The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck: or, Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields

CHAPTER XXIX
DAYS OF ANXIETY

"I wonder what Davenport will say when he finds those men are working here?" remarked Fred.

"I don't care what he says," answered Jack.

"Do you think he'll dare come over here and have it out with Uncle Dick?" questioned Andy.

"I don't think so," answered his brother. "I believe behind it all he is afraid we'll have him arrested for the theft of those documents."

"If he really took them, what do you think he did with them?" came from Fred.

"More than likely he destroyed them," answered Jack. "He wouldn't want evidence like that lying around loose, you know."

When Carson Davenport learned that six of his men had deserted and gone over to the Rovers he was more angry than ever.

"They're going to do their best to undermine us," he said to Tate. "I wish I knew just how to get square with them."

"We'll get square enough if we strike oil here," said Tate. "Those Rovers will feel sick enough if they learn we are making a barrel of money."

"It's easy enough to talk about making a barrel of money," came from Jackson, who was present. "But I don't see the money flowing in very fast." He had been talking to a number of his friends, and many of them had said they thought the chances of getting oil from the Spell claim were very slim.

"Oh, you just hold your horses, Jackson," said Carson Davenport smoothly. "Take my word for it, this well we are putting down is going to be one of the biggest in this territory."

But though he spoke thus, Davenport did not believe what he said. He, too, was becoming suspicious that they might be drilling a well which would prove dry. However, he had the traits of a gambler, and was willing to go ahead so long as there was the least possibility of success.

As the days slipped by the work on both claims progressed rapidly. Nick Ogilvie managed to hire a few men in and around Wichita Falls, and Davenport also picked up some workers to take the places of those who had deserted him.

In those days the Rover boys became almost as enthusiastic as Jack's father, and their enthusiasm increased when Tom Rover and Sam Rover took a run down from New York to see how matters were progressing.

"It certainly is a gamble – this boring for oil," remarked Sam Rover.

"But it looks like a good gamble to me," answered his brother Tom. "And I like the way that man Fitch talks." He had had an interview with the oil expert which had pleased him greatly.

On one occasion the Rover boys rode over from Pottown to Columbina. There, at the shooting-gallery they had visited before, they ran most unexpectedly, not only into Nappy and Slugger, but also Gabe Werner. At the sight of them Werner tried to get out of the gallery by the back way, but was stopped by the proprietor.

"You haven't settled with me yet," said the shooting-gallery man.

"Oh, that's all right. Take it out of this," growled Werner, and threw down a dollar bill. Then he tried to pass out again, but before he could do so Randy and Fred caught and held the rascal.

Cornered, Gabe Werner tried to put up a fight, and in this he got by far the worst of it. He managed to get in one or two blows, but then Randy knocked him down, and when he arose to his feet Fred landed on his ear so that the bully spun around and lurched heavily against the counter on which rested a number of guns.

"You let me alone!" roared Werner. And then he suddenly caught up one of the guns and made a move as though to aim it at the Rovers. But the keeper of the shooting gallery was too quick for him, and wrested the weapon from the big youth's grasp.

And then Gabe Werner did catch it. Not only did Randy and Fred pounce upon him, but also Jack and Andy, and as a consequence, bruised and bleeding, the big bully staggered from the shooting gallery and set off down the muddy street at the best speed he could command.

"There! I guess we've settled him for a while," panted Randy, when the encounter was over. "Hello! where are Nappy and Slugger?"

"They slid out while we were taking care of Gabe," answered Andy. "I guess they thought things were getting too warm." And in that surmise the fun-loving Rover was correct. Dismayed by the beating Werner was receiving, Nappy and Slugger had lost no time in departing for parts unknown. It was a long time before the Rovers saw them again.

A few days later came word from the Spell claim that filled the Rovers with astonishment mingled somewhat with dismay. Oil had been reported, and every one connected with the Davenport outfit was of the opinion that the well when shot off would open up big.

"Gee! suppose they do strike it rich?" cried Fred.

"I don't think they will – not after what the experts said," answered Jack.

"But even Mr. Fitch said they sometimes made mistakes," put in Randy.

A few days later the well on the Spell claim was shot off, and this was followed by a flow of oil amounting to forty or fifty barrels a day. Then it was announced that the Davenport crowd was going to sink the well several hundred feet deeper and they were also going to put down another well farther up the brook.

"I reckon that flow of oil has got 'em a-going," remarked Nick Ogilvie, and there was just a trace of envy in his tones. "Well, that's the luck of it. You can't tell anything about it," and he shook his head wonderingly as he went about his duties.

