Mr. Coffey, when you could make so much more in legitimate ways. Also there had been criticism of road contracts; they had a crank in this town that published a weekly paper, the “Watch-Dog,” and filled it with reckless charges. Well, the long and short of it was that to use the emergency repair funds of the county to build a road for an oil operator, would be bound to stir up a lot of fuss, and lose votes which the county machine needed. As Mr. Ross had said, the Excelsior Pete crowd, who already had a road to their tract, wouldn’t favor Dad’s road; they might furnish material for the crank’s weekly paper, and they might make a kick to the state committee, and make Mr. Coffey’s life a little hell.

Dad listened politely—as the process of bargaining required. He said that he appreciated all these troubles, and would expect to make up for them. In the first place, there would be the job of carrying the county supervisors into office. Would it seem a fair proposition if Dad were to contribute five thousand dollars to the war chest of the campaign committee? Mr. Coffey blew a big cloud of grey-blue tobacco-smoke into the air, and sat gazing fixedly at the figure 5 and three O’s written in these clouds.

“You understand,” Dad added; “that’s a party matter, and separate from any proposition I make to you personally.”

“Let’s have your whole idea,” said Mr. Coffey, quietly.

So Dad gave his “spiel” about believing in co-operation, and how he always got a little organization together wherever he worked, and stood by his friends and gave them a share of what he made. He told about his Ross-Bankside No. 1, and how he had formed a syndicate for that well, and, in order to make sure of getting his derrick material on the spot, he had let the president of a big lumber company have two percent of it—jist a little friendly service, and the well had earned so far nearly six hundred thousand dollars net profits, and the president of this company had made over twelve thousand, jist for his trouble in seeing that Dad always got his lumber the day he asked for it.

And now here was the same thing; if Dad could get a road, he would gamble on the Paradise tract, and Mr. Coffey might gamble with him. Dad offered to “carry” him to the amount of two percent of the well; the cost would run over a hundred thousand dollars, so Mr. Coffey would be getting a two thousand dollar investment, and if the well became a producer, he might get five or ten, or even thirty or forty thousand dollars; such things had happened many times, and were to be reckoned on. Of course, Dad would expect this to mean that he and Mr. Coffey would be friends; they would work together, and help each other with any little favors that might be needed.

And Mr. Coffey puffed several more clouds of smoke, and studied them, and said he felt friendly to Dad; but he thought it would be better if Dad would contribute two thousand dollars to the campaign fund, and carry five thousand for Mr. Coffey personally. And Dad, looking him in the eye, inquired, “Can you deliver the goods?” Mr. Coffey said yes, he could deliver them all right, Dad needn’t have any worries. So it was a bargain, and Dad took out his check-book and wrote out two thousand dollars to the order of the treasurer of the county campaign committee of the Republican party. Then he asked Mr. Coffey whether he held any public office, and the latter replied no, he was just a plain business man; so Dad said all right then, the agreement could be in Mr. Coffey’s name; and he wrote a memorandum to the effect that he had received the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations, in return for which Mr. Coffey was owner of five percent interest in the net profits of a well to be drilled on the Abel Watkins ranch near Paradise, to be known as the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1. But it was understood and agreed that the said well was not to be drilled until there was a good hard road completed from the main street of Paradise to the entrance of the Abel Watkins ranch, and if the said road were not completed within sixty days the said J. Arnold Ross was under no obligation to drill the said well, nor to return to the said Jacob Coffey the said one dollar and other good and valuable considerations. And Dad handed that to the said Jacob Coffey, and smiled, and remarked that he hoped it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the “Watch-Dog.” Mr. Coffey smiled, and laid his hand on Bunny’s shoulder, and said he hoped this young man wouldn’t make any mistake and talk about it; and Dad said that Bunny was learning the oil business, and the first lesson he had learned was never to talk about his father’s affairs.

So then they shook hands all round, and the two got into their car, and Bunny exclaimed, “But Dad, I thought you were a Democrat!” And Dad laughed and said that he wasn’t deciding the tariff on hyperchlorides, nor the independence of the Philippine Islands, he was jist gettin’ a road to the Watkins ranch. Bunny said, “There’s one thing I don’t understand; how can Mr. Coffey do all that, if he hasn’t any office?” To which Dad answered that the big fellows as a rule avoided holding office for that very reason, so they were free to do business. Mr. Carey could be sent to prison if it were proven that he had taken money from Dad, but nothing could be done to Coffey, he was jist the “boss.” The office-holder, said Dad, was either a poor devil who needed a fifth-rate salary, or else he was a man actuated by vanity, he liked to make speeches, and be applauded by the crowd, and see his picture in the papers. You would never see pictures of Jake Coffey in the papers, he done his work in his back office, and never in the lime-light.

Bunny, of course, remembered what he had been taught in the “civics” class, and asked if that was the way the business of government was always run. Dad said it was about the same everywhere, from the county up to the state, and on to the national government. It wasn’t really as bad as it seemed, it was jist a natural consequence of the inefficiency of great masses of people. It was all right to make spread-eagle speeches on “democracy,” but what was the fact? Who was the voters here in San Elido county? Why, the very boobs that Bunny had seen “jumping” and “rolling” and “talking in tongues” at Eli’s church; and could anybody pretend that these people could run a government? They were supposed to decide whether or not Dad should have a road and drill a well! It was a sure thing they couldn’t do it; and Jake Coffey was the feller that done the deciding for them—he provided that promptness and efficiency that business men had to have, and that couldn’t be got under our American system.

III

The water-well men got to work, and the telephone linemen; and Dad said it was time to figure on living quarters for their crew. They would get along with a bunk-house while they were prospecting; then, if they found oil, they’d put up nice cabins for the families of the men. Dad said to Paul that he was foolish to waste his time on beans and strawberries, which would keep him a pauper all his life; he had better turn carpenter and do this building job, and after that he could learn oil-drilling. Dad would have his boss-carpenter come and figure the materials for the bunk-house, and see to the foundations and the sills, and after that Paul could finish the job with carpenters he’d pick up in the neighborhood, and Dad would pay him five dollars a day, which was jist about five times what he’d get working this old ranch by himself.

Paul said all right, and they sat down one evening and made out the plans of the house. It was going to be real nice, Dad said, because this was Bunny’s well, and Bunny was turning into a little social reformer, and intended to feed his men on patty de far grar. Instead of having one long room with bunks, they’d have little individual cubby-holes, each with its separate window, and two bunks, one on top of the other, for the day man and the night man. There would be a couple of showers, and besides the dining-room and kitchen and store-room, a nice sitting-room, with a victrola and some magazines and books; that was Bunny’s own idea, he was a-goin’ to have a sure enough cultured oil-crew.

Dad and Bunny took a drive to Roseville, to get some furniture and stuff for their own cabin, which was now complete. Dad purchased a copy of the “Eagle,” fresh off the press, and he opened it, and burst into a roar of laughter. Bunny had never seen him do that in his life before, so he looked in a hurry, and there on the front page was a story about one Adonijah Prescott, a rancher who lived near the slide between Paradise and Roseville; some three months ago his wagon had been overturned and his collar-bone broken, and now he was filing suit against the county for fifteen thousand dollars damages; more than that, he was suing each and every member of the county board of supervisors, alleging neglect of their public duties in leaving the road in an unsafe condition! On the editorial page appeared a two-column discourse on the dreadful condition of the aforesaid road; there were mineral springs nearby, and it had been proposed to develop them, but the project had been dropped, because of lack of transportation; and now there were possibilities of oil, but these also were in danger, because of bad roads, which kept San Elido one of the most backward counties of the state. The “Eagle” stated that a public-spirited rancher, Mr. Joe Limacher, was circulating a petition for immediate repairs to the road along the slide, and it was to be hoped that all citizens and tax-payers would sign up.

Next day along came Mr. Limacher, in a rusty Ford, and asked Dad to sign! Dad looked very thoughtful, and said it would cost him a hell of a lot of taxes. The public-spirited Mr. Limacher—who was being paid three dollars a day by Jake Coffey—argued a while with Dad, and in the end Dad said all right, he didn’t want his neighbors to think him a cheapskate, so he’d sign along with the rest. Four days later came the news that the supervisors had held a special meeting and voted immediate repairs to the slide road; and two days after that came the grading gang, teams of big horses with heavy plows—you’d never have guessed there were so many in the county, there must have been a score of them on that two mile stretch. They tore up the ground, and men with crow-bars rolled the boulders out of the way, and more teams with scrapers slid the dirt this way and that, and pretty soon it began to look like a highway. And then, beginning at the Paradise end, came countless loads of crushed rock, in big motor-trucks which tilted up backwards and slid out their burden. There were machines to level this material, and great steam-rollers to roll it flat—gee, it was wonderful to see what Dad’s money could do!

They had ordered the lumber for the bunk-house, and got it in by small loads, and Paul was at work with half a dozen men from the neighborhood. He had engaged them himself, telephoning from Paradise; and if any of them felt humiliated at working under a nineteen year old boss, Dad’s twenty-two dollar check salved their feelings at twelve-thirty every Saturday. Even old Mr. Watkins, Paul’s father, was impressed by this sudden rise of his “black sheep,” and no longer said anything about hell-fire and brimstone. It was on his ranch, you understand, that all this activity was taking place; the carpenters’ hammers were thumping all day, and up near the head of the arroyo the artesian well was flowing, and a gang of men and horses were leveling a road up to the drilling site. It seemed to the Watkins family as if the whole county had suddenly moved to their ranch. It meant high prices, right on the spot, for everything good to eat they could raise. You could not help being impressed by so much activity, even though you knew it was the activity of Satan!

Best of all was the effect upon Ruth, who fairly shone with happiness over Paul’s success. Ruth kept house for Dad and Bunny, besides what she did for Paul and herself; but it seemed to agree with her, she filled out, and her cheeks grew rosy. She had money to buy shoes and stockings and clean dresses, and Bunny noticed all of a sudden that she was quite a pretty girl. She shared Bunny’s idea that his father was a great man, and she expressed her admiration by baking pies and puddings for him, regardless of the fact that he was trying to keep his weight down! The four of them had supper together every evening, after the day’s work was done, in the Rascum bungalow with the bougainvillea vine; and then they sat out under the vine in the moonlight and talked about what they had done, and what they were going to do, and the world was certainly an interesting place to be alive in!

IV

It was time for Bunny to go back to school; but first he had to pay his semi-annual visit to his mother.

Bunny had seen a notice in the paper, to the effect that Mrs. Andrew Wotherspoon Lang was suing for divorce on grounds of desertion. Now Mamma told him about it—her second husband had basely left her, two years after their marriage, and she had no idea where he was. She was a lonely and very sad woman, with tears in her eyes; Bunny could have no idea how hard it was, how every one tried to prey upon defenseless women. Presently, through the tears, Bunny became aware that his “pretty little Mamma” was tactfully hinting something; she would have to have a new name when she got the divorce, and she wanted to take back Dad’s name, and Bunny wasn’t quite sure whether that meant that she was to take Dad back along with his name. She asked how Dad was, and mustn’t he be lonely, and did he have any women friends? That bothered Bunny, who didn’t like to have people probing into his father’s relations with women—he wasn’t sure himself, and didn’t like to think about it. He said that Mamma would have to write to Dad, because Dad wouldn’t let him, Bunny, talk about these matters. So then some more tears ran down the pretty cheeks, and Mamma said that everybody shut her out, even her own daughter, Bertie, had refused to come and stay with her this time, and what did that mean? Bunny explained, as well as he could; his sister was selfish, he thought, and wrapped up in her worldly career; she was a young lady now, flying very high, with a fast set, and didn’t have time for any of her family.

But Bertie had found time recently for a talk with her brother; telling him that he was old enough now to know about their mother. Bertie had got the facts long ago from Aunt Emma, and now she passed them on, and many mysteries were solved for the boy, not merely about his mother, but about his father. Dad had married after he was forty, being then the keeper of a cross-roads store; he had married the village belle, who thought she was making a great conquest. But very soon she had got ideas beyond the village; she had tried to pry Dad loose, and finally had run away and left him, with a prosperous bond-salesman from Angel City, who had married her, but then got tired and left her.

Mamma’s leaving had done what all her arguments had failed to do—it had pried Dad loose. He had thought it over and realized—what everybody wanted was money, and he had lost out because he hadn’t made enough; well, he’d show them. And from that time Dad had shut his lips and set to work. Some of his associates in the village had proposed to drill for oil, and he had gone in with them, and they had made a success, and pretty soon Dad had branched out for himself.

Bunny thought that story over, and watched his father, and pieced things together. Yes, he understood now—that grim concentration, and watchfulness, and merciless driving; Dad was punishing Mrs. Andrew Wotherspoon Lang, showing her that he was just as good a man as any bond-salesman from the city! And Dad’s distrust of women, his idea that they were all trying to get your money away from you! And his centering of all his hopes upon Bunny, who was going to be happy, and to have all of his father’s virtues and none of his faults, and provide that meaning and justification which Dad couldn’t find in his own life! When Bunny thought of that, he would have a sudden access of affection, and put his arm across Dad’s shoulders, and say something about how his father was working too hard, and how Bunny must hurry and grow up and carry some of the load.

He ventured very timidly to broach the matter of his mother’s debts, and her plea that her income be increased; and so he got his father’s point of view about his mother. There was jist no use a-givin’ her money, Dad said; she was the type that never lives upon an income, but always has debts and is discontented. It wasn’t stinginess on Dad’s part, nor any wish to punish her; she had money enough to live like she had bargained to live when she married him, and that was his idea of justice. She had had nothing to do with his later success, and no claim upon its fruits. If she once found out that she could get money from Bunny, she would jist make his life miserable, and that was why Dad was so determined about it. The tradesmen could sue his mother, but they couldn’t collect anything, so in the end they’d learn not to give her credit, and that would be the best thing for her. It was a painful subject, but the time had come when Bunny must understand it, and learn that women who tried to get your money away from you would even go so far as to marry you!

Bunny didn’t say so, but he thought Dad was a little too pessimistic about one-half the human race. Bunny knew there were women who weren’t like that, for he had found one—Rosie Taintor, who had been his sweetheart now for a year or more. Rosie always tried to keep him from spending money on her, saying that she didn’t have any money, and it wasn’t fair; she would ride in his car, but that was all. She was so gentle and good—and Bunny was very unhappy about what was happening to their love-affair. But his efforts to deny the truth to himself had been futile—he was beginning to be bored by it! They had looked at the eighteenth-century English prints until they knew them by heart; and Rosie’s comment on everything was still the same—“wonderful!” Bunny had gone on to new things, and he wanted new comments, and could not help wanting them, no matter how cruel it seemed. Therefore he did not take Rosie driving so often, and once or twice he took some other girl to a dance. And little Rosie was gentle and demure as ever, she did not even cry, at least not in his presence; Bunny was deeply touched, but like all male creatures, he found it an immense convenience when old loves consent to die painlessly, and without making a fuss! Without realizing it, he got ready to fall in love with some new girl.

V

The new road was done, and the bunk-house was done, and occupied; Dad’s boss-carpenter had gone up there, and Paul was working with him on the derrick. Then came the fleet of motor-trucks, with the drilling tools, and they were rigging up, and Paul was helping with that. Bunny was in school, and missing all the fun, but Dad got a report almost every day from his foreman, and passed it on to Bunny at supper-time. They were behind in their race with Excelsior Pete, which had already spudded in, having had the advantage of a road from the start; but Dad said not to worry, it would be a long way to the bottom of those wells.

Bunny’s great hour came; it happened to be a Friday, and he begged off from school—it wasn’t often that a boy had such an excuse, that he had a “wild-cat” named after him, and had to go to press a lever and start the drilling machinery! They set out early in the morning, and arrived in mid-afternoon; and rolling over that new road, hard and smooth and grey, how proud they felt! They came to the Watkins arroyo, and the new road leading into it—their own private road, so marked! There was no one at the Watkins place, everyone had gone up to the well; you could see a crowd gathered about the derrick—the nice new shiny derrick of yellow pine, built on a little shelf, half-way up the slope—the Ross Junior-Paradise Number One!

They drove up, and the foreman welcomed them; everything was ready, the last bolt tight, and full steam up—they could have started a couple of hours ago. Bunny looked about; there was Paul among the other workmen, keeping himself in the background. And Ruth—she was with her family; Bunny went up to them, he was glad to see them all, even old Mr. Watkins, in spite of the jumping and the rolling and the rheumatix and other troubles. The whole neighborhood was there, and Bunny knew many of them by name, and spoke to them, whether he knew them or not; they all liked this eager lad—the young prince who had a well named after him. Some of them in their secret hearts were “sore,” because they had sold their land so cheap, and if they had held on, they too might have become rich and famous; but nothing of that showed now, this was a great hour, a ceremony about which they would talk for many a day.

