Roxy Hastings — page 28: what you’re looking at

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

ROXY HASTINGS. 19 _ Behold him now at an obscure inn, in a little village on the Alleghany River, about twenty miles distant from that sterile tract of land which he had come so far to see and to sell. Here he made known his business to a fat, sleepy landlord, with a very beery expression of face, who both dashed and revived his hopes by his reply. “?Tain’t worth anything ’cept for the wood, and it costs twice as much to cut that and git it to market as it’s worth, though there has been some leetle inquiry for land up there-a-way lately.” “Oh, there-has, eh ?” “ Yes, there’s been some fools around here looking for coal ile, ever since that old salt well on Squire Bingham’s farm began to spit up gas and grease.” “ How was that? I haven’t heard anything about it.” “No, I s’pose not. You see there used to be salt works on the squire’s land, but they wa’nt well managed, and they kind o’ gin out arter a while, and got partly filled up. Latterly the squire’s heirs thought they’d try it again, and they cleared the rubbish out of one of the deepest -of the wells, and began to dig it deeper, though they were most suffocated with a very stinky kind of gas that kept comin’ up. Byme-by the salt water come very fast, and they hed to hurry up, and the well filled and overflowed very quick, _ with a very greasy water, that you could set fire to as it run.” ‘ Possible ?” ‘Fact, sir, and after a few hours, instid o’ water it sent up nothin’ but ile—clear ile, and it’s been doin’ so ever since—hundreds o’ barrels a day.” “ And is it worth anything?” ! : “Oh, yes, a little; but they say the price will go up won- derfully when they git it to Europe, and the Binghams ex- pect to make their fortins. They’re catchin’ and barrelin’ all they can, but they’ve lost ten times, yes, twenty times as much as they’ve saved, for want of barrels to put it in.” “It’s wonderful. They’ll make a fortune, of course.” ‘I don’t believe it. It can’t hold out long, you see, it ain’t nateral. Who ever heerd of sich a thing? And then they’re simpletons enough to think that the earth is full of ile and they can tap it wherever they choose; so they’re nosing around here for places to dig.” “And have they found oil anywhere else ?” “No, and they never will—take my word for that.” Exactly where Squire Bingham’s.farm was the landlord could not tell. It was quite a distance from there—some- EOMIGDoOO “S (eco)