So far, there had been no indications of oil at the first well which the Rovers were boring. But Mr. Fitch had told Jack's father not to expect too much until a depth of at least twenty-five hundred feet was reached.

It made the boys feel a little blue to think that the Davenport crowd had been the first to strike oil.

"Won't Nappy and Slugger crow over this – especially as their folks have an interest in the well?" remarked Jack.

But the next day something happened which made Jack forget all his troubles for the time being. A telegram came in from his sister Martha, reading as follows:

"Ruth's eyes operated on yesterday. Very successful. Expert says she will see perfectly."

"Isn't this grand!" cried Jack, his whole face beaming with pleasure. "I declare, this is the best news yet!"

"I don't blame you for being pleased, Jack," answered Randy. "I'll wager the Stevensons feel relieved."

The telegram was followed by a letter which gave many details. But the main feature was that the operation had been entirely successful and that the surgeon in charge had said positively that Ruth's eyes would soon be as well and as strong as they had ever been.

"I am going to send her a telegram of congratulation," declared Jack. "Even if she can't read it herself, they can read it to her," and he hurried off to the telegraph station for that purpose.

After that the boys waited anxiously for some sort of development at the Franklin farm. Tom Rover and his brother Sam had returned to New York, and they had wanted the boys to go with them, but all had pleaded that they be allowed to remain in Texas.

"We want to see the wells shot off and want to see the oil flow – that is, provided it does flow," said Randy.

"We might as well put in our vacation here as anywhere," put in Fred. And so the four lads were allowed to remain.

Of course, the Franklins were as anxious as any one to see how matters would turn out. Father and son were working for the company and doing their best to hurry matters along. Dick Rover was also on hand daily, consulting with Ogilvie and his assistants to make sure that everything was going right.

"These two wells are going to cost us about seventy thousand dollars," Jack's father confided to him. "It's a mint of money, isn't it?" and he smiled slightly.

"It certainly is, Dad. Especially if the wells don't pan out."

"Well, we've got to take what comes. You must remember this is the land of luck – good or bad."

At last Ogilvie announced that they were getting to the point where the first well would soon be shot off. There were some indications of oil, although not as strong as Mr. Fitch had hoped. The oil expert had put up his five thousand dollars in the company which had been formed, so he was almost as anxious as those who had larger sums invested.

"Here's news for you!" shouted Andy, bursting in on the others the next noon. "What do you know about this? Say, I guess those fellows are going to catch it all right enough!" and he began to dance around the floor.

"What are you talking about, Andy?" demanded his brother.

"They say the well on the Lorimer Spell claim has run dry!"

"Run dry!" came from the others.

"Yes, run dry – or next door to it! They got only fifteen barrels the day before yesterday, and yesterday they got not more than three."

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Jack. "Who told you this?"

"One of the men who worked there. Carson Davenport was so mad that when the man said something to him about it he fired him. The man said he was coming over here to look for a job – that he was sure the whole thing was petering out."

The news soon circulated, and Dick Rover was so interested that he went off the next day to Columbina to ascertain the truth.

"It's so, all right enough," he said, on returning. "They didn't get more than a barrel or so to-day. It has certainly gone back on them. Of course, they can bore the well deeper. But I guess Mr. Fitch was right. He said that there was more or less surface oil – that they hadn't tapped any real vein or pocket."

The day before the first of the wells on the Franklin farm was to be shot off the Rover boys went to Columbina on an errand to one of the stores. Just as they were coming out of this establishment they saw an automobile dash through the mud on the way to the railroad station. Behind it came another automobile filled with a number of men, all yelling wildly for those in the first automobile to stop.

"Hello, something is going on!" exclaimed Jack.

"Let's go after them and see what's doing," suggested Fred.

The others were willing, and all set off on a run down the main thoroughfare of the town. As they ran they heard the distant whistle of a locomotive.

"I guess the crowd in the first auto want to catch that three-o'clock express," remarked Fred.

"Yes, and evidently the second crowd want to stop them," returned Andy.

The excitement had attracted the attention of a number of people, and a crowd of a dozen or more followed the boys to the railroad station, all wondering what was the matter.

As soon as the first automobile reached the railroad platform a man sprang from the car, holding a Gladstone bag in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He looked back, and then made a wild dash for the train, which was just rolling into the station.

"Look! It's Carson Davenport!" exclaimed Jack.

"And see who are after him – Tate, Jackson and three or four other men!"

"Stop, Davenport!" yelled one of the men. "Stop or I'll shoot!" and he flourished a revolver, and another man in the crowd did the same. Then the bunch jumped from the second automobile and dashed pell-mell toward the train.