Dad looked things over, and asked a few questions, and was about to say, “Go,” when he noticed another car coming up the road. It was a big shiny limousine, and it rolled up fast, and the crowd parted, and it stopped, and from it descended—gee whiz, could you believe your eyes?—a young man, tall and rather gawky, stoop-shouldered, sun-tanned, with pale blue eyes and a mop of corn-colored hair; Eli Watkins, Prophet of the Third Revelation, transfigured and glorified in a stiff white collar and black tie and black broadcloth suit, ill-fitting but expensive, and with a manner cut to the same pattern, that peculiar blend of humble pride which the divine profession generates. He was followed by an elderly rich gentleman, who assisted from the car two ladies with costumes, as you might say the feminine gender of Eli’s; they were some of the prophet’s new converts, or those whom he had “healen.” The neighbors stared respectfully, and for a minute or two the well was forgotten, the spiritual power took precedence over the temporal.

Dad came forward, and shook hands with the prophet; bye-gones were to be bye-gones, and all disharmonies forgotten in this great hour. Bunny was amazed by what happened, for he had never known Dad to make a speech unless he was made to. But there was a whimsical streak in J. Arnold Ross, which bubbled up once in a while, and caused these queer turns of events. Dad faced the crowd, and clearing his throat, said: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are drilling this here well on the ranch where Mr. Eli Watkins was born, so perhaps he would like to say jist a few words to you on this occasion.” There was a round of hand-clapping, and Eli colored, and was obviously very much flattered; he took a step or two forwards, and folded his hands in front of him in the fashion of a blessing, and lifted his head, and half closed his eyes, and the booming voice rolled out:

“Brethren and sisters: Upon these hills have I tendened my father’s herds, like the prophets of old, and have harkened unto the voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking to me in the storms and the thunders. Brethren and sisters, the Lord unfoldens Himself in many ways, and gives precious gifts to His children. The treasures of the yearth are His, and when in His Mercy they are handened unto mankind, it is His Will that they be used in His service and unto His Glory. The things of the body are subjected unto the things of the spirit; and if in God’s wisdom it should happen that this well should bring forth treasure, may it be used in the service of the Most Highest, and may His Blessings rest upon all they that own or labor for it. Amen.”

There was a chorus from the audience, “Amen!” And so there you were, a regular consecration! All the lies that Dad had told to the Watkins family and to others, the bribes that he had paid to Messrs. Carey and Coffey—all these were abrogated, nullified, and remitted, and the Ross Junior-Paradise No. 1 was from that time forth a sanctified well. And so Dad turned and looked at Bunny, who was standing by the engine with the lever in his hand. “All right, son!” And Bunny moved the lever, and the engine gave a thump, and the chain gave a pull, and the gears gave a rattle, and the rotary-table gave a turn, and down underneath the derrick-floor you heard that exciting sound which the oil men report as “Spud!”

VI

At less than two hundred feet they struck the sands which accounted for Bunny’s “earthquake oil;” there proved to be two feet of them, and Dad said it would give them enough oil to run their own car for a year! They were going deeper, still with an eighteen-inch bit, through hard sandstone formation; they were working in an open hole, with no casing, because the ground was so firm. Paul was working as a general utility man, mainly carpentry. “Dad, we’re going to make Paul our manager some day,” Bunny had said; but Paul had smiled and said that he was going to be a scientist, and he wouldn’t fool himself with the idea that the jobs at the top were easy—he’d not exchange his eight hour job for Dad’s eighteen hour job. This was a subtle kind of flattery, and gave Dad a tremendously high opinion of Paul!

Thanksgiving Day was coming; and Bunny’s soul was torn in half. It was a great occasion at the school, the annual football battle with a rival institution known as “Polly High,” located in Angel City. And what was Bunny, a real boy or an oil gnome? He fought it out within himself, and announced his decision, to the dismay of Rosie Taintor and of Aunt Emma—he was going to Paradise with Dad! It was the quail season, and Dad needed a change, the boy told his aunt; but the sharp old lady said he could fool himself, but he couldn’t fool her.

They didn’t have to take any camping things now, for they had their cabin on the Rascum place, with a telephone and everything comfortable. There was an extension phone in the bungalow, and all they had to do was to call up Ruth, and there would be a jolly fire in the cabin, and a supper on the table at the bungalow, with all kinds of home-made good things, the eating of which would make it necessary for Dad to walk miles and miles over the hills next day! First, of course, they would stop at the well, and inspect things, and have a talk with the foreman. There were traces of oil again, and Dad had told them to take a core, and he asked Mr. Banning to come up next day and study it with him.

They came in sight of the derrick. The drill-stem was out of the hole, they could see the mass of “stands” setting in place. When they got nearer, they saw that the crew had a cable down in the hole; and when Dave Murgins, the foreman, saw them, he came out to the car, and it was plain that something was wrong. “We’ve had an accident, Mr. Ross.”

“What’s the matter?”

“There’s a man fell in the hole.”

“Oh, my God!” cried Dad. “Who?” And Bunny’s heart was in his throat, for of course his first thought was Paul.

“A roughneck,” said the foreman. “Fellow by the name of Joe Gundha. You don’t know him.”

“How did that happen?”

“Nobody knows. We was changing the bit, and this fellow went down into the cellar for some reason—he had no business there that we know of. Nobody thought about him for a while.”

“You sure he went down?”

“We been fishing with a hook, and we got a bit of his shirt.”

Bunny was white about the lips. “Oh, Dad, will he be alive?”

“How long has he been down?”

“We’ve been fishing half an hour,” said Murgins.

“And you haven’t heard a sound?”

“Not one.”

“Well then, he’s drowned in the mud. How far down is he?”

“About fifty feet. The mud sinks that far when we take out the drill-stem. He must have went down head first, or he’d have been able to keep his head above the mud and make a noise.”

“My God! My God!” exclaimed Dad. “It makes me want to quit this business! What can you do to help men that won’t help themselves?”

Bunny had heard that cry a thousand times before. They had a cover for the hole, and any man who went down into the cellar was supposed to slip it into place. Of necessity the dirt caved in about the edges, so that the top of the hole was a kind of funnel, its edges slippery with mud, and in this case with traces of oil; yet men would take chances, sliding around on the edge of that yawning pit! What could you do for them?

“Has he got any family?” asked Dad.

“He told Paul Watkins he’d got a wife and some children in Oklahoma; he worked in the oil fields there.”

Dad sat motionless, staring in front of him; and nobody said a word. They knew he really was interested in his men, taking care of them was a matter of personal pride to him. Bunny had turned sort of sick inside; gee, what a shame—in his well, of all places, his first one, that was to start off the new field! It was all spoiled for him; he wouldn’t be able to enjoy his oil if he got it!

“Well,” said Dad, at last, “what are you doin’? Jigglin’ a hook up and down in there? You’ll never get him up that way. You’ll have to put down a three-pronged grab.”

“I thought that would tear him so—” explained Dave Murgins, hesitatingly.

“I know,” said Dad; “but you’ve got it to do. It ain’t as if he might have any life in him. Bend the prongs so they fit the hole, and force them past the body. Go ahead and get it over with, and let’s hope it’ll teach the rest of you something.”

Dad got out of the car, and told Bunny to take their things down to the Rascum place, and break the news to Ruth; she’d be upset, especially if she knew the fellow. Bunny understood that Dad didn’t want him around when that torn body came out of the hole; and since he couldn’t do any good, he turned the car in silence, and drove away. In his mind he saw the men screwing the “grab” onto the drill-stem—a tool which was built to go over obstacles that fell into the hole, and to catch hold of them with sharp hooks. They might get Joe Gundha by the legs and they might get him by the face—ugh, the less you thought about a thing like that, the better for your enjoyment of the oil-game!

Dad came to the cabin after a couple of hours, and lay down for a while to rest. They had got the body out, he said, and had telephoned for the coroner; he would swear in several of the men as a jury, and hear the testimony of others, and look at the body, and then give a burial permit. Paul had been to the dead man’s bunk and looked over his things, and put them all into a box to be shipped to his wife; Dad had in his pocket half a dozen letters that had been found among the things, and because he didn’t want Bunny to think that money came easy, or that life was all play, he gave him these letters, and Bunny sat off in a corner and read them: pitiful little messages, scrawled in a childish hand, telling how the doctor said that Susie’s heart would be weak for a long time after the flu, and the baby was getting two more teeth and was awful cross, and Aunt Mary had just been in to see her, and said that Willie was in Chicago and doing good; there were cross-marks and circles that were kisses from mamma, and from Susie and from the baby. One sentence there was to cheer up Dad and Bunny: “I am glad you got such a good boss.”

Well, it made a melancholy Thanksgiving evening for them; they ate a little of the feast which Ruth had prepared, but without real enjoyment. They talked about accidents, and Dad told of something which had happened in the first well he had drilled—they were down only thirty feet, when a baby had crawled down into the cellar and slid into the hole. It had taken a couple of able-bodied men to hold the mother back, while the rest of them tried to get the child out. They fished for it with a big hook on the end of a rope, and got the hook under the baby’s body and lifted it gently a few feet, but then the body got wedged somehow, and they were helpless. The child had hung there, not screaming, just making a low, moaning sound all the time, “U-u-u-” like that, never stopping; they could hear it plainly. They started twenty feet from the well and dug a shaft, big enough for two men to work in, breaking the ground with crow-bars, scraping it into buckets with big hoes, and the men on top hauling the buckets out with ropes. When they got below the baby, they ran in sideways, and got the baby out all right. The hook had sunk into the flesh of the thigh, but without breaking the skin; the bruise had healed, and in a few days the child was all right.

A strange thing was life! If Bunny had stayed home that day, he’d have taken Rosie Taintor to the football game, and at the moment when poor Joe Gundha had plunged to his doom, Bunny would have been yelling his head off over a few yards gained by his team. And now, in the evening, he’d have been at a dance; yes, Bertie actually was at a dance, at the home of one of her fashionable friends, or at some fancy hotel where they were giving a party. Bunny could see, in his mind’s eye, her gleaming shoulders and bosom, her dress of soft shimmering stuff, her bright cheeks and vivid face; she would be sipping champagne, or gliding about the room in the arms of Ashleigh Mathews, the young fellow she was in love with just now. Aunt Emma would be all dressed up, playing at a card-party; and grandmother was painting a picture of a young lord, or duke, or somebody, in short pants and silk stockings, kissing the hand of his lady love!

Yes, life was strange—and cruel. You lived in the little narrow circle of your own consciousness, and, as people said, what you didn’t know didn’t hurt you. Your Thanksgiving dinner was spoiled, because one poor laborer had slid down into a well which you happened to own; but dozens and perhaps hundreds of men had been hurt in other wells all over the country, and that didn’t trouble you a bit. For that matter, think of all the men who were dying over there in Europe! All the way from Flanders to Switzerland the armies were hiding in trenches, bombarding each other day and night, and thousands were being mangled just as horribly as by a grab in the bottom of a well; but you hadn’t intended to let that spoil your Thanksgiving dinner, not a bit! Those men didn’t mean as much to you as the quail you were going to kill the next day!

Well, the coroner came, and they buried the body of Joe Gundha, on a hill-top a little way back out of sight, and with a wooden cross to mark the spot. It was a job for Mr. Shrubbs, the preacher at Eli’s church; and Eli came along, and old Mr. Watkins and his wife, and other old ladies and gentlemen of the church who liked to go to funerals. It was curious—Dad seemed glad to have them come and tell him what to do; they knew, and he didn’t! Obviously, it didn’t really do the poor devil any good to preach and pray over his mangled corpse; but at least it was something, and there were people who came and did it, and all you had to do was jist to stand bare-headed in the sun for a while, and hand the preacher a ten-dollar bill afterwards. Yes, that was the procedure—in death, as in life; you wanted something done, and there was a person whose business it was to do that thing, and you paid him. To Bunny it seemed a natural phenomenon—and all the same, whether it was Mr. Shrubbs, who prayed over your dead roughneck, or the man at the filling station who supplied the gas and oil and water and air for your car, or the public officials who supplied the road over which you drove the car.

Dad had sent a telegram to Mrs. Gundha, telling her the sad news, and adding that he was sending a check for a hundred dollars to cover her immediate expenses. Now Dad wrote a letter, explaining what they had done, and how they were sending her dead husband’s things in a box by express. Dad carried insurance to cover his liability for accidents, and Mrs. Gundha would be paid by the insurance company; she must present her claim to the industrial accident commission. They would probably allow her five thousand dollars, and Dad hoped she would invest the money in government bonds, and not let anybody swindle her, with oil stocks or other get rich quick schemes.

So that was that; and Dad said they might jist as well go quail-shooting, and forget what they couldn’t help. And Bunny said all right; but in truth he didn’t enjoy the sport, because in his mind somehow the quail had got themselves mixed up with Joe Gundha and the soldiers in France, and he couldn’t get any fun out of mangled bodies.

VII

Christmas was coming; and Bunny had his program all laid out. He was going to take Dad to the Christmas Day football game, and next morning they would leave for Paradise, and stay there until it was time to go back for the New Year’s Day football game. The well was going fine; they were down over two thousand feet, in soft shale, and having no trouble. Then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, Bunny came home from school, and Aunt Emma said, “Your father just phoned; he’s got some news about Excelsior Peter.” That was a joke they had in the family—“Excelsior Peter;” Aunt Emma had guessed that “Pete” was a nick-name, and she would be real lady-like and use the full name! So, of course, they teased the life out of her.

“What is it?” cried Bunny.

“They’ve struck oil.”

“At Paradise?” Bunny rushed to the phone, in great excitement. Yes, Dad said, Dave Murgins had jist phoned down; “Excelsior-Carter No. 1,” as the well was called, had been in oil-sands for several days, and had managed to keep it secret. Now they were cementing off, something you couldn’t hide.

Bunny jumped into the car and rushed down to the office. Everybody was excited; the afternoon papers had the news, and some of Dad’s oil friends dropped in to talk about it. It meant a new field, of course; there would be a rush to Paradise. Dad was the lucky one—to think he had got twelve thousand acres up there, owned them outright! How had it happened? Dad said it wasn’t his doings; he had spent a hundred thousand dollars jist to amuse his boy, to get him interested in the business, and perhaps teach him a lesson. But now, by golly, it looked as if the boy had done the teaching! Mr. Bankside, who had got to be quite an oil man now, and was drilling a well of his own, said that he always hoped his sons would lose when they started gambling, so they’d not get the habit; Dad said yes, but he’d risk Bunny’s soul this once, there was too much money at stake!

After that, of course, Bunny was on pins and needles to get to Paradise; he wanted to quit school, but Dad said no. Bunny decided he didn’t care about that old Christmas Day football game; what did Dad think? To which Dad answered that he’d managed to get along to the age of fifty-nine without ever seeing a football game! So Bunny said he’d write and tell Ruth, they’d run up on Christmas eve, starting after school, and have dinner late, in regular society style. It would be hard for Ruth to believe that fashionable people in the cities ate their dinner at eight or nine o’clock at night!

Meantime, the bit was grinding away in the well; they were down to 2300 feet, and it was known that Excelsior-Carter No. 1 had struck the sands at 2437 feet. Bunny was so much excited that he would run to the phone in between classes at school, and call up his father’s secretary at the office, to ask if there was any news. And so, three days before Christmas, he got the magic word; Dad was on the phone, and said that Bunny’s well was in oil-sands. It was too early yet to say any more, they were taking a core, that was all. As soon as he got free from class, Bunny went flying over to the office, and there he listened to a conversation—Dad had put in a long distance call, and was talking to the man from whom he got his machinery. He was ordering a patent casing-head, the biggest made, to be shipped to the well; it was to be put on a truck and start tonight. And then Dad was talking to Murgins again, telling him at what hour the casing-head was due, and they must set to work and break out the drill-stem, and put that casing-head on tight, with lugs on the side, and jist bury it with cement, not less than fifty tons, Dad said; they were away off from everything, out there at Paradise, and if they was to have a blow-out, it would be the very devil.

Well, they got their core, eight feet of it, and it was high gravity oil—a fortune waiting for them, down underneath those rocky hills, where the feet of goats and sheep had trod for so many years! Dad ordered his “tankage,” and then he ordered more. Then they learned that the casing-head had arrived; it was screwed on, and the “lugs” were on, and when the cement had set, all the gas under Mount Vesuvius couldn’t lift that there load, said Dad. They started drilling again, and took another core, and found the oil heavier yet. So finally Dad gave way, and said it was too important, he guessed Bunny would have to beg off a day in school. Dad gave orders to “wash” the well, and he called up the cement-man, and arranged for the big truck to set out for Paradise; Dad would meet them there, and they would do the job the day before Christmas, and if they got their shut-off, they’d celebrate with the biggest turkey in that famous turkey-raising country. So, early the next morning, Dad and Bunny chucked their suit-cases into the car, and set out to break the speed records to Paradise. Three hours later they stopped to telephone, and the foreman said they were “washing;” also that the Excelsior Pete well had got a water shut-off, and had drilled through the cement, and was going down into the oil-sands, the final stage of making a well.

