Chapter 7 - Page 2

squanders, there shall arise an earnest orison to you."

The jeweler was delighted. "Good!" he cried. "I detest the deserving poor as heartily as you do. And now I'd like to open a bottle of champagne with our breakfast."

On the very day that the new sign, "Tom and Bob Parker," went up over the door of the insurance office at Wichita Falls, the junior partner announced:

"Well, dad, the firm gets busy at once. I'm off for Dallas to- night."

"What for?" Tom was dismayed by such a prompt manifestation of energy. "I'll have to tell you--" Barbara perched herself upon her father's desk and began speaking with a note of excitement in her voice. "I heard Henry Nelson was in town, so I went to the bank this morning to see him. He's such a big man in the oil business I thought he might help me. He was there, but in conference with his father and another man. There were several people waiting, so I sat down. When the man they were talking to came out, it was Pete, that driller who put down the first well for us. He was glad to see me, and we had quite a talk, but I noticed he was fidgety. He said he was running a rig over near 'Burk,' and had a fishing job on his hands. With all the excitement and everybody running double 'towers' and trying to beat the other fellow down to the sand, it struck me as queer that a contract driller like Pete would be here in Wichita in conference with Bell and Henry Nelson, when he ought to be out on the lease fishing for a lost bit. It didn't sound right. The more I got out of him, the queerer it sounded, for he had all the fishing tools he needed, so I accused him of being a fraud. I told him I'd bet he had a showing of oil and was trying to borrow money to buy the offset or to get the Nelsons to buy it and carry him for an interest."

"Where'd you pick up this lingo?" Tom inquired. "You talk like them wild men at the Westland Hotel."

Barbara laughed delightedly. "Didn't I put down all our shallow wells? If I didn't, I thought I did. Anyhow, I spent most of my time around the rigs and Pete used to call me his boss. Well, that wretched man turned all colors when I accused him, and tried to 'shush' me. He said I mustn't talk about things I knew nothing about--somebody might overhear me. He declared the outfit he was working for were no good and wouldn't pay a driller a bonus if he made a well for them. He was sick of making other people rich and getting nothing for himself.... It was time the drilling crews shared in the profits.... He'd see that nobody froze him out again if he had to spoil the hole. He wound up by denying everything, and I pretended to swallow it, but when he had gone I went over my maps and located the lease where he's drilling. Three of the adjoining tracts are owned by the big companies, so that eliminated them, but the twenty to the west