Adventure Magazine Cover — page 171: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Don’t Swat a Flyer feud he had with the exalted General Manager of the oil company. He knew that Downs was dabbling in oil around Lockville, although he had no idea how heavily. This was the first wildcat well to go down. Evidently it was pretty deep, too. At all events there were eight big storage tanks surrounding the derrick, from a hundred to two hundred feet away from it, and everything appeared to be in shape should an actual flow of oil mate- rialize. If there was another boiler on the way from town, another well was evidently to be spudded in shortly. “Get all the news?” enquired Brannon as Downs wiped his feet and got in. “Try and get any from this outfit!” drawled Downs, but the expression on his face belied the soft unconcern of his words. They turned around with difficulty and started bumping and Sliding over deep-cut wheeltracks which seemed to be the only road. “A man wouldn’t need to sight a derrick to know there was an oil well around,” grunted Downs. “I wonder if there ever was one brought in on a good road, or a field that wasn’t out in the wilderness?” The road turned to the left, and for a short distance ran around the rim of the field where Brannon had landed. He saw Grady on his feet, walking toward the derrick. ‘“What’s your grudge against yonder big bug?” asked Brannon. “I seemed to de- tect a certain unregenerate joy on your part at the news that he’d been smitten on the bean. Didn’t you say something about finishing the job off?” “Tt did. Furthermore, —— willing, so shall it be!’ Brannon grinned at the huge Southerner whose prowess aS a scrapper was well known to him. It was mostly in the past, for Matt was a family man now, but the legend persisted in Lockville and various oil fields. “Just general principles?” he went on. “Don’t like his style?” “Everything,” stated Downs, guiding the crawling car expertly over the miniature mountain ranges of the road. “The geolo- gists made a good report on this section for oil, as I presume you know. You see, what they call the ‘great fault’ runs from Laredo, or maybe even Tampico, right through up to Mexia, and another big fault 165 connects at Mexia from Smackover and that country. Every big field, practically, like Ranger and Mexia and Burkburnett have been the result of this great fault and smaller cross faults. Faults are really natural formations running through the earth making reservoirs for the oil. It seems that right here we’re right close up to the big fault, and that there are two cross-faults that should dam in this ter- ritory right here and hold a pool of oil in it. “Well, as you know, I’ve been dabbling in oil as a driller for the last five years or so. As soon as I got the geological dope on this I decided to gamble on my home town. I went out and leased acreage, bought half- royalty, even a sixteenth royalty, on other tracts, went halves on leases, and in general got my hand in strong. The Solar came along right away. It’s a new development company with plenty of capital, and they decided to sink on this territory. The geological report was strong. It’s a wildcat proposition, but with a lot of capital. The President is a millionaire a couple of times over. “Well, the Solar got about all the land, some of it outright, that I hadn’t got hold of. Me and my partners, that is. Taking everything into consideration, I felt justified in going strong, so all I could beg, borrow or steal went into acreage. I figured on getting out even by selling some of the stuff at a profit when the Solar commenced to dnll. You can always turn a small profit at the start on close-in acreage. “You just saw their first well. Well, they couldn’t have picked a better spot for me. I’ve got fifty acres offsetting that well, and my other stuff was near enough. This Grady, the manager and a big stockholder came to town right at the start and has been acting as though he owned it ever since. Of course, Lockville is all excited at the prospect of a field, and the G. M. of the Solar can get away with anything. He’s a big, tough bully, dictatorial as Well, you got a sample. “First thing the Solar wanted was my acreage, or part of it. I wouldn’t sell right then. Decided to gamble a little further, and the dozen or so fellows who are partners with me on various pieces of acreage agreed. “‘Grady and I have had it hot and heavy over this acreage of mine several times. Just two days ago I got news of what the crooked rat had put over on me, and it cCOmicloolks CO