They got to San Elido; and Dad said, “We’ll jist stop and shake hands with Jake Coffey.” They drove up to the store, and Bunny jumped out, and there was a clerk and he said, “Jake’s gone up to Paradise to see the well. Have you heard the news? Excelsior Pete has got a gusher, there’s oil all over the place!” Bunny ran out and shouted to Dad, and leaped into the car, and gosh-amighty, the way they did burn up that road across the desert! Dad laughed, and said the speed-cops would all be up at the well.

They got to Paradise, and the town was deserted, not a soul on the streets, and not a car, except those that were hurrying through, like the Rosses. A burglar could have made off with the whole place—but any burglar would have been watching the gusher, along with the speed-cops! You had to park your car a quarter of a mile away from the well, and you could hear the gusher roaring like Niagara Falls! And then, walking, you came round a turn in the road, and you could see the valley, and everything in sight was black; there was a high wind blowing, and it was a regular thunder cloud, a curtain of black mist as far as you could see. The derrick was hidden altogether—you had to make a detour, behind a little ridge, and come over the top to windward, and there the crowds were gathered, staring at the great black jet that came rushing up out of the ground, a couple of hundred feet into the air, with a sound like an endless express train going by. You could see men working, or trying to work, under the derrick; you could see a bunch of them with picks and shovels, throwing up a sort of dam to hold the oil; they wouldn’t save much, Dad said, it evaporated too fast.

Dad could watch this scene philosophically; it wasn’t his “funeral.” If it had been one of the independents, like himself, he’d have offered to help; but this was a dirty crowd, Excelsior Pete, they didn’t think the little fellows had any business on earth, there was nothing too mean for them to do. Of course, it was a shame to see all that treasure going to waste; but you couldn’t be sentimental when you were playing the oil-game. What you had to watch out for was that the wind didn’t shift suddenly and ruin your good suit of clothes!

VIII

They watched for a while, and then they remembered they had a well of their own, and drove back to Paradise, and across the valley to the Watkins ranch. They had a long talk with the foreman; Dad examined the core, and the report of the chemist who had tested the oil; he saw that the “washing” was going all right, they would be ready for the cementing off in the morning. Everybody was on tiptoe; they were going to do their job better than the “Excelsior Pete” crowd, and not smear all the landscape with crude petroleum. The tankage was at the railroad depot, and they inspected the foundations, just completed for the tanks.

Everything “hunkydory,” said Dad. They drove over to the Rascum place and saw Ruth, and Bunny got on his hunting-clothes, and got a few quail before sundown; and then they had supper, and Paul told them all the gossip about the well, also how much money Eli had collected for his temple. After supper they went back to the well—they just couldn’t keep away! It was a crisp cold evening, a new moon in the sky, a big white star just over it—everything so beautiful, and Bunny so happy, he owned a “wild-cat,” and it was “coming in,” it was going to yield him a treasure that would make all the old-time fairy-tales and Arabian Nights adventures seem childish things. They were lifting the “water-string” now—a process necessary to cementing off; the casing at the bottom had to be raised, so that the cement could be forced under. It was difficult, for the casing was wedged, and they had to put down a tool known as a “jar,” which struck heavy blows and shook the casing loose. Standing on the derrick platform, Bunny listened to these blows, far down in the earth; and then suddenly came a sound, the like of which had never assailed his ears in all his life, a sound that was literally a blow on the side of his head; it seemed as if the whole inside of the earth suddenly blew out. That tremendous casing-head, with its mass of cement, which Dad had said would hold down Mt. Vesuvius, went suddenly up into the air; straight up, with the big fourteen inch casing following it, right through the top of the derrick, smashing the crown block and tackle as if these had been made of sugar candy!

Of course Bunny turned and ran for his life, everybody scattered in every direction. Bunny looked once or twice as he ran, and saw the casing-head and a long string of casing up in the air, for all the world like a Dutchman’s pipe, only it was straight. When this pipe-stem got too long, it broke off, and crashed over sideways, taking part of the derrick with it; and out of the hole there shot a geyser of water, and then oil, black floods of it, with that familiar roaring sound—an express train shooting out of the ground! Bunny gave a yell or two, and he saw Dad waving his arms, and presumably calling; he started toward his father—when suddenly, most dreadful thing of all, the whole mass of oil up in the air burst into flame!

They were never to know what did it; perhaps an electric spark, or the fire in the boiler, or a spark made by falling wreckage, or rocks blown out of the hole, striking on steel; anyhow, there was a tower of flame, and the most amazing spectacle—the burning oil would hit the ground, and bounce up, and explode, and leap again and fall again, and great red masses of flame would unfold, and burst, and yield black masses of smoke, and these in turn red. Mountains of smoke rose to the sky, and mountains of flame came seething down to the earth; every jet that struck the ground turned into a volcano, and rose again, higher than before; the whole mass, boiling and bursting, became a river of fire, a lava flood that went streaming down the valley, turning everything it touched into flame, then swallowing it up and hiding the flames in a cloud of smoke. The force of gravity took it down the valley, and the force of the wind swept it over the hill-side; it touched the bunk-house, and swallowed it in one gulp; it took the tool-house, everything that was wood; and when there came a puff of wind, driving the stream of oil and gas to one side, you saw the skeleton of the derrick, draped with fire!

Bunny saw his father, and ran to join him. Dad was rallying the men; was anybody hurt? He got the crew together, one by one; they were all there, thank God! He told Paul to run down to the ranch-house and get his family up into the hills; he told Bunny to go with him, and keep away from the fire—a long way, you never could tell in which direction it would explode. So Bunny went flying down the arroyo at Paul’s heels; they found the family down on their knees, praying, the two girls hysterical. They got them up, and told them where to go; never mind their few belongings, cried Bunny, Dad would pay for them. Paul shouted to see to the goats, and they ran to the pen, but they weren’t needed; the panic-stricken creatures flung themselves against the side of the pen and broke through, and away they went down the arroyo; they would take care of themselves!

Bunny started back; and on the way, here came Dad in his car. He was going after dynamite, he called to them; they were to keep away from the fire meantime; and off he went in the darkness. It was one time in his life that Bunny knew his father to be caught without something he needed; he hadn’t thought to carry any dynamite around with him on his drives!

Of course Bunny had heard about oil fires, which are the terror of the industry. He knew of the devices ordinarily used to extinguish them. Water was of no use—quite the contrary, the heat would dissolve the water into its constituents, and you would merely be feeding oxygen to the flames. You must have live steam in enormous quantities, and for that you needed many boilers, and they had only one here, this fire would go on burning all the while they were fetching more; Bunny had heard of a fire that burned for ten days, until they made a great conical hood of steel to slide over the well, with an opening in the top through which the flames rushed out, and into which was poured the live steam. And meantime all the pressure would be wasted, and millions of dollars worth of money burned up! Bunny realized that, as a desperate alternative, Dad was going to try to plug up the hole by a dynamite blast, even at the risk of ruining the well.

The two boys skirted the slopes, and got back to the well, on the windward side, away from the flames. There they found the crew engaged in digging a shaft, as close to the fire as they could get; Bunny understood that it was in preparation for the dynamite. They had set up a barrier against the heat, a couple of those steel troughs in which they mixed cement; upon this they had a hose playing, the water turning to steam as it hit. A man would run into the searing heat, and chop a few strokes with a pick, or throw out a few shovelfuls of dirt, and then he would flee, and another man would run in. Dave Murgins was working the hose, lying flat on the ground with some wet canvas over his head. Fortunately, they had pressure from the artesian well, for their pump was out of commission, along with everything else. Dave shouted his orders, and the hole got deeper and deeper. Paul ran in to help, and Bunny wanted to, but Dave shouted him back, and so he had to stand and watch his “wild-cat” burning up, and all he could do was to bake his face a little!

They got down below the surface of the ground, and after that it was easier; but the man who worked in that hole was risking his life—suppose the wind were to shift, even for a few seconds, and blow that mass of boiling oil over him! But the wind held strong and steady, and the men jumped into the hole and dug, and the dirt flew out in showers. Presently they were tunneling in towards the well—they would go as close as they dared, before they set the dynamite.

And suddenly Bunny thought of his father, coming with the stuff; he wouldn’t be able to drive up the road, he’d have to come round by the rocky hill-side, carrying that dangerous load in the darkness. Bunny went running, as fast as he dared, to help.

There were cars down on the road; many people had seen the glare of the fire, and come to the scene. Bunny inquired for his father; and at last there came a car with much tooting, and there was Dad, and another man whom Bunny did not know. They drove as far up as they dared—the Watkins house had been long ago swallowed by the flames. They stopped and got out, and Dad told Bunny to take the car back to a safe place, and not come near him or the other man with the dynamite; they would make their way to the well, very carefully. Bunny heard Dad telling the other man to go slow, they’d not risk their lives jist to save a few barrels of oil.

When Bunny got back to the well again, Dad and the man were already there, and the crew was setting the dynamite. They had some kind of electric battery to explode it with, and presently they were ready, and everybody stood back, and the strange man pushed down a handle, and there was a roar and a burst of flame from the shaft, and the geyser of oil that was rushing out of the well was snubbed off in an instant—just as if you stopped a garden hose by pinching it! The tower of oil dropped; it leaped and exploded a few times more, and that was the end. The river of fire was still flowing down the arroyo, and would take a long time to burn itself out; but the main part of the show was over.

And nobody was hurt—that is, nobody but Bunny, who stood by the edge of the red glare, gazing at the stump of his beautiful oil-derrick, and the charred foundations of his home-made bunk-house, and all the wreckage of his hopes. If the boy had been a little younger, there would have been tears in his eyes. Dad came up to him and saw his face, and guessed the truth, and began to laugh. “What’s the matter, son? Don’t you realize that you’ve got your oil?”

Strange as it may seem, that idea came to Bunny for the first time! He stared at his father, with such a startled expression that the latter put his arm about the boy and gave him a hug. “Cheer up, son! This here is nothin’, this is a joke. You’re a millionaire ten times over.”

“Gosh!” said Bunny. “That’s really true, isn’t it!”

“True?” echoed Dad. “Why, boy, we got an ocean of oil down underneath here; and it’s all ours—not a soul can get near it but us! Are you a-frettin’ about this measly little well?”

“But Dad, we worked so hard over it!”

Dad laughed again. “Forget it, son! We’ll open it up again, or drill a new one in a jiffy. This was jist a little Christmas bonfire, to celebrate our bustin’ in among the big fellers!”

CHAPTER VII
THE STRIKE

I

A year had passed, and you would hardly have known the town of Paradise. The road was paved, all the way up from the valley, and lined with placards big and little, oil lands for sale or lease, and shacks and tents in which the selling and leasing was done. Presently you saw derricks—one right alongside Eli’s new church, and another by that holier of holies, the First National Bank. Somebody would buy a lot and build a house and move in, and the following week they would sell the house, and the purchaser would move it away, and start an oil-derrick. A great many never got any farther than the derrick—for subdividers of real estate had made the discovery that all the advertising in the world was not equal to the presence of one such structure on the tract. You counted eleven as you drove to the west side of the valley, where the Excelsior gusher had spouted forth; and from the top of the ridge, you could count fifty, belonging to a score of different companies. Going east, there were a dozen more before you reached the Ross tract, and now some one was prospecting on the far side of this tract, along the slide to Roseville, where the Mineral Springs Hotel was being built.

The little Watkins arroyo was the site of a village. You counted fourteen derricks here and there on the slopes, and big tanks down below, and tool-houses and sheds, and an office. Dad had built the new home of the Watkins family near the entrance to the place; they had sold their goats, and they now irrigated a tract and raised strawberries and garden truck and chickens and eggs for the company mess. In addition to that, they had a little stand by the roadside, and Mrs. Watkins and the girls baked pies and cakes and other goodies, which disappeared down the throats of oil workers with incredible rapidity, assisted by “soft drinks” of vivid hues. But you couldn’t buy any “smokes” at the stand, these being contrary to the Third Revelation, and obtainable at the rival stand across the road.

The new bunk-house stood a little way back, under the shelter of some eucalyptus trees. It had six shower-baths, which were generously patronized, but to Bunny’s great sorrow you seldom saw anybody in the reading-room, despite the pretty curtains which Ruth had made; the high-brow magazines were rarely smudged by the fingers of oil workers. Bunny tried to find out why, and Paul told him it was because the men had to work too long hours; Paul himself, as a carpenter, had an eight hour day, and found time for reading; but the oil workers were on two shifts, twelve hours each, and they worked every day in the year, both Sundays and holidays. When you had put in that much time handling heavy tools, you wanted nothing but to get your supper and lie down and snore. This was a problem which Dad was too busy to solve just now.

Paul was boss-carpenter, having charge of all the building operations; quite a responsibility for a fellow not quite of age. So far they had completed forty shacks for the workers’ families, costing about six hundred dollars each, and renting for thirty dollars a month, with water, gas and electric light free. No one knew exactly what these latter services cost, so Bunny could not determine whether the price was fair or not, and neither could the oil workers; but Dad said they were glad to get the houses, which was the business man’s way of determining fairness.

But there was one point upon which Bunny had interfered with energy; he didn’t see why everything about the oil industry had to be so ugly, and certainly something ought to be done about these shacks. He asked Ruth about it, and they drove to a nursery in San Elido, and without saying anything to Dad, incurred a bill for a hundred young acacia trees, each in a tin can, and two hundred climbing roses, each with its roots tied up in a gunny sack. So now at every shack there was a young tree with a stake beside it, and all along the road there were frames made of gas pipe, with a rose vine getting ready to climb. It was Ruth’s duty once a month to pull one of the laborers off his job and make him soak the trees and the vines, and next day cultivate them and dig away the grass and weeds. For this service Ruth was compelled to receive a salary of ten dollars a month, and bore the imposing title of “Superintendent of Horticultural Operations.” Bunny would inspect the growing plants, and sit in his reading-room, and persuade himself that he had made a start as a social reformer, resolving the disharmonies between capital and labor, about which he was being taught in the “social ethics” class in school.

Bunny was now almost eighteen, slender, but well built, and something of a runner. He was brown as ever, and his hair was still wavy, and his lips red and pretty like a girl’s; he was merry on the surface, but serious underneath, trying most conscientiously to prepare for the task of administering some millions of dollars of capital, and directing the lives of some thousands of workingmen. If the people who wrote books about these matters, and taught them in school, had any useful suggestions, Bunny wanted to get them; so he listened, and read what he was told to read, and then he would come home and ask Dad about it, and when he visited the field, he would ask Paul. The teachers and the textbooks said there was no real disharmony between capital and labor; both were necessary to industry, they were partners, and must learn to get along together. And Dad said that was all right, only, like everything else, it was theory, and didn’t always work out. Dad said that the workingmen were ignorant, and wanted things the industry couldn’t afford to give; it was from this the quarrels grew. But Dad didn’t know what to do about it, and apparently wasn’t trying to find out; he was always too busy getting some new tract developed; and Bunny couldn’t very well complain—having got Dad into this latest pile of work!

It seemed a shame, when you came to realize it. This ranch had been a place where Dad could come to rest and shoot quail; but now that they had struck oil, it was the last place in the world where he could rest. There were new wells to be planned and drilled, and pipe-lines to be run, and oil to be marketed, and financing to be seen to, and houses and roads, and a gas-plant, and more water—there was something new every day. The books showed that nearly three million dollars had gone into the place so far, and now Dad was talking about the absolute necessity of having his own refinery; his mind was full of a thousand technical details along this line. There was a group of men—really big capitalists—who wanted to go in with him, and turn this into one of the monster oil fields, with a company capitalized at sixty million dollars; there would be a “tank-farm,” and several distilleries, and a chain of distributing stations. Should Dad follow this course, or should he save the business for Bunny? The boy would have to decide pretty soon, did he want to shoulder an enormous burden like this, or to let other people carry it for him? Did he want to study all kinds of things, like Paul, or did he want to buckle down to the oil-game, and give his attention to the process of cracking distillation, and the use of dephlegmators in connection with tower stills?

II

Bunny’s speculations upon the problem of capital and labor were not destined to remain academic. Spending his Christmas holidays at Paradise, he found Paul looking very serious, and asking what would be Dad’s attitude towards the matter of unions in this field. There was an organizer for the carpenters here, and Paul had talked with him, and decided that it was his duty to join. Some of the men had joined secretly, but Paul wouldn’t have any concealment in his relations with Mr. Ross. Bunny answered that his father didn’t think much of unions, but he certainly wouldn’t object to Paul’s joining, if Paul thought it was right; anyhow they’d talk it out. So that evening they had a session, which wasn’t quite the same as a class at high school.

Dad believed in organization; he always said that, and his formula would apply to workingmen—at least in theory. But in practice Dad had observed that a labor union enabled a lot of officials to live off the work of the real workers; these officials became a class by themselves, a sort of vested interest, and they looked out for themselves, and not for labor. They naturally had to make some excuse for their own existence, and so were apt to stir up the workers to discontent which otherwise the workers wouldn’t feel.

Paul said that was one way to look at it; but as a matter of fact, it was just as apt to work the other way—the men would be discontented, and officials would be trying to smooth them down. The officials made bargains with the employers, and naturally wanted the workers to fall into line. Didn’t it seem more reasonable to account for disputes in industry by the fundamental fact that one group was selling labor, and the other was buying it? Nobody was ever surprised that a man who was buying a horse didn’t value it so high as the owner.