CHAPTER XXX
THE NEW WELL – CONCLUSION

Carson Davenport was halfway up the steps of the car when Jake Tate and another man hauled him backward to the station platform.

"They've got him!" exclaimed Jack, as he and his cousins, along with the rest of the gathering crowd, came closer.

"Hi! Hi! Let me alone!" yelled Davenport. "Don't shoot! What is the meaning of this, anyway?"

"You know well enough what it means!" bellowed Tate, still clutching him by the arm. "You come back here. You are not going to take that train or any other just yet."

"And you're not going to carry off that bag, either," put in Jackson, as he wrenched the Gladstone away.

By this time the crowd completely surrounded Carson Davenport, and the pistols which had been drawn were speedily thrust out of sight. The oil well promoter was pushed in the direction of the little railroad station, and in the midst of this excitement the train pulled out.

"What's the rumpus about, anyway?" exclaimed one man in the crowd.

"Never mind what it's about," broke in Tate hastily. "This is our affair."

"That's right – maybe we had better keep it to ourselves," muttered Jackson.

"I don't believe in shielding him," cried one man who had chased Davenport and who wore several soldier's medals on his vest. "He's a swindler, and it's best everybody knew it. He was on the point of lighting out for parts unknown with all the money that was put into his oil wells up on the Spell ranch."

"Is that right?" burst out another man.

"It is. And Tate and Jackson know it as well as I do. I guess Davenport came to the conclusion that those wells he was putting down were no good, and rather than sink any more money into them he was going to run off with it."

"I wasn't running off with anything," declared Carson Davenport. "I was going to put the money into the bank at Wichita Falls. I had a perfect right to do that," and as he spoke he glared at Tate and Jackson.

"Say, if you're going to talk that way, I won't stand in with you any longer!" cried Jackson, in a rage. "That money is going to stay right here, where I and all the rest of us can keep our eyes on it!"

"That's right – don't let him get away with a dollar of it!" burst out another man in the crowd.

"We'd better examine this bag first and make sure that we've got what we came after," declared the man who wore the medals on his vest.

Davenport tried to demur, but none of the crowd would listen to him. Although the Gladstone bag was locked, the oil well promoter was compelled to give up the key, and then the others looked over the contents of the bag.

"Twenty-six thousand dollars here," announced Tate, as he counted the money in the presence of the others.

"What's this package?" demanded the man who wore the medals. "Hello! Look here!" he exclaimed an instant later, after he had glanced at one of several documents held together by a rubber band.

"What have you got?" questioned Tate curiously.

"You let those alone!" bellowed Davenport, his face turning pale. "Give them to me! They are my private property!" and he endeavored to snatch the documents from the other man's hand.

"Not much!" answered the man with the medals, Corporal John Dunning, who had served over a year in France. "These papers belong to Mr. Richard Rover, and he is the one who is going to get them."

"Richard Rover!" burst out Jack, who was close enough to catch the words. "Why, that's my father!"

"I tell you I want those papers! They are mine!" screamed Carson Davenport, and now he made another struggle to get them.

In the mêlée which followed Corporal Dunning was hit by the oil well promoter, who in return received a blow full in the mouth which loosened several of his teeth.

"If those are my father's papers they must be the same that were stolen from him while we were stopping at a hotel here," said Jack. "Several men entered one of our rooms and my father was knocked down from behind, and while he was unconscious the men took the papers and ran away. They were papers relating to the Lorimer Spell claim."

"Then tell your father that Corporal John Dunning, who is stopping at O'Brian's Hotel, has them and will give them up to him just as soon as he can prove his property," said the ex-soldier, as he placed the documents in an inside pocket.

By this time two under-sheriffs had arrived on the scene, and they were wanting to know if their services were required. Tate, Jackson, and one or two others, for purely personal reasons, were in favor of hushing the matter up, but not so Corporal Dunning or the Rover boys.

"If he is the man who knocked my father down and robbed him, I want him arrested," declared Jack.

"He ought to be arrested if he did anything like that," acquiesced Dunning. "I'm through with him! No more work for me at his place!"

"If you want another job I guess my father's foreman, Nick Ogilvie, will be glad to take you on," answered Jack quickly. "You know, my dad is an ex-service man, too. And so are my cousins' fathers," he added, motioning to the other boys.

Carson Davenport blustered and tried to protest, and so did Tate and Jackson. But it was all of no avail, and in the end the oil well promoter was marched off by the under-sheriffs to the local lockup. Then Tate and Jackson hurried away, looking anything but pleased.

"If he's exposed, he'll expose us too," said Tate sourly.

"Right you are, Jake," answered Jackson. "Maybe we'd better clear out."

