Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil: or, The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune. Emerson Alice B.
the wheels, and the long train jarred to a standstill.
“How funny!” puzzled Betty. “There’s no station. We’re right out in the woods. Oh, I can hear the wind now – how it does howl!”
She picked up her belongings and made her way back to the car. As she passed through the coaches every one was asking the cause of the stop, and an immigrant woman caught hold of Betty as she went through a day coach.
“Is it wrong?” she asked nervously, and in halting English. “Must we get off here?”
“I don’t know what the matter is,” answered Betty, thankful that she was asked nothing more difficult. “But whatever happens, don’t get off; this isn’t a station, it is right in the woods. If you get off and lose some of your children, you’ll never get them together again and the train will go off and leave you. Don’t get off until the conductor tells you to.”
The woman sank back in her seat and called her children around her, evidently resolved to follow this advice to the last letter.
“She looks as if an earthquake wouldn’t blow her from her seat,” thought Betty, proceeding to her own car. “Well, at that, it’s safer for her than trying to find out what the matter is and not being able to find her way aboard again. I remember the conductor told Bob and me these poor immigrants have such trouble traveling. It must be awful to make your way in a strange country where you can not understand what people say to you.”
No Bob was to be seen when Betty reached her seat, but excited passengers were apparently trying to fall head-first from the car windows.
“I think we’ve run over some one,” announced a fussy little man with a monocle and a flower in his buttonhole.
With a warning toot of the whistle, the train began to move slowly forward. It went a few feet, apparently hit something solid, and stopped with a violent jar.
“Oh, my goodness!” wailed a woman who was clearly the wife of the fussy little man. “Won’t some one please go and find out what the matter is?”
Betty looked toward the car door and saw Bob pushing his way toward her.
CHAPTER III
WHAT BOB HEARD
When Bob entered the smoking-car he saw the two men he had pointed out to Betty seated near the door at the further end of the car. The boy wondered for the first time what he could do that would offer an excuse for his presence in the car, for of course he had never smoked. However, walking slowly down the aisle he saw several men deep in their newspapers and not even pretending to smoke. No one paid the slightest attention to him. Bob took the seat directly behind the two men in gray, and, pulling a Chicago paper from his pocket, bought that morning on the train, buried himself behind it.
The noise made by the train had evidently lulled caution, or else the suspected sharpers did not care if their plans were overheard. Their two heads were very close together, and they were talking earnestly, their harsh voices clearly audible to any one who sat behind them.
“I tell you, Blosser,” the older man was saying as Bob unfolded his paper, “it’s the niftiest little proposition I ever saw mapped out. We can’t fail. Best of all, it’s within the law – I’ve been reading up on the Oklahoma statutes. There’s been a lot of new legislation rushed through since the oil boom struck the State, and we can’t get into trouble. What do you say?”
The man called Blosser flipped his cigar ash into the aisle.
“I don’t like giving a lease,” he objected. “You know as well as I do, Jack, that putting anything down in black and white is bound to be risky. That’s what did for Spellman. He had more brains than the average trader, and what happened? He’s serving seven years in an Ohio prison.”
Bob was apparently intensely interested in an advertisement of a new collar button.
“Spellman was careless,” said the gray-haired man impatiently. “In this case we simply have to give a lease. The man’s been coached, and he won’t turn over his land without something to show for it. I tell you we’ll get a lawyer we can control to draw the papers, and they won’t bind us, whatever they exact of the other fellow. Don’t upset the scheme by one of your obstinate fits.”
“Call me stubborn, if you like,” said Blosser. “For my part, I think you’re crazy to consider any kind of papers. A mule-headed farmer, armed with a lease, can put us both out of business if the thing’s managed right; and trust some smart lawyer to be on hand to give advice at an unlucky moment. Hello!” he broke off suddenly, “isn’t that Dan Carson over there on the other side, smoking a cigarette?”
Bob peeped over his paper and saw the dark-eyed man spring from his seat and hurry across the aisle where a large, fat, jovial-looking individual was puffing contentedly on a cigarette.
“Cal Blosser!” boomed the big man in a voice heard over the car. “Well, well, if this isn’t like old times! Glad to see you, glad to see you. What’s that? Jack Fluss with you? Lead me to the boy, bless his old heart!”
The two came back to the seat ahead of Bob, and there was a great handshaking, much slapping on the back, and a general chorus of, “Well, you’re looking great,” and “How’s the world been treating you?” before the man called Dan Carson tipped over the seat ahead and sat down facing the two gray-clad men.
“I’m glad to see you for more reasons than one,” said Blosser, passing around fresh cigars. “Who’s behind us, Dan?” He lowered his voice. “Only a kid? Oh, all right. Well, Jack here, has been working on an oil scheme for the last two weeks, and this morning he comes out with the bright idea of giving some desert farmer a lease for his property. Can you get over that?”
Three spirals of tobacco smoke curled above the seats, and when Bob lifted his gaze from the paper he could see the round, good-natured face of the fat man beaming through the gray veil.
“What you want to go to that trouble for?” he drawled, after a pause. Clearly he was never hurried into an answer. “Seems to me, Jack, this is a case where the youngster shows good judgment. Where you fixing to operate?”
“Oklahoma,” was the comprehensive answer. “Oil’s the thing to-day. There’s more money being made in the fields over night than we used to think was in the United States mint.”
“Oil’s good,” said the fat man judicially. “But why the lease? Plenty of farms still owned by widows or old maids, and they’ll fairly throw the land at you if you handle ’em right.”
There was an exclamation from the dark-eyed man.
“Just what I was telling Jack this morning,” he chortled. “Buy a farm, for farming purposes only, from some old lady. Pay her a good price, but get your land in the oil section. Old lady happy, we strike oil, sell out to big company, everybody happy. Simple, after all. Good schemes always are.”
Jack Fluss grunted derisively.
“Lovely schemes, yours always are,” he commented sarcastically. “Only thing missing from the scenario, as stated, is the farm. Where are you going to pick up an oil farm for a song? Old maids are sure to have a nephew or something hanging round to keep ’em posted.”
“Now you mention it – ” Carson fumbled in his pocket. “Now you mention it, boys, I believe I’ve got the very place for you. I’ve been prospecting around quite a bit in Oklahoma, and this summer I ran across a farm that for location can’t be beat. Right in the heart of the oil section. Like this – ”
He took an envelope from his pocket and, resting it on his knee, began to draw a rough diagram. The three heads bent close together and the busy tongues were silent save for a muttered question or a word or two of explanation.
Bob began to think that he had heard all he was to hear, and certainly he was no longer in doubt as to the character of the men he had followed. He had decided to go back to Betty when the older of the two gray-suited men, leaning back and taking off his glasses to polish them, addressed a question to Carson.
“Widow own this place?”