You could see Dad didn’t like that, because it was a view that made his business more difficult. He said that what troubled him about unions was, they deprived a man of his personal liberty; he was no longer a free American citizen, he was jist a part of a machine, run by politicians, and often by grafters. What had made this country great was individual enterprise, and we ought to protect that. And Paul said yes, but the employers had set the men a bad example; they had joined a “Petroleum Employers’ Federation,” which ruled the industry very strictly. Paul had been told that in his early days Mr. Ross had paid his men a dollar a day more than the regular scale, so as to get the best labor; but when he had got into the Prospect Hill field, he had had to join the Federation, and now wasn’t allowed to pay more than the regular scale.

That was true, Dad admitted, but he hastened to explain, he hadn’t reduced anybody’s wages; his business had grown so fast, he had put his men into higher classifications, and when he engaged new men for the old jobs, they had got the regular price. But when Paul pinned him down, Dad admitted that it really was a union he belonged to, and he had sacrificed his personal liberty to that extent. It was clear enough, there had to be some order among the employers, to keep them from cutting one another’s throats; and Dad was fair enough to admit that maybe if he were a laborer, he’d see the same necessity.

Paul pleased Dad by saying that if all the employers were as fair as Mr. Ross, it would be easy to deal with them; but the fact was plain that many of them would respect only power, and the workers had no power except as a group. Why was it the carpenters were working only eight hours? Because they were organized all over the country, you couldn’t get a lot of good carpenters on any other terms. But the oil workers were poorly organized, so here was this two-shift arrangement, an inhuman thing, and the reason why Bunny couldn’t get the men to make use of his reading-room. Paul said that with a smile, to take the sting out of it; he knew it would hurt Bunny, and that Dad wouldn’t feel comfortable over it, either. Dad couldn’t give his oil workers an eight hour day, even if he wanted to—because the Petroleum Employers’ Federation had taken away his personal liberty and initiative in that respect. Paul added that the Federation would have to face this issue very shortly, because the oil workers were organizing—right in this Paradise field, as Mr. Ross no doubt knew.

Dad said he had heard it; he went so far as to admit that the Federation had sent him bulletins to keep him posted. But he wasn’t worrying, he said; if his men wanted a union, he guessed he’d find a way to get along with it—he had tried to be fair all his life, and the men knew it, most of them. Paul answered that Mr. Ross ought to understand the fundamental fact, which was that the cost of everything had been going up, ever since the war in Europe had begun; the price of oil was going up also, but the Employers’ Federation held to the old wage schedule, and that was not fair, and was making the trouble. The employers who fought the unions were short-sighted, for what they really did was to turn the men over to the I. W. W. Dad looked startled at that, for the “wobblies,” as they were called, had the reputation of being dangerous people, almost Anarchists, who wanted to seize the wells and run them for the workers; you heard terrible rumors of a thing called “sabotage,” which meant that the men, if they didn’t get what they considered a square deal, would punish the employers by damaging the property, even setting fire to wells. Were I. W. W. really in the field? Paul answered that it wouldn’t be fair for him to report on the men, that would be making him a spy; but as a matter of fact the wobblies were in every field, and in every industry—you could never keep them out, and the only thing to do was to keep their influence down by a policy of fair play.

Paul had been studying this question of capital and labor, as he studied everything that came his way. He had been reading books of which Bunny had never heard even the names—they were not taught in the high school courses, because, so Paul declared, they gave the labor side. Paul had been talking to an organizer who was here for the Oil Workers’ Union, an especially intelligent man, who had been working in oil fields for several years, and knew conditions thoroughly. Bunny was tremendously interested at that, and said he’d like to meet the man, and wouldn’t Dad like to? Dad made the answer he always made now-a-days, he was jist too crowded with business over the new pipe-line, and the problem of a refinery, but later on, perhaps, he might be interested. Dad was always fooling himself that way; there was going to be some time in the future when he would be free!

However, he hadn’t any objection to Bunny’s meeting all the union organizers he pleased; he’d no doubt have to bargain with a lot of them during his life. Paul said that Tom Axton was supposed to be here secretly, but as a matter of fact the bosses all knew him, he had been kicked off the Excelsior Pete property only yesterday. He’d no doubt be willing to talk with Bunny, provided it was made clear that this wouldn’t affect his right to organize the men in Mr. Ross’ employ.

The upshot of it was that Axton was invited to meet Bunny one morning in the reading-room; and that was the biggest sensation this Watkins tract had known since the discovery well had busted loose and caught fire. The men of the night-shift forgot to go to sleep; they waited round to see the sight, and you saw faces pass by doors and windows—and always turned inwards as they passed! The union organizer was supposed to be a mysterious and terrible person, who came onto the tract at night, and met you and your friends somewhere out in the hills; but here he was, being publicly entertained by the Old Man’s son! Great kid, that Bunny Ross, said the men—agreeing with Dad on this point!

Tom Axton was a big fellow, slow spoken, soft of voice, with a trace of Southern accent; he looked powerful, and had need to be, considering the treatment he got. Of course, he couldn’t swear that it was the Employers’ Federation which sent thugs to beat him up and try to cripple him; but when the same thing happened to him in several different fields in Southern California, and didn’t happen to anybody else, he naturally drew his own conclusions. Bunny was aghast at this; he had never heard anything like it, and didn’t know what to answer—except that he hoped Mr. Axton knew that his father didn’t have anything to do with such dirty work. The organizer smiled; he had evidently had a talk with Paul, for he said, “Your father thinks that labor unions are run by grafters and parasites. Well, I wish you’d ask him how much he really knows about the Employers’ Federation, and the kind of men who run it, and what they’re doing to us. You may find that your father has been neglecting the affairs of his union, just as most of the workers neglect theirs.” Bunny had to admit that was a fair point, and when he asked Dad, and found that Dad had never attended a meeting of the Federation, but merely paid its assessments without question—why naturally, that made Bunny have more respect for Tom Axton, and believe what he said about conditions here in Paradise, and in the other fields, and how rapidly discontent was spreading among the men.

Only yesterday the Victor Oil Company had fired fourteen who had signed up with the union; the bosses had a spy among them, and had waited to give everybody a chance to hang himself! “You’re surely going to have a strike before long,” said the organizer. “It will be a strike for the three-shift day, among other things; and when it comes, your father will have to consider whether to deal separately with his own men, or to stand by his employers’ union, and let a bunch of big business rowdies drag him into trouble.” You can imagine how much that gave Bunny to think about, and how many discussions he had with his father, and with Paul, and with the teacher of the class in “social ethics” at the Beach City High School!

III

The Allies, having control of the sea, were engaged in starving out Germany; and the Germans were replying with the only weapon they had, the submarine. The United States had forced the German government to agree not to torpedo passenger vessels without warning; but now, early in the winter of 1917, the Germans gave notice that they would no longer follow this policy, and everybody was saying that America would have to go into the war. The German ambassador at Washington was sent home, and after that the spirit of neutrality was no longer dominant in the “current events” classes at school.

To the oil operators it seemed most unpatriotic on the part of workers, to demand the eight hour day and an increase of wages at this crisis. What?—when the country was about to defend itself, and would need oil as never before in history! But the workers replied that the employers did not make concessions because they wanted to, but because they had to, and this might be the only time they would have to. It was not necessary to assume that the employers were giving the oil away; they were getting a fancy price for it, and would get the same price, or better, if the country went to war. The workers claimed a share, proportioned to the price of everything they had to buy. They were holding meetings all over the field, and in the latter part of February their union officials wrote to the various companies, asking for a conference. When this request was ignored, they served notice on the employers that there would be a strike.

Three men came to see Dad; one of them an old employee, the others new men. All three were young in years—indeed you almost never saw an oil worker over thirty-five, and they were all white Americans. This committee held their hats in their hands, and were somewhat pale, embarrassed but determined. They all liked Mr. Ross, and said so; he was “square,” and he must know that their demands were reasonable. Wouldn’t he set the example to the other employers, granting the new schedule, so that his work could go on without interruption? The strike, if it came, would be bound to spread, and the cost of oil would go up at once; Mr. Ross would gain far more than he would have to pay to the men. But Dad answered that he had joined the Federation, and agreed to stand by its decisions; what would become of his reputation for “squareness,” if he were to go back on his associates in a crisis? What he would do was to work within the Federation for an agreement with the men; he would drop everything else, and go down to Angel City and see what he could accomplish. He thought the eight hour day was fair, and he would favor a wage-scale adjusted to the cost of living, so that the men’s income would not be subject to fluctuations. The committee was cheered by these promises, and there was hand-shaking all around.

Left to himself, you understand that J. Arnold Ross would probably never have taken this advanced position. His mind was on his money—or on the things he wanted to do, and that his money enabled him to do; he would probably have gone with his crowd, as he had done hitherto. But there was Bunny, a “little idealist”; Bunny liked the men, and the men liked him, and Dad was proud of that mutual liking, and could be sentimental for Bunny, where he would never have dreamed of being for himself. Furthermore, there was Paul, who knew the men’s side at first hand; and Bunny persisted in bringing Paul into their life, in plying Paul with questions, and making him say, right out, the things he might not otherwise have felt free to say. So Paul had become a force in Dad’s consciousness; and so Dad promised to try to help the men.

He attended for the first time a meeting of his own trade union. It was at night, and lasted till one o’clock in the morning; and the next day being Saturday, Bunny came up to town and met his father at the hotel, and heard the story of what had happened. Most of the oil employers, it appeared, were exactly like J. Arnold Ross, in that they left the running of their union to others; there had been not more than forty men at this critical meeting, and the dominant group consisted of representatives of the “Big Five.” The chairman, and obviously the man who ran the organization, was an attorney for Excelsior Pete, who owned a small well, presumably to give him standing. He had a group which took the cue from him and voted with him. It had been rather a steam-roller affair, said Dad.

Bunny wanted all the particulars, and plied his father with questions. Dad had pleaded the men’s side, as tactfully as he could, and had found exactly two operators in the gathering who were willing to agree, ever so timidly, with his point of view. To the ruling group he had seemed something of a renegade, and they had hinted as much. “You know how it is, son,” Dad explained, “this is an ‘open shop’ town; that’s the way the crowd feels, and you might jist as well butt your head against a stone wall as argue with them about unions. There’s everything to be said for them—they’ve had trouble with organized labor, and it’s made them bitter. They say”—and Dad went on to detail the arguments that had been hurled at him; unions meant graft, unions meant “hold-ups,” unions meant disorder, unions meant strikes, unions meant Socialism.

“What are they going to do, Dad?”

“They’re jist not a-goin’ to let the men have a union—that’s all. I said, ‘It looks as if the Federation has turned into a strike-breaking organization.’ And Fred Naumann—that’s the chairman—snapped back at me, ‘You said it!’ They’ll be a strike-breaking organization, if and when and so long as there’s strikes in their field—that’s the way Raymond put it, the vice-president of Victor. And then Ben Skutt put in an oar—”

“Ben Skutt?”

“Yes, he was there; it seems he’s been doing some ‘investigation work’ for the Federation—a polite name for spyin’. He knew jist exactly what I’d said to our men the day before; and he wondered if I realized the unfortunate effect of my attitude—it amounted to givin’ the strikers moral support. I told Ben that I usually took the liberty of saying what I thought; I was taking it in this meeting, and I’d take it in the newspapers if they asked me. Naumann smiled sarcastically: ‘I really don’t think they’re going to ask you, Mr. Ross.’ ”

And sure enough, they didn’t—either then, or later! The meeting was supposed to be secret—which meant that individual members were not allowed to be quoted, but the chairman or somebody gave to the press an official story, telling how the meeting had voted to stand firm against the threats of the union. It was a time for all lovers of America to uphold the country’s welfare against enemies without and within—so ran the statement in both the morning newspapers.

“What are you going to do?” asked Bunny.

“What can I do, son?” Dad’s face was grey, and deeply lined; he was not used to staying up so late, Bunny knew, and he had probably lain awake until morning, worrying over this situation.

And yet Bunny could not help making it harder for him. “Are we going to let those fellows run our business, Dad?”

“It looks as if we’d have to, son. I’m in no position financially to buck the game.”

“But with all the oil you’ve got!”

“I’ve got a good deal of oil, but it’s mostly in the ground, and what I’d need for this job would be a couple of million dollars in the bank.”

He went on to explain how modern affairs were conducted. A man never had enough money, no matter how much he had; he was always reaching out, doing business with the future, so to speak. He put money into the bank, and that gave him the right to take out more than he had put in; the bank would take his “paper,” as it was called. Here Dad was drilling a lot of new wells, he was buying machinery and materials, and paying for labor in advance—all on the certainty of the oil he was going to get next month and the month after; he knew he was going to get it, and the banks trusted him, on the basis of his reputation, and the known value of his property. But if Dad were to set out to fight the Federation, he might jist as well forget there was such a thing as a bank in the State of California; he’d have to pay cash for everything, he’d have to stop all his development work, and even then, he mightn’t be able to meet his notes when they fell due.

Bunny was appalled; for he had thought of his father as one of the richest men in the state, and one of the most independent. “Why, Dad, we don’t own our own business! We don’t even own our souls!”

That started the other on one of his stock themes. Business was business, and not the same as a tea-party. Property was hard to get, and, as he had told his son many times, there was always people trying to take it away from you. If there was going to be any security for wealth, there had to be discipline, and men of wealth had to stand together. It might seem harsh, if you didn’t understand, but it was the way of life. Look at that war over there in Europe; it was a horrible thing—jist made you sick to think about it; but there it was, and if you was in it, you was in, and you had to fight. It was exactly the same with the business game; there was no safety for you, unless you stood with the group that had power. If you stepped out of the reservation, the wolves would tear you to pieces in short order.

But Bunny was not satisfied with general principles; he wanted the details of this situation. “Please tell me, Dad, just who are these men we have to work with?”

Dad answered: they were a group, it was hard to define them, you might say the “open shop crowd;” they were the big business men who ran Angel City, and the territory which lived upon the city, or supported the city, according as you looked at it. They had several organizations, not merely the Petroleum Employers’ Federation, but the Merchants’ and Manufacturers’ Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Bankers’ Club. They were interlocked, and a little group ran them all—Fred Naumann could call a dozen men on the telephone, and turn you into an outcast from business society; no bank would lend you a dollar, and none of the leading merchants would give you credit, some would refuse to do business with you even for cash.

To the hour of his death, the elder Ross never really understood this strange son of his. He was always being surprised by the intensity with which Bunny took things, which to the father were part of the nature of life. The father kept two compartments in his mind, one for things that were right, and the other for things that existed, and which you had to allow to exist, and to defend, in a queer, half-hearted, but stubborn way. But here was this new phenomenon, a boy’s mind which was all one compartment; things ought to be right, and if they were not right, you ought to make them right, or else what was the use of having any right—you were only fooling yourself about it.

“Listen, Dad,” the boy pleaded; “isn’t there some way we could break that combination? Couldn’t you stop your new developments, and put everything on a cash basis, and go slow? You know, that might be better, in a way; you’re trying to do too much, and you need a rest badly.”

The other could not help smiling, in spite of the pain he read in Bunny’s face. “Son,” he answered, “if I set out to buck that game, I’d never have another hour’s rest, till you buried me up there on the hill beside Joe Gundha.”

“But you’ve got the oil, and if you settle with the men, it will go on flowing. It will be the only oil from this whole district!”

“Yes, son, but oil ain’t cash; it has got to be sold.”

“You mean they wouldn’t take it from you?”

“I can’t say, son; I’ve never known such a case, and I don’t know jist what they’d do. All I say is this—they wouldn’t let me lose their strike for them! They’d find some way to get me, jist as sure as tomorrow’s sunrise!”

IV

Dad went back to the field and got the representatives of his men together. He did not tell them the whole story, of course, but said that he had tried his best to bring the employers to his views, and had failed. He was bound by agreements that he could not break, but he would be very glad to meet the men’s terms if the Federation would do so. If there was a strike, he would make no attempt to work his properties for the present. It would mean heavy losses to him, the shutting down of his best paying wells, but he would try to stick it out, and his men might consider they were taking a vacation, and come back to him when the strike was over. Meantime, he would not turn them out, they might continue to occupy the bunk-house, provided they would keep order, and not injure the property. That was, of course, a very unusual concession, and he hoped the men would appreciate it. The committee answered that the men undoubtedly would do so; they were deeply grateful to Mr. Ross for his attitude. The members of the committee were embarrassed, and very respectful; you see, it is hard for humble workingmen to confront their employer, a “big” man, and armed with the magic power of money.

The strike was called for noon on Wednesday, and the men all marched out singing songs. Not more than ten percent had joined the union, but they quit to a man—the few who might have liked to stay were not enough to work the wells, anyhow. They shut off the flow, and left everything in good order, and marched in to Paradise, where they held a mass-meeting. There were nearly three thousand workers in this field, and they all came, and most of the townspeople, and a number of the ranchers; the sympathy of the community appeared to be all with the workers.