And they did, the next day. They tried to get hold of some of the funds of the oil company, but Dunning and others were on guard, so this little plan was frustrated.

Of course Dick Rover was astonished when the boys burst in on him with their story. He quickly sought out Dunning and proved to the satisfaction of that individual that the documents taken from Davenport were his property. Then Davenport was put through the "third degree," as it is called by the authorities, and finally broke down and admitted that he, Tate, and Jackson had committed the assault and theft, and that he had likewise tried to abscond with the remaining funds of his new oil company. As a result of all this he was later sentenced to a term of years in prison. About three months later still Tate and Jackson were caught, and also made to do time at hard labor.

With Davenport, Tate and Jackson out of it, the management of the new oil company fell upon Gabe Werner's father. Mr. Werner went ahead with the two wells as planned by the others, and in them sunk not only a large amount of his own funds, but also funds belonging to the Martells and Browns. But in the end these wells proved to be little better than dry holes, so all of the money was lost.

"It's a terrible blow for all three families," said Dick Rover, when this occurred. "It will make Mr. Werner quite a poor man."

"Well, I don't particularly wish them any hard luck," remarked Andy. "Just the same, I guess Nappy, Slugger and Gabe got what was coming to them."

On the day following the arrest of Davenport the first of the wells on the Franklin farm was shot off. It proved to be an immense success, the flood of oil carrying away almost everything before it.

"Jumping toothpicks!" exclaimed Randy, when the excitement was over. "Nick Ogilvie says she will go six thousand barrels a day!"

"Just to think of it!" cried Jack, his eyes gleaming with pleasure. "Six thousand barrels! Isn't it wonderful? Six thousand barrels at two dollars and a half a barrel amounts to fifteen thousand dollars! Why, it's a fortune and more!"

"We'll all be rich! We'll all be rich!" sang out Andy, and, grabbing his brother, both set up a wild dance, knocking over the chairs as they did so.

It was certainly a gala event, and the Rovers lost no time in telegraphing the news to the folks in New York and also to a number of their friends. Then preparations were made to bring in the second well, and this proved almost as good as the first, running between four and five thousand barrels per day at first, and then settling down to fifteen hundred, while the first well for a long while never ran below twenty-five hundred.

"They sure are a pair of peaches!" declared Dunning, who had come to work for The Rover Oil Company. "A pair of peaches, as good as any in this district."

"Do you know, I can scarcely believe it's true," said Phil Franklin to the Rover boys. "Why, my father will have more money than he ever dreamed of."

"We're as glad as you are, Phil," declared Jack. "Glad on your account as well as our own. Now maybe you can go to Colby Hall with us."

"Say, that would be immense!" exclaimed Phil with pleasure.

And how Phil Franklin went that Fall with the Rovers to Colby Hall will be related in a new volume, to be entitled, "The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch; or, The Cowboys' Double Round-Up." In that book we shall learn more concerning the doings of Jack and his cousins, and also learn the particulars of a most remarkable trip to the far West.

Two weeks after the coming in of the first well the four Rover boys returned to their homes in New York City. There an agreeable surprise awaited them. Gif and Spouter had come down from Lake George to pay them a visit.

"Say, this is just all right!" cried Jack, as the lads shook hands all around.

"There is another surprise coming this evening," said Mary. "But we're not going to tell you what it is."

That surprise proved to be the coming of Ruth and May. As yet Ruth had to wear dark glasses, but she said that the eye specialist had told her that these could be discarded in a week or two.

"You don't know how thankful I am that your eyes are coming around all right," said Jack, as he caught both her hands. "It's the best news in the world, Ruth – far better than that big oil well coming in on our place in Texas."

"I am thankful, too, Jack," she answered. "And doubly thankful that you haven't had to go through what I did with your eyes."

"I guess Gabe Werner has got his deserts," put in Randy. "His father is sinking all his money in those good-for-nothing wells on the Spell claim."

That night the young folks had something of a party, and it is perhaps needless to say that every one of them enjoyed it thoroughly. Ruth, of course, had to be careful of herself, and could not dance, but Jack gave her a good deal of his company, and with this she seemed quite content.

Then followed a week or more in which the young folks went out on numerous outings, both in the city and elsewhere. Then all motored up to Valley Brook Farm, there to spend some time with Grandfather Rover and Aunt Martha and Uncle Randolph before returning to school.

"Well, it's certainly been a great Summer, after all!" remarked Fred.

"It sure has!" returned Andy.

"And we got quite a lot of fun out of it," added his twin.

"Fun, and a good deal of information," said Jack. "It certainly paid us to visit The Land of Luck."

THE END