Tom Axton made a speech, in which he set forth the grievances of the men, and told them, out of his previous experience, how a strike must be conducted. One thing above all others, they must keep public sympathy with them, by obeying the law and avoiding every suggestion of disorder; this would not be easy, because the Employers’ Federation knew this, as well as the strike leaders, and would do everything possible to provoke the men to violence; that was the purpose for which the “guards” were coming, the strikers’ difficulty would be to keep out of the way. That was generally the case in strikes, if you could believe Axton; he said that the guards were men of a low type, hired by the big detective agencies out of the city’s underworld, and supplied with a gun on their hip-pocket. Whether the whiskey-bottle on the other hip-pocket was supplied by the employers, or got by the men themselves, was something Tom Axton did not know. Anyhow, they were brought here by the truck-load, and on the way they stopped at the sheriff’s office in San Elido—kept open day and night for the purpose—and were sworn in wholesale as “deputy-sheriffs,” and supplied with a silver shield to wear on their coat-lapels, and after that, anything they did was according to law. A few of these deputies were standing about, listening to Axton’s speech, and needless to say, they did not appreciate it.

The president of the union, who had come to the field to conduct the strike, also made a speech; and the secretary of the union, and the organizer of the carpenter’s union—there could not be too many speeches, for the men were full of enthusiasm, and their minds were open to ideas; it was an education in the meaning of solidarity. They signed up by hundreds, and paid their assessments out of their scanty savings. Committees were appointed, and these got down to work in an old barn which had been hired for headquarters, the only vacant place of any size to be found in the midst of this oil boom. The place was crowded with men, coming and going, and there was not a little confusion, officials and volunteer helpers working as if such things as rest and sleep were unknown to the human organism. There were temporary lodgings to be found—for not many oil operators were being so generous as to provide shelter for strikers! The union had ordered a lot of tents, and would need more yet, when leases expired on shacks which had been rented on company property. Fortunately, not many of the men had families in this field; your oil worker is a migratory bird—he moves to a new field, and has to work quite a while before he gets enough money to bring his wife and children from the last field.

Bunny drove up on Saturday morning; by which time the first flush of excitement had passed. It was a rainy day, and the men had no meeting place, and you saw bunches of them crowded into doorways, or under awnings, wherever there was free shelter; they looked rather melancholy, as if they found being on strike less romantic than they had expected. In front of the oil properties, especially those of the big companies, you saw men pacing up and down, wearing rubber coats and hats, from under which they eyed you suspiciously; some of them carried rifles on their shoulders, like military sentries. Bunny drove up to his father’s tract, and there he saw the same sight, and it cut him to the heart—the very personification of that hatred which so pained him in the industrial world, and which he had fondly dreamed he might exclude from the “Ross Junior” field. But the truth was, the “junior” aspects of the business were fading temporarily; the “senior” aspects were in control, and giving the impress to events.

Sitting in the office on the tract, Bunny pinned his father down on the matter of guards; did they really have to have guards against their own men?

“But surely, son,” protested Dad, “you can’t be serious! Leave three million dollars worth of property unprotected?”

“Where did we hire these guards, Dad?”

“We didn’t hire them, son; the Federation is handling that.”

“But couldn’t we have got guards of our own?”

“I don’t know any guards, or where to get them. I’d have had to go to some agency, jist the same.”

“And we couldn’t have used our own men, that we know?”

“Turn strikers into guards? Why, son, you must know that wouldn’t do!”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, the insurance companies—imagine how quick they’d jump to cancel my fire insurance! And then, suppose I was to have a fire, I’d be ruined. Don’t you see that?”

Yes, Bunny saw; it appeared as if the whole world was one elaborate system, opposed to justice and kindness, and set to making cruelty and pain. And he and his father were part of that system, and must help to maintain it in spite of themselves!

“Do we pay for these guards, Dad?”

“We’re assessed for it, of course.”

“Then what it comes to, is this: we have to put up the money for Fred Naumann to break the strike; and even though we may not want the strike broken!” To this Dad remarked, it was devilish inconvenient to have all those paying wells shut off all of a sudden. He turned to some papers on his desk, and Bunny sat in silence for a while, thinking his father’s thoughts. They were elemental thoughts, not requiring any subtlety to interpret. There were eleven producing wells on the tract, which on last Thursday morning had been flowing at a total rate of thirty-seven thousand barrels of oil per day. That meant, at present boom prices, a gross income of close to two million dollars a month. Dad’s mind had been full of all the things he was going to do with that money; and now his mind was full of problems of how to get along without it. His face was still grey and lined with care, and Bunny’s heart smote him. He, Bunny, wanted the men to win; but did he want it at the cost of having his father carry this extra burden?

V

Paul had gone with the strikers, so Bunny learned. Mr. Ross had offered to keep him on, for there was some building that needed to be done, and the carpenters were not on strike. But Paul had thought it over and decided that his duty lay with the oil workers; they hadn’t many educated men among them—that was one of the burdens the twelve hour day put upon them; so Mr. Ross would have to accept Paul’s resignation, permanently or temporarily, as he might think best. Dad had said there would be no hard feelings, and Paul might come back when the strike was over.

Bunny went up to the Rascum place to see Ruth and ask her about it. The “Superintendent of Horticultural Operations” had gone on strike with the boss-carpenter, but they were still occupying the bungalow, and Ruth did the work for Dad, whenever he occupied the cabin. Ruth said that Paul couldn’t get out here any more, he was sleeping on some sacks of straw in the union headquarters, where he worked about twenty hours a day. So Meelie was staying with her sister, and they spent all their spare time baking things, and old Mr. Watkins came, with the same old horse hitched to the same old wagon, and carried the things to Paradise, where they were sold to the strikers. They had closed up their stand at the Watkins tract, because there wasn’t nobody there but guards, and they wouldn’t feed no guards, not if they starved. So spoke Meelie, who was a little chatterbox; and Ruth looked at Bunny with some embarrassment, thinking that wasn’t proper talk before him. But Bunny said he wasn’t strong for guards himself, it had made him sort of sick to see them on the place that was supposed to be his. And Meelie said the man that was in charge at their place wasn’t a bad fellow, he had been a forester and fire-guard; but some of them others was awful mean, and Pap was a-scairt for the girls to go on the road at night, they cussed something fierce, and they had liquor all the time.

There was an alluring odor of hot gingerbread in the kitchen, and Bunny had not yet had his lunch; so the girls set the little table, and the three sat down, and had a meal of scrambled eggs and potatoes, and bread and butter, and goat’s milk and gingerbread and strawberries—for the plants which Paul had set out had been diligently tended by Ruth, who couldn’t bear to let living things suffer, even green ones. Ruth was now a young lady of almost eighteen, the same age as Bunny, but she felt a lot older, as girls do. Her fair hair was done up on the top of her head, and you saw her bare legs no longer. She always looked nice working in the kitchen, because then her cheeks were rosy; she was competent in her own domain, and told you to sit down and not mess things up trying to help. She had the bright blue eyes of all the Watkins family; in her case they went with a candid, quiet gaze that seemed to go to the depths of you, and make both deception and unkindness impossible.

Bunny at this time was just beginning an intense experience back at home—his first serious love-affair, about which we shall be told before long. Eunice Hoyt was a rich girl, and complicated; to know her was sometimes pleasure and sometimes torment. But Ruth was a poor girl, and simple; her presence was soothing, calm and still like a Sabbath morning. The basis of Ruth’s life was the conviction that her brother Paul was a great and good man. Now Paul had given up his ten dollar a day job to help the strikers, and Ruth was baking food for the strikers, and while they had money she would sell it to them, and when they had no more money she would give it to them.

Meelie, likewise, was delighted to bake for the men, but that was not her only interest in them. The coming of oil to the Watkins tract had meant vast changes in Meelie’s life, she was no longer to be recognized as a goat-herd, but had blossomed out, acquiring sophistication and conversation, and a bright colored ribbon in her hair and a necklace of yellow beads about her neck. Meelie had been to town the evening before, and it had been so exciting! Eli was a full-fledged preacher now, with a church of his own, and was holding services every evening for the glory of the Lord, and great numbers of the strikers had come, and grace had been abounding; and in between the pentecostal manifestations, Meelie had picked up news of the strike—there had been a fight on Main Street because a drunken guard had been rude to Mamie Parsons; and Paul had been one of a committee to see the sheriff and demand that he take either the liquor or the guns away from his deputies; and tomorrow Meelie was going to church again—there would be three services all through the day; and it was said that on Monday the operators were going to bring in strike-breakers, and start the wells flowing on Excelsior Pete; and the men were getting ready to stop that if they could—it would be terrible!

Bunny drove to town and wandered about to see the sights, but none of them brought happiness to him. He could not see Paul, for Paul was hard at work in the strike headquarters, and Bunny could not go there, because it would not look right, somebody might think he was spying. No longer was Bunny the young oil prince, flattered and admired by all; he was an enemy, and read hostility in men’s glances, even where there might be none. He was in the position of a soldier in an army, who feels that his cause is unjust, and has no stomach for the fight—yet it is hard to wish one’s self defeat!

On Sunday morning the sun was shining, and never had Bunny seen such crowds in Paradise. Eli was holding a service in the grove alongside his new “tabernacle,” and was telling the strikers that if only they would have faith in the Holy Spirit, they need not worry about their wages, there was the miracle of the loaves and fishes, and was not their Heavenly Father able to feed them if they would trust him? Some believed this, and shouted “Amen”; others jeered, and went off to the playground at the school-house, where the union was holding a meeting for those who believed that wages were necessary. Bunny went there, and heard Paul make his first speech. It was a great sensation to Bunny, and in fact, to the whole town; a picturesque situation, you must admit—the two Watkins boys, the rival prodigies of the neighborhood, making speeches at the same time, and preaching somewhat opposite doctrines!

It must be said on behalf of Eli that he did not deliberately oppose the strike, and probably never clearly understood how his doctrine was likely to aid the Employers’ Federation. His sisters were baking bread for the strikers, working hard with their physical hands kneading physical dough—and all the while Eli was proclaiming that he could make magical miraculous bread, whole baskets of it, by the agency of prayer. Why didn’t he do it, jeered the skeptics; and Eli answered that it was because of their lack of faith. But they said it was up to him to begin; and the production of one single loaf of bread by the Bible method would multiply faith a million-fold, and bring the whole organized labor movement into the Church of the Third Revelation!

Paul had a deep, mature voice, and a slow, impressive way of speaking. He was a good orator, for the very reason that he knew none of the tricks, but was entirely wrapped up in what he had to say. There was a struggle impending over the issue of the re-opening of the wells, and Paul had been consulting lawyers, and told the strikers exactly what they had a right to do, and what they must refrain from doing. They would maintain their legal rights, but not weaken their case by committing the least breach of the law, and giving their enemies a chance to put them in the wrong. Their whole future was at stake, and the future of their wives and children; if they could win the three-shift day, they would have leisure to study and think, and raise their own status, and keep their children longer in school. That was the real issue in this strike, and if democracy did not mean that, it had no meaning, and talk about patriotism was buncombe. The vast throng cheered Paul, and Bunny could hardly keep from cheering also, and went away feeling cheap, and utterly out of harmony with life. He had time to think it over on the long drive back to Beach City by himself; he did not get in until midnight, and all the way he heard Paul’s voice above the hum of the engine, challenging everything that Bunny thought he believed!

VI

Back in school, Bunny had to get his news about the strike from the papers, and these did not give him much comfort. The papers thought the strike was a crime against the country in this crisis, and they punished the strikers, not merely by denouncing them in long editorials, but by printing lurid accounts of the strikers’ bad behavior. On Tuesday morning you read how several truck-loads of oil workers—the despatches did not call them strike-breakers—had been brought into the Excelsior Petroleum Company’s tract, and how, at the entrances, they were met by howling mobs, which cursed them, and called them vile names, and even threw bricks at them. The Employers’ Federation issued a statement denouncing this rule of a peaceful community by riot, and the statement was published in full.

Next day it was the turn of the Victor Oil Company, which concern had brought a train-load of men to Roseville, and from there to Paradise by automobiles, with armed guards to defend them. There had been more mob scenes; and also fights between the deputies and strikers at various other places. It was not long before several strikers were wounded, and a couple of deputies badly beaten. The Federation issued an appeal to the governor to send in militia to protect them in their rights, which were being jeopardized by lawless criminals, organized to defy the State of California, and cripple the country on the eve of war.

Nine people out of ten read these things in the papers and believed them. Practically everyone Bunny knew believed them, and thought he was some kind of freak because he hesitated and doubted. Aunt Emma, for example; she just knew the strikers were born criminals, and German agents besides, or at any rate in league with German agents, and what difference did it make? The ladies in the clubs had inside information, right from headquarters, for many of them were the wives of influential men, who learned what was going on, and told their wives, and the wives told Aunt Emma, who was thrilled to be on the inside, as her brother-in-law’s financial position entitled her.

And Bertie, who was still worse, the very princess of all the tight little snobs you ever knew! Bertie went round with the younger set, and these likewise knew everything, but without having to wait for anyone to tell them. Bertie had condescended to visit one of her father’s oil wells now and then, and there she had noted a race of lower beings at their appointed tasks—creatures smudged with black, who tipped their caps to her, or forgot to, but in either case stared with dumb awe, and beneath their lowering brows showed signs of intelligence that was almost human, and filled Bertie with uneasiness. She had visited Paradise once, and spent a night at the cabin, and patronized Paul and Ruth while they waited upon her, and both of them, sensing this, had been frozen to silence, and Bertie had condescended to admit that they were very decent working people, but she couldn’t comprehend why her brother persisted in making intimates of such. “My God,” stormed Bunny, in a rage, “what are we?” And that, of course, was disgusting of him—to remind his sister that their father had been driving mule-teams in a construction camp once upon a not very long time, and why was it any better to drive mules than to build houses? Bertie said with dignity that her father had raised himself by innate superiority; she knew he had “good blood,” even though she could not prove it. Bunny answered that Paul and Ruth might have “good blood” too, and they were certainly on the way to raising themselves.

It was a subject about which the two would never cease to quarrel. Bertie insisted that Paul patronized her brother, and presumed upon his good nature, taking towards him an intolerable attitude of superiority. Paul had taken to calling him “son,” as he heard Dad doing, and such impudence was that! Bertie referred to her brother’s friend as “your old Paul;” and, said Bertie, “your old Paul has gone and turned traitor to Dad, and it’s just what I told you all along, you can’t trust such people.” And when Bertie found that Bunny was half-heartedly sympathizing with Paul, and yearning towards the “mob” himself, she called him a perfect little wretch, an ingrate, and what not. Their father was risking his life, staying up there among those outlaw mobs, something which none of the other operators did—they remained in their offices in Angel City, and let their agents break the strike for them. But Dad, of course, was influenced by Bunny, with his silly, sentimental notions; and if anything were to happen to him up there, Bunny would carry the responsibility all his life.

Dad came home after a few days, and made Bertie still more indignant by telling the members of the family they would have to go slow on expenditures until the strike was over; he was going to have a hard time with his financing. Bertie suggested sarcastically that Bunny might like to sell his car to help his father out in the pinch. Dad told how there had been a little fuss on the property, one of the strikers had got into a fight with a guard at night; it wasn’t clear just whose the blame was, but the captain of the guards had threatened to withdraw them all if Dad did not turn the strikers out of the bunk-house and off the property. They had finally compromised by Dad’s putting up a fence between the rest of the property, and the part near the road which was occupied by the bunk-house and the homes of the men. It was a fence of barbed wire, eight feet high, and Bertie remarked sarcastically that it would be another place where Bunny and “his Ruth” could grow roses. This jibe hurt, because it summed up to Bunny the part he was playing in this struggle—growing roses on the barbed wire fence which separated capital from labor.

Dad rebuked Bertie, saying that the men were not criminals, they were decent fellows, most of them, and good Americans; the Germans had nothing to do with it at all. The trouble was, they were being misled by agitators just now. But that didn’t help matters with Bertie, because “Bunny’s old Paul” was one of the worst of these agitators. And Bertie didn’t think her father ought to sleep up there in that lonely cabin, and let those Watkins people cook for him. She had heard a wild tale about some restaurant workers on strike who had put poison in the soup; and when Dad and Bunny burst into laughter at that, she said she didn’t exactly mean Paul or Ruth would do such a thing, but they certainly couldn’t enjoy cooking for both the strikers and for Dad at the same time, and Dad ought to be indignant with them for deserting him in a crisis. Bunny took occasion to declare that Ruth was a true-hearted girl; and his sister broke in, oh yes, of course, she knew Bunny’s admiration for the wonderful Miss Ruth, the next thing they’d be hearing he was in love with her—or would it be with Meelie, or what was the other one’s name?

Bunny got up and walked out of the room. Bunny was in love with somebody else, and his sister was hateful in this attitude of class-bigotry. And yet, he had to remind himself, within her own circle Bertie was generous, and sometimes tender-hearted. She was loyal to her friends, she would help them if they got into trouble, and would work and scheme to entertain them. You see, Bertie knew these people; they were all rich, and so she considered them her equals, and was willing to enter into their lives. But the oil workers Bertie did not know; they were a lower order of beings, created for her pleasure, and owing her a debt of submission, which they were trying to get out of paying.

And what was Bertie, that the oil workers should support her? She was a dashing and brilliant young person, who knew how to spend a great deal of money in super-elegant ways, in the company of other young persons possessing the same accomplishment; she was racing about with them, and her talk was of what they said and what they did and what they owned. Bertie was going a fast pace, seldom in before the small hours of the morning, and if she was up before lunch, it was because she had an engagement to rush away. What was the use of having a lot of money if you didn’t have a good time with it? That was the doctrine Bertie hammered into her younger brother; and Aunt Emma echoed it; and now came Eunice Hoyt, who had chosen Bunny, and had the most powerful leverage of all. Be young, be young! everybody cried. Why should you carry all the burden of the world upon your shoulders? Especially since there was not a thing you could do—since the world was fixed and ordained, and would not let you touch the least of all its vested and endowed and chartered disharmonies!

VII

The German submarines had sunk one American vessel too many, and America was going to war; Congress had been summoned, and the whole country was on tiptoe with belligerency. The newspapers had pages of despatches from Washington and New York, and from the capitals of Europe; so it was not surprising that the news of the Paradise oil strike got crowded out. Once in a while you saw an inch or two buried in a back page; three strikers had been arrested, charged with beating up a strike-breaker on a dark night; it was declared by the operators that the strikers had attempted to set fires in the district, and that German agents were active among the trouble-makers: some little thing like that, to remind you that three thousand men, and the wives and children of many of them, were waging a desperate struggle with starvation.

Dad of course had daily reports of what was happening, and so Bunny got the news. Little by little the operators had gathered up a supply of men, paying them extra wages, and bringing them to the field. They were seldom skilled men, and there were many accidents; nevertheless, a number of the wells were back on production, and in two or three cases some drilling was being done. But on the Ross tract everything stood idle; and Bunny could see that his father was irritated by this situation. He was losing a fortune every day—and at the same time losing caste with his associates, who thought he was either crack-brained, or a traitor, they could not make out which. Of course, the Big Five were glad enough to see one of the independents cutting his own throat; but they pretended to be indignant, and spread rumors and propaganda against their rival, and magnified the trouble he was causing in the field.

Bunny could see all this, and he got the sting of it from the gossip which Aunt Emma brought home from the clubs, and Bertie from her house-parties and dinner-dances. And then he would think of the men, clinging pitifully to their hope of a better life, and his heart would be torn in half. There was only one thing that could justify Dad’s course, and that was for the men to win; they must win, they must! It was the way Bunny felt when he sat and watched a football game, and cheered himself hoarse for the home-team. He had an impulse to jump into the arena and help the team—but alas, the rules of the game forbade such action!

There had been more trouble with the guards at the Ross tract, and Dad was going up to the field, and Bunny went along for a week-end. It was springtime now, and the hills were green, and the fruit-trees in blossom—oh, beautiful, beautiful! But human beings were miserable, millions of them, and why could they not learn to be happy in such a world? It was springtime all over the country, and yet everybody was preparing to go to war, and form vast armies, and kill other people, also groping for happiness! Everybody said that it had to be; and yet something in Bunny would not cease to dream of a world in which people did not maim and kill one another, and destroy, not merely the happiness of others, but their own.

They came to Paradise, and there was the strange sight of idle men, hanging about the streets; and of guards at the entrances to all the oil properties. There was somebody making a speech on a vacant lot, and a crowd listening. It was a great time for all sorts of cranks with things to teach—itinerant evangelists, and patent medicine venders, and Socialist orators—the people heard them all impartially. Bunny found that his reading-room was being patronized now, there were men who had read all the magazines, even to the advertisements!

Dad interviewed a committee of his men. It was an impossible situation, they reported, the guards were deliberately making trouble, they were drunk part of the time, and didn’t know what they were doing or had done. Therefore the union had put up some more tents, and the men in the bunk-house were about to move out. Those who had families, and occupied the houses, would try to stay on, if Mr. Ross would permit it; there was no place for the families to go, and they dared not leave the women and children alone in the neighborhood of the guards. Dad interviewed the captain of the latter, and got the information that the men had liquor, of course; how could you expect men to stay in a God-forsaken hole like this without liquor? Dad had to admit that was true; men were like that, and when you had your property to protect in an emergency, you had to take what you could get. Bunny wasn’t satisfied with this argument, but then, Bunny was an “idealist,” and such people are seldom satisfied in this harsh world.

Bunny went up to see Ruth and Meelie—the place to get the news! The girls were hard at work baking, but that didn’t occupy their tongues, and from Meelie’s there poured a stream of gossip. Dick Nelson was in hospital with a part of his jaw shot away—that nice young fellow, Bunny remembered him, he had worked on Number Eleven well; he had knocked a guard down for dirty talk to his sister, and two other guards had shot him. And Bob Murphy was in jail, he had been arrested when they were bringing the strike-breakers into the Victor place. And so on, name after name that Bunny knew. Meelie’s eyes were wide with horror, and yet you could see that she was young, and this was more excitement than had ever come into her life before. If the devil, with his hoofs and horns and pitchfork and burning smell, had appeared at a meeting of the Tabernacle of the Third Revelation, Meelie would have enjoyed the sensation; and in the same way she enjoyed this crew of whiskey-drinking, cursing ruffians, suddenly vomited out of the city’s underworld into her peaceful and pious and springtime-decorated village.

Bunny asked about Paul, and learned that he had been put on the strike committee, and was editing a little paper which the union was publishing; it was lovely, and had Bunny seen it? They produced a copy—a double sheet, mimeographed on both sides for economy, and with a little oil-derrick at the top of the first sheet, alongside the title, “The Labor Defender.” It was full of strike news, and exhortations, and an appeal to the governor of the State against the violence of the deputies and the refusal of the sheriff to take their whiskey away; also there was a poem, “Labor Awake, by Mrs. Weenie Martin, a Tool-dresser’s Wife.” Paul had just got back from a trip to some of the other fields, where he had gone to persuade the men to join the strike; in Oil Center they had tried to arrest him, but he had got a tip and got away by a back road.

America was going to war, and everybody was thrilled about it; at school they were singing patriotic songs and organizing drill corps. This oil war was so little in comparison that nobody heeded it; but it got hold of Bunny, and came to seem the big war to him. All this arrogance of power, this defiance of law and decency, this miserable lying about workingmen! Here Bunny got the truth, he got it face to face with the men and women whom he knew; and then he would remember the tales he had read in the newspapers—and would hate himself, because he lived upon money which had been obtained by such means! His father was paying the “assessments” of the Federation, and thus paying the salaries of these blackguards—paying for their guns and ammunition, and for the bottles of whiskey without which they would not stay!

What did it mean? What was back of it? One thing—the greed of a little ruling group of operators, who wouldn’t pay their men a living wage, but would work them twelve hours a day. They were driving the men with revolvers and rifles, holding them away from the wells, their only source of livelihood, and starving them back to work on the old unfair terms. That was the story, just that simple; and here, in Ruth’s little kitchen, you saw the process from the inside. The girls had had to reduce the price of the bread they sold, because some people couldn’t afford it otherwise! Oil workers never do save much, because they have to move about, and to bring their families, or to send them money. And now their savings were used up, and the contributions which came from other fields were not enough, and Paul, who had been saving money to study and become a scientist, was using it to support hungry families, and Ruth and Meelie were giving all their time, and even old Mrs. Watkins was helping when she could!

Bunny carried this anguish back to his father. What were the people going to do, when they no longer had food to keep alive? Dad gave the answer, they’d have to go back to work! “And lose the strike, Dad?” Yes, he said, if they couldn’t win, they’d have to lose—that was the law of strikes, as of everything else. Life was stern, and sooner or later you had to learn it. They must give up, and wait till a time when their union was stronger. “But, Dad, how can they make it stronger, when the operators boycott them? You know how they weed out the union men—right now, if they give up, most of the companies won’t take back the active ones.” And Dad said he knew that, but the men would have to keep on trying, there was no other way. Certainly he could not support the strike by keeping his wells idle! The men must understand that he couldn’t stand the gaff much longer, they had no right to expect it; they must either close the other wells, or see the Ross wells opened. And Bunny turned sort of sick inside, and went about hiding a thought like a dirty vice: “We’re going to bring scabs into our tract!”

VIII

There was really only one place where Bunny could be happy, and that was up at the bungalow. He spent his Saturday afternoon there, helping Ruth and Meelie—the one kind of aid he was permitted to give to the strike! Part of the time they talked about the suffering of which they knew; and part of the time they were jolly, making jokes like other young people; but all the time they worked like beavers, turning flour belonging to the union into various kinds of eatables. At supper-time Mr. Watkins came with the wagon, his second trip, and they loaded him up, and Meelie drove off with him to headquarters, while Bunny stayed with Ruth, and helped clean up the place, and tried to explain the predicament of his father, and why he, Bunny, could not really help the strike.

On Sunday he went in to the meetings, and heard Paul make another speech. Paul, always sombre looking, was now gaunt from several weeks of little food and less sleep, and there was a fury of passion in his voice; he told about his trip to the other fields, and how there was no justice anywhere—the authorities of town and county and state were simply pawns of the operators, doing everything possible to hold the men down and break their organization. In this white flame of suffering Paul’s spirit had been tempered to steel, and the crowd of workers shared this process, and took new vows of solidarity; Bunny felt the thrill of a great mass experience, and yearned to be part of it, and then shrunk back, like the young man in the Bible story who had too many possessions.

Paul had seen him in the crowd, and after the meeting sought him out. “I want to talk to you,” he said, and they strolled away from the others, and Paul, who had no time to waste, came directly to the point:

“See here, I want you to let my sister alone.”

“Let her alone!” cried the other, and stopped short in his tracks, and stared at Paul. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Meelie tells me you’ve been up there at the place a lot—you were there last evening with her.”

“But Paul! Somebody had to stay with her!”

“We’ll take care of ourselves; she could have come to father’s place. And I want you to understand, I won’t have any rich young fellows hanging round my sister.”

“But Paul!” Bunny’s tone was one of shocked grief. “Truly, Paul, you’re utterly mistaken.”

“I don’t want you to be mistaken about this one thing—if any fellow was to do any wrong to my sister, I’d kill him, just as sure as anything on earth.”

“But Paul, I never dreamed of such a thing! Why, listen—I’ll tell you—I’m in love with a girl—a girl in school. Oh, honest, Paul, I’m terribly in love, and I—I couldn’t think of anybody else that way.”

A quick blush had spread over Bunny’s face as he made this confession, and it was impossible not to realize that he was sincere. Paul’s voice became kinder. “Listen, son; you’re not a child any more, and neither is Ruth. I don’t doubt what you say—naturally, you’ll pick out some girl of your own class. But it mightn’t be that way with Ruth, she might get to be interested in you, and you ought to keep away.”

Bunny didn’t know what to say to that—the idea was too new to him. “I wanted to know about the strike,” he explained; “and I’ve had no chance to talk with you at all. You can’t imagine how bad I feel, but I don’t know what to do.” He rushed on, crowding all his grief into a few sentences; he was torn in half, between his loyalty to his father and his sympathy for the men; it was a trap he was in, and what could he do?

When Paul answered, his voice was hard again. “Your father is helping to keep these blackguards in the field, I understand.”

“He’s paying assessments, if that’s what you mean. He’s under contract with the Federation—when he joined—”

“No contract is valid that requires breaking the law! And don’t you know these fellows are breaking a hundred laws a day?”

“I know, Paul; but Dad is tied up with the other operators; you don’t understand—he’s really having trouble financially, because his wells are shut down; and he’s doing that entirely for the men.”

“I know it, and we appreciate it. But now he says he’s got to give up, and bring in scabs like the rest. They’re driving us beyond endurance; they’re making a dirty fight, and your father knows it—and yet he goes along with them!”

There was a pause, and Paul went on, grimly. “I know, of course; his money is at stake, and he won’t risk it; and you’ll do what he tells you.”

“But Paul! I couldn’t oppose Dad! Would you expect that?”

“When my father set up his will, and tried to keep me from thinking and learning the truth, I opposed him, didn’t I? And you encouraged me to do it—you thought that was all right.”

“But Paul! If I were to oppose Dad in such a thing—why, I’d break his heart.”

“Well, maybe I broke my father’s heart—I don’t know, and neither do you. The point is, your father’s doing wrong, and you know it; he’s helping to turn these ruffians loose on us, and deprive us of our rights as citizens, and even as human beings. You can’t deny that, and you have a duty that you owe to the truth.”

There was a silence, while Bunny tried to face the appalling idea of opposing Dad, as Paul had opposed old Mr. Watkins. It had seemed so right in the one case, and seemed so impossible in the other!

At last Paul went on. “I know how it is, son. You won’t do it, you haven’t the nerve for it—you’re soft.” He waited, while those cruel words sank in. “Yes, that’s the word, soft. You’ve always had everything you wanted—you’ve had it handed to you on a silver tray, and it’s made you a weakling. You have a good heart, and you know what’s right, but you couldn’t bear to act, you’d be too afraid of hurting somebody.”

And that was the end of their talk. Paul had nothing more to say, and Bunny had no answer. Tears had come into his eyes—and that was weak, wasn’t it? He turned his head away, so that Paul might not see them.

“Well,” said the latter, “I’ve got a pile of work to do, so I’ll be off. This fight will be over some day, and your father will go on making money, and I hope it will bring you happiness, but I doubt it, really. Good-bye, son.”

“Good-bye,” said Bunny, feebly; and Paul turned on his heel and hurried away.

Bunny walked on, and there was a fever in his soul. He was enraged because of Paul’s lack of understanding, his cruel harshness; but all the time another voice inside him kept insisting, “He’s right! You’re soft, you’re soft—that’s the word for it!” Here, you see, was the thing in Bunny which made his sister Bertie so absolutely furious; that Bunny subjected himself to Paul, that he was willing to let Paul kick him, and to take it meekly. He was so utterly without sense of the dignity which his father’s millions conferred upon him!

IX

Bunny went back to school, and the oil workers took a hitch in their belts, hanging on by their eye teeth, as the saying is. Meantime, America was in the war, and Congress was passing a series of measures—one providing for a vast “liberty loan,” to pay the war costs, and another for the registering of all men of fighting age, and the drafting of a huge army.

And then began to come wild rumors of a truce with labor. It came first in connection with the railway men, many of whom were on strike for a living wage and better conditions. The railways were absolutely vital to the winning of the war, and so Congress must authorize the Government to intervene in disputes, and make terms with the unions, and see that everybody got a square deal. If such steps were taken for the railway men, they would surely have to be taken for others; the oil workers might get those rights of which the Employers’ Federation was endeavoring to deprive them! The labor press was full of talk about the new deal that was coming, and telegrams came from labor headquarters in Washington, bidding the men at Paradise stand firm.

It was like the “big scene” in the old “ten-twenty-thirty” melodrama that we used to see on the Bowery in our boyhood, in which the heroine is lashed to a log in the saw-mill, and being swiftly drawn to the place where she will be sliced down the middle; the hero comes galloping madly on horseback, and leaps from his steed, and smashes in the door with an axe, and springs to the lever and stops the machinery at exactly the critical instant. Or, if you want to be more high-brow and dignified, it was like the ancient Greek tragedies, in which, after the fates of all the characters have been tied into a hopeless knot, a god descends from the sky in a machine, and steps out, and resolves the perplexities, and virtue is triumphant and vice is cast down. You believe this, because it is in a Greek classic; but you will find it less easy to believe that the “open shop crowd” of California, the whole power of their industrial system, with all the millions of their banks, their political machine and their strike-breaking agencies, their spies and gunmen, and their state militiamen with machine guns and armored cars in the background—that all this terrific power felt its hand suddenly grasped by a stronger hand, and drawn back from the throat of its victim! Another god descended from a machine—a lean old Yankee divinity, with a white goatee and a suit made of red and white stripes with blue stars spangled over it; Uncle Sam himself stretched out his mighty hand, and declared that oil workers were human beings as well as citizens, and would be protected in their rights as both!

The announcement came from labor headquarters in Washington, saying that the oil workers would get a living wage and the eight hour day; a government “conciliator” would be sent out to see to it, and meantime, they were to go back to work, so that the benevolent old gentleman with the white goatee and the red, white and blue suit might have all the oil he needed. The President of the United States was making speeches—oh, such wonderful, convincing speeches, about the war that was to end war, and bring justice to all mankind, and establish the rule of the people and by the people and for the people over all the earth. Such thrills as shook all hearts, such a fervor of consecration! And such rejoicing on the playground of the school-house at Paradise, when the news came that the gunmen would slink back into the slums from which they had come, and that work was to start up at once!

Dad got the news early in the morning, and Bunny danced all over the house, and made as much noise as if it were a football game; and Dad said he felt pretty good himself, it would sure be nice to get those wells on production again, he wouldn’t have been able to hold on another week without them. And Bunny said he’d cut school in the afternoon, and they’d drive out and see the celebration, and make friends with everybody again, and get things started. The first thing they would do was to tear down that barbed wire fence that separated capital from labor! In the new world there would be no more barbed wire and no more bad feeling—the roses would bloom on the hedges in front of the workers’ homes, and there would be a book of the President’s speeches in the reading-room, and all the oil workers would have time to read it!

CHAPTER VIII
THE WAR

I

Eunice Hoyt was the daughter of “Tommy” Hoyt, of Hoyt and Brainerd, whose advertisements of investment securities you saw on the financial pages of the Beach City newspapers. Tommy you saw at racing meets and boxing events, and generally you noticed that he had with him a new lady, highly and artificially colored; sometimes she wore a veil, and you kept tactfully out of the way, understanding that Tommy was “playing the woman game.” Mrs. Tommy you saw pictured among “the distinguished hostesses of the week”; she went in for art, and there would be a soulful young man about the house. The servants understood the situation, and so did Eunice.

She was dark and slender, a quick and impatient little thing, with an abundance of what was currently known as “pep.” She was in two of Bunny’s classes, and discovering that he was a serious youngster, she worried him by saying sharp and cutting things, that he was never sure whether she meant or not; he dared not ask, because then she would tease him worse than ever. There were always half a dozen fellows following her about, so it was easy to keep out of the way.

But one Saturday afternoon Bunny won the 220-yard run for the school team, and that made him a bit of a hero, and boys and girls swarmed about him, cheering and patting him on the back. Then, after he had had his shower and was dressed, he went out in search of his car, and there was Eunice just getting into her roadster, and she said, “Let me take you.” He answered, “I’ve got my own car here,” and she exclaimed, “Why, you horrid rude thing! Get into this car at once, sir!” So of course he did, a little rattled. When she said, “Are you afraid somebody will steal that cheap old car of yours?”—was it up to him to defend the newness and expensiveness of Dad’s latest gift?

“Bunny,” she said, “my mother and father are having a row at home, and it’s horrid there.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” said he, sympathetically.

“Let’s go somewhere and have supper—away from everything. You come, and it’ll be my party.”

So they drove for an hour or so, and climbed by a winding road to the top of a hill, and there was a café, with a terrace looking out over a bay and a rocky shore-line that would have been famous if it had been in Italy. They ate supper, and chatted about school affairs, and Eunice told him about her home-life and how some one had written her mother a letter revealing that her father had paid a lot of money to some woman, and Mrs. Hoyt was furious, because why should men do things that made it necessary for them to pay money?

The sun set over the ocean, and the lights came out along the shore, and a big full moon behind the hills; and Eunice said, “Do you like me a little bit, Bunny?” He answered that of course he did, and she said, “But you don’t show it ever.” “Well,” he explained, “I never know quite what to make of you, because you always kid me;” and to that she said, “I know, Bunny, I’m a horrid mean thing, but the truth is, I just do that to keep my courage up. I’m afraid of you, too, because you’re serious, and I’m just a silly chatterbox, and I have to make a show.” So after that Bunny was able to enjoy the party.

They got into the car and drove again. The road ran through a tangle of sand-dunes, high up above the ocean. “Oh, this is lovely!” said Eunice, and when they came to a place where the ground was firm she ran the car off the pavement and parked it. “Let’s go and watch the ocean,” she said. “There’s a rug in the back.” So Bunny got the rug out, and they walked over the dunes, and sat on top of one, and listened to the waves below; and Eunice smoked a cigarette, and scolded Bunny because he was a horrid little Puritan that wouldn’t keep her company. Presently a man came walking by, and glanced at them as he passed, and Eunice said, “Have you got a gun?” And when he said that he hadn’t, she remarked, “You’re supposed to bring a gun nowadays when you go on a petting party.” Bunny had not realized that this was exactly a petting party, but you can see that it would not have been polite of him to say so.

He listened while she told him about bandits who were making a business of holding up couples parked by the roadside; some were beastly to the girls, and what would Bunny do if one of them were suddenly to appear? Bunny said he didn’t know, but of course he’d defend a woman the best he could. “But I don’t want you to get shot,” said Eunice. “We’ve a scandal already in our family.” So she said, “Let’s get lost, Bunny;” and he gathered up the rug and they wandered over the dunes—a long way from the road and from everything; and in one of the hollows, a still nest where the sand was soft and smooth, she told him to spread the rug again, and there they sat, hid from everything save the round yellow moon, which has looked down upon millions and millions of such scenes, and never yet betrayed a confidence.

They sat close together, and Eunice rested her head against Bunny’s shoulder and whispered, “Do you care for me a little bit?” He assured her that he did, but she said, no, he must think she was a horrid bold thing; and when he declared that he didn’t, she said, “Then why don’t you kiss me?” He began to kiss her, but she wasn’t satisfied—he didn’t mean it, she said; and suddenly she whispered, “Bunny, I don’t believe you’ve ever really loved a girl before!”

He admitted that he had not. “I’ve always known you were a queer boy,” she said. “What is the matter?” Bunny said he didn’t quite know; he was trembling violently, because he had never had anything like this happen to him, and several different emotions clamored at the same time, and which one should he follow? “Let me teach you, Bunny,” whispered the girl; and when he did not answer at once, she put her lips upon his, in a long kiss that made him dizzy. He murmured faintly that something might happen, she might get into trouble; but she told him not to worry about that, she knew about those things and had taken the needed precautions.

II

Such was the way of Bunny’s initiation into the adult life. Gone were the days of happy innocence when he could be content to sit holding hands with Rosie Taintor. “Holding hands” was now walking on a slippery ledge, over a dark abyss where pleasure and pain were so mingled you could hardly tell them apart. Bunny was frightened by the storm of emotion which seized upon him, and still more by the behavior of the girl in his arms; a kind of frenzy shook her, she clung to him in a convulsion of excitement, half sobbing, half laughing, with little cries as of an animal in pain. And Bunny must share this delirium, she would not have it otherwise, she was furious in her exactions, the mistress of these dark rites, and he must obey her will. The first time, the boy was overwhelmed by the realization of what he had done, but she clung to him, whispering, “Oh, Bunny don’t be ashamed! No, no! I won’t let you be ashamed! Why haven’t we got a right to be happy? Oh, please, please, be happy!” So he had to promise, and do his best.

“Oh, Bunny, you are such a sweet lover! And we are going to have such good times.” This was her crooning song, wrapped in his arms, there under the springtime moon, which is the same in California as everywhere else in the world. And when the chill of the California night began to creep into their bones, they could hardly tear themselves apart, but all the way over the dunes they walked arm in arm, kissing as they went. “Oh, Bunny, it was bold and bad of me, but tell me you forgive me, tell me you’re glad I did it!” It appeared to be his duty to comfort her.

Driving back to Beach City they talked about this adventure. Bunny hadn’t thought much about sex, he had no philosophy ready at hand, but Eunice had hers, and told it to him simply and frankly. The old people taught you a lot of rubbish about it, and then they sneaked off and lived differently, and why should you let yourself be fooled by silly “don’ts”? Love was all right if you were decent about it, and when you had found out that you didn’t have to have any babies, why must you bother to get married? Most married people were miserable anyhow, and if the young people could find a way to be happy, it was up to them, and what the old folks didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

Did Bunny see anything wrong with that? Bunny answered that he didn’t; the reason he had been “such an old prude,” was just that he hadn’t got to know Eunice. She said that men were supposed not to care for a girl who made advances to them; therefore, she added with her flash of mischief, it would be up to Bunny to make some of the advances from now on. He said he would do so, and would have started at once, only Eunice was driving at forty-some miles an hour, and it would be better to hurt her feelings than to upset the car.

Were there other girls like Eunice, Bunny wanted to know, and she said there were plenty, and named a few, and Bunny was surprised and a little shocked, because some of them were prominent in class affairs, and decorous-seeming. Eunice told him about their ways, and it was a good deal like a secret society, without any officers or formal ritual, but with a strict code none the less. They called themselves “the Zulus,” these bold spirits who had dared to do as they pleased; they kept one another’s secrets faithfully, and helped the younger ones to that knowledge which was so essential to happiness. The old guarded this knowledge jealously—how to keep from having babies, and what to do if you got “caught.” There was a secret lore about the art of love, and books that you bought in certain stores, or found stowed away behind other books in your father’s den. Such volumes would be passed about and read by scores.

It was a new ethical code that these young people were making for themselves, without any help from their parents. Eunice did not know, of course, that she was doing anything so imposing as that; she just talked about her feelings, and what she liked and what she feared. Was it right to love this way or that? And what did Bunny think about the possibility of loving two girls at the same time? Claire Reynolds said you couldn’t, but Billy Rosen said you could, and they were wrangling all the time. But Mary Blake got along quite happily with two boys who loved her and had agreed not to be jealous.—This was a new world into which Bunny was being introduced, and he asked a lot of questions, and could not help blushing at some of Eunice’s matter-of-fact replies.

Bunny crept into the house at two o’clock in the morning, and no member of the family was the wiser. But he was equally as late the next night, and the next—had he not promised Eunice to “make the advances”? So of course the family realized that something was up, and it was interesting to see their reactions. Aunt Emma and Grandma were in a terrible “state,”: but they could not say why—such was the handicap the old generation imposed upon themselves. They both went to Dad, but could only talk about late hours and their effect on a boy’s health. And Dad himself could not do much more. When Bunny said that he had been taking Eunice Hoyt driving, Dad asked about her, was she a “nice” girl? Bunny answered that she was the treasurer of the girls’ basket-ball team, and her father was Mr. Hoyt, whom Dad knew, and she had her own car and had even tried to pay for the supper. So there could be no idea that Bunny was being “vamped,” and all Dad said was “Take it easy, son, don’t try to live your whole life in a couple of weeks.”

Also there was Bunny’s sister, and that was curious. Had some underground message come to Bertie, through connections with the “Zulus”? All that she said was, “I’m glad you’ve consented to take an interest in something beside oil and strikers for a change.” But behind that sentence lay such an ocean of calm feminine knowledge! Bunny was started upon a new train of thought. Could it be that late hours meant the same thing for his sister that they had suddenly come to mean for him? Bertie was supposed to be dancing; and did she always come directly home, or did she also park by the waysides? Bunny had got over being shocked by the parking of Eunice’s car, but it took him longer to get used to the idea of the parking of his sister’s car. He began to notice, as he drove along the highways in the evening—what a great number of parked cars there were!

III

All this was near the end of the strike; and also it was while America was going to war. So the excitements of sex were mingled in Bunny’s mind with those of patriotism. The two were not so far apart as you might think, for the youth of the country was preparing to march away to battle, and that loosened sexual standards. You might not come back, so it made less difference what you did in the meantime. The girls found their hearts softened toward the boys, and the boys were ready to snatch a bit of pleasure before it was too late.

Bunny was too young for the first draft, but he went to drilling at school, which cast the military halo about him. There was a high school corps, provided with old rifles of the state militia, and the athletic-ield was covered with groups of lads marching, “Hep, hep! Hep, hep! Squad right! Squad left!”—treading on one another’s toes, but keeping the grim look on their young faces. Soon they would have uniforms, and so would the girls of the nurses’ training corps. Boys and girls met in school assembly and sang patriotic songs with fervor.

Yes, it was war! Whole fleets of cargo vessels were taking supplies to England and France, and brigades of engineers and laborers to prepare the way for the army. The President was making speeches—wonderful, glowing, eloquent speeches. There was a race of evil men, the Huns, who had risen up to threaten civilization, and now the might of democratic America was going to put them down. When this job had been done, there would be an end to all the world’s troubles; so the duty of every patriot was to take his part in this last of all wars—the War to end War—the War for Democracy. Statesmen big and little took up the chorus, the newspapers echoed it a million copies every hour, and a host of “four minute men” were trained, to go into factories and theatres, and wherever crowds were gathered, to rouse America for this crusade.

The Ross family, like all other families, read, and listened, and argued. Bunny, the young idealist, swallowed every word of the propaganda; it was exactly what he wanted to believe, his kind of mental food. He would argue with his cool, slow-moving, quietly dubious father. Yes, of course, Dad would say, we had to win the war; we had to win any war we got into. But as to the future, well, it would be time to decide about that when we came to it. First, Dad was occupied with getting the strike settled, and after that, with selling oil on a constantly rising market. There was no sense giving it away, because the government wanted more wells drilled, and how were they to be financed, unless the product was paid for? The government was paying generously, and that was patriotism enough for Dad; he would see to the spouting of his wells, and leave the other kinds of spouting to the politicians.

Aunt Emma considered that a shameful way to talk to a boy, and she scolded vigorously, according to the privilege of “in-laws.” Aunt Emma would go to the clubs and listen to the patriotic lady-orators, telling about Belgian babies with their hands cut off, and munition depots blown up by German spies, and she would come home in a blaze of militarism. Bertie was even worse, for her young man who took her to the jazz-parties was active in one of the defense societies, and knew the names of all the German agents in Southern California, and the villainies they were planning; so Bertie was full of dark hints, and a sense of awful responsibility.

You could never tell how this war excitement was going to hit any one person. For example, could you have imagined that a perfectly respectable old lady of way over seventy, brought up on a ranch, and supposed to be wrapped up in painting in oils, would suddenly blossom out as a Hun sympathizer? Such was Grandma, who declared that she had no use whatsoever for this war; the Germans were no worse than any of the other people concerned, they were all stained with blood, and all there was to the atrocity stories and spy rubbish was to make people hate the enemy. But Grandma wasn’t going to hate anybody, no matter how much Emma and Bertie and the rest might rage; she proceeded to show her defiance by painting a picture of some Germans in old-time costumes drinking beer out of painted steins. She wanted to hang this in the dining-room, and there was a great row, with Aunt Emma and Bertie trying to persuade Dad to forbid it!

All this was part of Bunny’s education; he listened and learned. From his quiet, steady old father he learned to smile amiably over the foibles of human nature, and to go on gathering in the dollars. Talk was all right, but after all, what was going to win the war was bullets and shells, and to get them to the battle-field you had to have transportation. The oil that Dad brought up out of the ground was driving big trucks that were carrying munitions up to the front; it was moving the biggest and fastest cargo-ships, and the swift destroyers that were protecting them; it was lubricating the machinery in the factories, and more and more was being called for. As soon as the strike was over, Dad proceeded to sign contracts with the government, and to put down a dozen new wells in the Paradise field. The one thing that was troubling him was that he could not make three times as many contracts and put down three times as many wells; the big fellows, who controlled the banks, would not let him have enough money—at least not unless he would go in with them and let them hog most of the profits. That was a different kind of war, one going on right at home, and there was no prospect of it’s being ended by presidential speeches. Dad would explain that to Bunny, as a reason for the limitations in the “idealism” of a business man!

IV

Up at Paradise things were booming. All the men were back at work—even the blacklisted ones, at a dollar a day more and with another raise promised; a good driller was worth just about his weight in gold. Here too came the “four minute men,” and were listened to gladly; the oil workers were patriotic, and would have enlisted to a man, but they were needed on this job—there was nothing more important than oil, and the way for them to serve their country was to keep the stuff flowing, and watch out for fires, and for obstructions dropped into the wells, and other acts of vandalism by enemy agents.

Paul was back as Dad’s boss builder. But then came the first draft, and Paul had one of the lucky numbers. Dad offered to get him exempted, for obviously there had to be shacks to house the men who were to drill and operate the new wells. Dad had power to arrange matters—you can understand that, when you learn that the chairman of the exemption board was Mr. Carey, the rancher who had accepted money from Dad to get the road built for the drilling. But Paul said no, there were married men with families who knew as much about building houses as he did, so Paul would do his share in the field.

Paul and Bunny were friends again, and had no end of arguments. Paul wasn’t nearly as keen for the war as Bunny thought he ought to be; he agreed that we had to win, since we were in, but he wasn’t sure it was necessary for us to be in, so Bunny had to retell the arguments he heard from the orators at school. That made lively times at the Rascum cabin—because, strange as it may seem, Ruth was taking exactly the same attitude to the war as Grandma, whom Ruth had never met. Ruth declared that all wars were wicked, and she would never have anything to do with one. But of course you could see what she really meant, she didn’t want Paul taken away and killed! When Paul read his number in the first draft-list, Ruth became quite frantic, and there was nothing that would pacify her. She clung to Paul, vowing he should not go, she would die of grief if he did; when she realized that he was actually going, she went about her work, pale and silent.

Paul went away to a training-camp, and after that paleness and silence became the dominant notes of Ruth’s character. She went back to her father’s home to stay at night, which meant that on Sunday’s she had to go to church with them, and sit and bite her lips while Eli preached. For Eli was a prophet after the old testament model, calling down judgment upon the enemies of the Lord, smiting them hip and thigh, leaving not one alive, not even the little ones, the “spawns of the devil.” Eli, being a preacher, did not have to do this killing himself; he was exempt, and so was his sister Meelie, who solved the war problem for herself by marrying a young derrick man and getting Dad to make him a foreman and have him kept at home. Meelie, who was a chatterbox and a fresh young thing, said to Bunny that Ruth ought to find herself a husband instead of mourning over Paul; maybe the day would come when Bunny would want to be exempted, and they might both solve the problem at the same time!

V

That was a feverish summer in Bunny’s life, between the war and his raptures with Eunice. He spent a great deal of time at Beach City, because he had the excuse of the military work, and because the girl was so imperious in her demands. Indeed, the first rift in their happiness came because he would persist in paying visits to Paradise, where Eunice could not very well come. She took up Bertie’s phrase that Bunny was a “little oil gnome.” “What do you want with so much money?” she would argue. “My God, let me get some from Papa, if you need it!” Tommy Hoyt, it seems, had made a huge killing, buying old hulks down at the harbor just before the country entered the war; it was reported he had cleared a cool three million. There had been a lot about it in the papers—all very complimentary, since that was everybody’s dream of glory.

How could Bunny explain that it wasn’t the money, but the fact that the country had to have oil, and he wanted to do his share; what kind of preternatural solemnity was that for a youth of eighteen? He put the blame on Dad, who wasn’t very well and needed his son; and so it became an issue, which did Bunny care for most, his Dad or his sweetheart? Eunice would grab him by the shoulders and shake him; she had to have some one to take her to a dance, and if he went off and buried himself in the desert, she would get another fellow.

She was insatiable, ravenous for pleasure; she never knew when to stop, whatever it might be. “One dance more! Just one!” she would plead; and then it would be one kiss more, or one drink. She was always pleading with Bunny to drink, and having her feelings hurt because he refused. How could he count his promise to his father more than his promise to be her pal? And how could she take him out with her crowd if he played the part of a skeleton at a feast?

Not for long was she content to lose themselves in the sand-dunes, and share their secret with the moon. Eunice loved the bright lights, the free and conspicuous spending of Papa’s sudden wealth. They would drive to Angel City, where in fashionable hotels were palatial dining-rooms, with jazz-orchestras, and crowds of revellers, celebrating new contracts and new financial coups. The rooms were decorated with the flags of all the allies, and the men wore the uniforms of all the services. This was what the war meant to Eunice, to be in this shining company, and stand up while the orchestra played the “Star-spangled Banner,” and after that to dance all night while it played, “Kiss me, honey-baby,” or “Toodle-ums too,” or whatever amorous cajolement the saxophone might present. She was an aggressive little dancer, clinging to her partner, her body fitted into his as if it had been moulded there. Bunny would not have thought it quite decent to behave like that in public, but it was the mood of the time, and no one paid any attention to them, especially after the hours had passed and the drinks had taken effect.

There was always the problem of getting Eunice away from these excitements. She never wanted to go, not even when she was exhausted; he would half carry her out, and she would fall asleep on his shoulder on the way home, and it was all he could do to keep from falling asleep himself. There was a boy in their crowd who would carry a broken nose about for the rest of his life, because he had dozed at the steering-wheel on a crowded boulevard; another had spent ten days in jail because, after a smash-up, the police had smelled liquor on his breath. It was the etiquette of parties that the man who had to drive must drink only gin—not because that would not make him drunk, but because it left no odor on his breath!

The time came when Eunice decided that it was silly to take that long drive to Beach City after dancing. She found a hotel where you could register as Mr. and Mrs. Smith of San Francisco and no one would ask any questions; you paid in advance, because of your lack of baggage, and in the morning you slipped out separately, and no one was the wiser. You told the folks at home that you had spent the night with a friend, and they did not pursue the matter—being afraid of what they might find out.

All this made a great difference in Bunny’s life, and before long it began to show in his appearance; he was not quite so rosy, and Dad took notice, and was no longer embarrassed to speak. “You’re making a fool of yourself, son; these late hours have got to stop.” So Bunny would try to get out of going to some dance, and Eunice would fly into his arms, and sob, and cling to him, moulding her body into his in that terrible, breath-taking way she had; all Bunny’s senses would be filled with her, the delicate perfume she used, the feeling of the filmy stuffs she wore, her tumbled hair, her burning, swift, persistent kisses. He would have to stand and argue and plead, trying to keep his reason while his head went round.

Sometimes there would be embarrassment mingled with his other emotions, because these scenes took place in the drawing-room of the Hoyt home, with either of the parents present. But what could they do? They had raised this wild young creature, giving her everything in the world, half a dozen servants to wait on her, to answer her every whim. She had always had what she wanted, and now she wanted her lover, and all that poor Mrs. Hoyt could say was, “Don’t be hard-hearted, Bunny”—really seeming to blame him for these tantrums in her presence! As for poor “Tommy,” when he happened in on a tantrum, there came a frightened look on his rosy, rather boyish face, and he turned and skedaddled. He had troubles enough of his own making, and the next time he met Bunny, he set forth his point of view in one pregnant sentence, “There’s no such thing as a normal woman in the world!”

VI

Just before school opened, Bunny took the bit in his teeth and went to Paradise to spend a week with Dad, and found that Paul was there on a three day’s furlough. Paul was not going to get overseas, it appeared; the army had put him to work at his old job—building barracks—only now, instead of ten dollars a day he was getting thirty a month “and beans.” That was what it meant for a workingman to be patriotic! It was quite a contrast with Tommy Hoyt’s three millions, and the hundred and twenty thousand a week of Dad’s oil-contracts! But nobody thought about that, because of the eloquence of the President’s speeches, and the concentrated ardor of the four minute orators.

Paul looked big and strong in his khaki uniform; and Ruth was happy, because Paul wasn’t going to be killed. Meelie was happy, because there was a baby on the way, and Sadie because there was a young rancher “keeping company” with her. Dad was happy, because he had brought in another gusher, and proved up a whole new slope of the Paradise tract; he was putting in pipe-lines and preparing a colossal development—the bankers couldn’t keep him down, he would finance himself with oil!

Everybody was happy except Bunny, who could think of nothing but the fact that Eunice was angry, and he was risking the loss of her. She had warned him, she would not be left alone; if he deserted her, she would punish him. He knew that she meant it; she had had lovers before him, and would have others after him. This “petting” was a daily necessity for her, and a girl could not get it unless she was willing to “go the limit.” That was the etiquette prevailing in this smart and dashing crowd; the rich high school youths would go out hunting in pairs in their fancy sport-cars, and would pick up girls and drive them, and if the girls did not play the game according to their taste, they would turn them out on the road, anywhere, a score of miles from a town. There was formula, short and snappy, “Pet or walk!”

Bunny took long tramps, trying to shake off his cruel fever. He would come back to sleep, but instead he would think about Eunice, and the manifold intoxication of his senses would return; she would be there with all her allurements and her abandonments. Bunny tried haltingly once or twice to tell Paul about it; Paul being a sort of god, a firm and dependable moral force, to whom one might flee. Bunny remembered the scorn with which Paul had talked about “fornications,” and Bunny had not known quite what he meant—but Bunny knew now, alas, only too well. He tried to confess, but was ashamed, and could not break down the barriers. Instead, he made some excuse to his father and drove back to Beach City, three days earlier than he had intended; and all the way as he rode he was hearing Paul’s voice, those cruel words of the strike-days: “You’re soft, Bunny, you’re soft.”

VII

The first rain of the season was falling, and Bunny got in fairly late, and found that Eunice was at home, and had not carried out her threat to get another lover. No, she was trying an experiment she had read about in a book of her mother’s, a thing called “mental telepathy”; you sat and shut your eyes and “concentrated,” “willing” that somebody should do something, and then they would do it, and the “new thought” doctrine would be vindicated. Eunice was trying it, and when she heard Bunny’s step on the veranda, she sprang up with a little shriek of delight and rushed into his arms, and while she smothered him with kisses she told him about this marvelous triumph of experimental psychology. “Oh, Bunny, I just knew you couldn’t be so cruel to me! I knew you’d come, because I’m all alone, Mamma has gone to raise money for the Serbian orphans. Oh, Bunny, come on!”—and she started to draw him toward the stairs.

Bunny didn’t think that was quite the thing, and tried to hold back, but she smothered his protest in kisses. “You silly boy, are we going out and park in the rain? Or do you want to go to a hotel here in town, where everybody knows us?”

“But, your mother, Eunice—”

“Mother, bunk!” said Eunice. “Mother has a lover and I know it, and she knows I know it. If she don’t know about you and me, it’s time she was making a guess. So you come up to my room.”

“But how’ll I get out, Eunice?”

“You’ll get out when I let you out, and maybe it’ll be morning, and you’ll be treated with decent hospitality.”

“But Eunice, I never heard of such a thing!”

“Bunny, you talk like your grandmother!”

“But what about the servants, dear?”

“Servants, hell!” said Eunice. “You can run your home to please the servants, but that’s not our way—at least, not tonight!” And to save Bunny any embarrassment, she kept him in her room in the morning while she broke the news to her mother; and if there were any mental agonies Bunny never knew it, because the patroness of the Serbian orphans breakfasted in bed, reading in the morning paper the account of her fashionable philanthropies.

After that, the ice was broken—as the French have observed, it is the first step that counts, thought it is doubtful if any parent in old-fashioned France has been compelled to take quite so long a step. The rainy season continued, making outdoor petting parties uncomfortable, so whenever he was commanded, Bunny would stay in Eunice’s home, and it was all quite domestic and regular according to advanced modern standards. In fact, there was only one small detail left, and Bunny suggested that: “Eunice, why shouldn’t we go and get married, and have it over with?”

He was surprised by the vehemence of the girl’s reaction. “Oh, Bunny, we’re having such a happy time, and why do you want to ruin it?”

“But why would that ruin it?”

“All married people are miserable. I know, because I’ve watched them. Mamma and Papa would give a million dollars—well, maybe not that much but certainly a couple of hundred thousand, if they could get loose without having to go through all the fuss in the courts, and the horrid things the newspapers would publish, and their pictures and all.”

“But we won’t have to do that, dear.”

“How do you know we mightn’t? If we got married, you’d think you had a right to me, and then you wouldn’t do what I say any more, and I wouldn’t be happy. Oh, let’s do our own way, and not what other people try to make us. All my life other people have been making me do things, and I’ve been fighting them—even you, Bunny-bear.” She had a score of such appellatives for him, because, as you can understand, his name was adapted to petting-party uses; they were dancing a contrivance known as the Bunny-hug, and he heard a lot about that.

You went about in this prosperous and fashionable society, and on the surface everything was decorous and proper, fitting the marital formulas laid down in the laws and preached in the churches. But when you got under the surface—anywhere, high or low—what you found was that human beings, finding themselves unhappy, had come to private understandings. Husbands and wives set one another free, they made exchanges of partners, they brought friends into their homes, who were in reality substitute husbands or wives; there were companions and secretaries and governesses and cousins who played such roles—and when the children found it out, they were in position to put pressure on their parents, a kind of informal family blackmail, good for motor-cars and fur-coats and strings of pearls, and most precious of all, the right to have your own way.

VIII

Early in the year, while America was getting into the war, the people of Russia had overthrown their Tsar and set up a republic. That had pleased most people in America; it was much pleasanter to be allied with a republic. But now, in the fall, came a terrifying event; there was another revolution, this time not made by respectable scholars and business men, but by wild-eyed fanatics called “Bolshevikis,” who proceeded to confiscate property and smash things up. At once it became apparent what a calamity this was going to mean for the allies; Russia was going to desert them, and the mass of the Germans on the East would be set free to be hurled against the half-exhausted Western front. Already the Russian armies were going to pieces, the soldiers were deserting wholesale and swarming back to the cities or to their villages; at the same time the leaders of the new government were starting a world-wide propaganda attacking the allies and their war-aims.

Who were these leaders? It was enough for America to note that a horde of them, who had been hiding in Switzerland, were loaded into a sealed train by the German government and escorted across Germany and dumped into Russia to make all the trouble they could. That meant Lenin and his crowd were hired agents of the Hun; when they proceeded to attack what they called “allied imperialism,” that was the Kaiser’s voice speaking Russian, and when they published the secret treaties of the allies, taken from the archives of the Tsar, the newspapers in America dismissed the documents as obvious forgeries.

Dad, as a good American, believed his newspapers. He considered that this “Bolsheviki revolution” was the most terrible event that had happened in the world in his life-time; his face would grow pale as he talked to Bunny about it. America could get no army to France until next spring, and perhaps not till fall, and meantime the Germans had a million men they could move, only a few hundred miles across their country to the West front; they were jist a-goin’ to roll over the British and French, and take Paris, and perhaps the whole of France, and we should have the job of driving them out again. The whole burden of the war now fell onto America’s shoulders, and it would last years and years—neither Dad nor Bunny might live to see the end of it.

Dad would read paragraphs out of the papers, details of the horrors that were happening in Russia—literally millions of people slaughtered, all the educated and enlightened ones; the most hideous tortures inflicted, such obscenities as you could not put into print. Before long they began applying their Communist theories to the women of the country, who were “nationalized” and made into public property by official decree; the “commissars” were raping them wholesale. Lenin was killing Trotsky, and Trotsky was throwing Lenin into jail. It was a boiling up from the bottom of the social pit, such savagery as we had hardly dreamed existing in human nature. Bunny could see now the folly of that “idealism” he had been prattling, his idea of letting strikers have their way, and turning industry over to the mob. Here was the thing tried out in practice, and how did he like it? Bunny had to admit that he didn’t like it so well, and he was crushed and sobered.

The problem came home to him, because he had to decide as to his own duty in this world crisis. This was his last year in school; then he would be old enough for the draft, and what was he going to do? He and his father talked it out in a solemn conference. Dad thought that he had responsibilities enough to entitle him to the help of one son; he didn’t think he would be a slacker if he were to get Mr. Carey to release Bunny for service in the oil industry. But Bunny insisted that he must go to the front; he even talked of quitting school at once and enlisting, as a number of other boys had done. They finally agreed to compromise, waiting till Bunny was through school, and then see how matters shaped up. But meantime Bunny owed this much to his country, as well as to himself—he should give more time to his studies, and less to playing about. If a young fellow really understood this world crisis, he would surely stick to whatever work he was doing, and not throw himself away in dissipations. Bunny flushed and let his eyes fall, and said he guessed that was true, and he’d do better in future.

IX

He went to Eunice in his mood of high seriousness, to explain how the burden of the task of saving civilization had fallen upon their shoulders. She told him yes, she had been realizing it, she had just been getting a serious talk from her mother, who had explained that there was going to be a shortage of food and all kinds of materials, as a result of the war and the needs of our allies. The club-ladies had decided upon their duty—they would purchase only the most expensive kinds of food, so as to leave the lard and cabbage and potatoes for the poor; Mrs. Hoyt had given away all her clothing to the Salvation army, and spent a small fortune buying a complete outfit of the most costly things she could find. Eunice was of course quite willing to use only luxuries, but found it a little puzzling, because her Aunt Alice took just the opposite view, and had bought herself a lot of cheap things, in order to set an example to the working-classes. Which did Bunny think was right?

But this sober mood did not last long with Eunice. A couple of days later she was invited to a Belgian orphans’ ball, and when Bunny insisted that he had to study, she threatened to go with Billy Chalmers, the handsome captain of last year’s football team—there was no team this year. Bunny said all right, and so Eunice flaunted Billy in front of the whole school, and there were rumors that he was parking his car with her, and that Bunny’s nose was out of joint. This went on for a week or two, until Bunny’s heart-ache was more than he could stand. It was a Saturday night—and Dad had granted that it wouldn’t be wrong to go to one dance a week; so he phoned Eunice, and they “made it up” with tears and wild gusts of passion, and she declared that she had never really really loved anyone but her Bunny-bear, and how could he have been so wicked as to refuse to please her?

But then came Christmas, and the shrewd and persistent Dad arranged a series of temptations—a big turkey, and Ruth to cook it, and two new wells coming in, to say nothing of the quail calling over the hills at sunset. Bunny promised, and simply had to go; and Eunice had the most terrible of all her tantrums, she grabbed Bunny by the hair and pulled him about her mother’s drawing-room, with her mother standing helpless by; she vowed that Bunny was a four-flusher, and a wretch, and she would ring up Billy Chalmers, and they would go off on a joy-ride that very night, and not come back till the Christmas holidays were over and maybe not then.

Oil!

CHAPTER ITHE RIDE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VI

CHAPTER IITHE LEASE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

CHAPTER IIITHE DRILLING

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

CHAPTER IVTHE RANCH

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

CHAPTER VTHE REVELATION

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

CHAPTER VITHE WILD-CAT

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

CHAPTER VIITHE STRIKE

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

CHAPTER VIIITHE WAR

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

CHAPTER I
THE RIDE

CHAPTER II
THE LEASE

CHAPTER III
THE DRILLING

CHAPTER IV
THE RANCH

CHAPTER V
THE REVELATION

CHAPTER VI
THE WILD-CAT

CHAPTER VII
THE STRIKE

CHAPTER VIII
THE WAR