Adventure, July 1, 1928 — page 20: what you’re looking at

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

14 THOMSON BURTIS worth of goods on these floors that isn’t sold, and there are carloads on the way that were sold before they were shipped. “I wasn’t satisfied, though. I did something I seldom do, with your father’s approval. Of course you know that he and I have done business, as partners and opponents both, for twenty-five years. The old hellion has beat me out of a for- tune when we were against each other! I think he trusts my judgment, however. I invested twenty-two thousand dollars for us both in acreage, all bought from Mexicans and negroes in small lots. It’s right here.” He took out a blueprint of the field. It was divided into a thousand areas, small and large, and he pointed to a sec- tion north east of town which was plainly marked, “Ivers’ acreage’”’. “It looked good then, and wonderful now,” Ivers continued. “The first well, Derringer Number 1, was a mile away. But the fault formation and all indica- tions pointed to it being good stuff. Derringer himself had corraled all the acreage around his wildcat. Another well was being sunk, offset from our acreage, which was proving up. Since then—it’s Thomas Number 1,*here—it’s come in for ten thousand barrels of high grade oil. “Right now this acreage, leased at from fifty to two hundred dollars an acre, is worth in round numbers from a thousand anacre up. There are wells in, or looking good, all around it. Not thirty thousand barrel ones, but good ones. I should say your dad’s holdings and mine could be sold tomorrow for a hundred thousand.” “Tt does look as though you were a good business man,” Tex observed. ‘“‘What’s the trouble?” “Just this. As I said, this acreage was leased, got on option, and otherwise secured from individual Mexican and negro farmers, all ignorant. Now the situation is this: Derringer—Slats Der- ringer, driller of the original well—had scared and forced and bribed these twenty small owners to swear that they were forced by my agents to sell their leases— coerced into deals they didn’t want to make. Every damn’ one of them has been forced by Derringer to repadiate their agreements with me, and to make new ones, at a slightly higher price with a small percentage of the profits, to him.” “Well I'll be damned,” Tex said softly, and looked at the immobile Daly. Daly was listening closely, but said nothing. “You see where we are. Twenty-two thousand sunk. If those landholders stick to their story, the land will event- ually belong to Derringer, and we're stuck. He’ll fight forever, and has the money to do it. The best that could happen is to have it go years in the courts —and everybody lose.- As far as profits are concerned, we're tied tighter than a drum. By the time it’s settled, even if it’s in our favor, we'll have spent thou- sands, the pool will probably be drained, and the oil under our property will have seeped away and produced from offset wells. Any way you take it, we're stuck.” “Who is this Derringer, and how does he get away with it?” asked Daly. “There,” stated Mr. Ivers impressively, “is the nub of the whole proposition. He’s the man we’ve got to tangle with, and beat.” He took out a stogie, and lighted it with deliberation. He settled back in his chair again, and started talking directly to Daly. “Slats Derringer has been a big driller for years—sometimes twenty rigs In a field. He’s made a lot of money, one way or another, and he’s the smartest inde- pendent oil operator this far south. He came in here from Mexico and drilled this wildcat. He started tying up acre- age before he brought her in. When he did that, that was my cue to get ready for business. That’s what I think of his judgment. é “No sooner had he hit oil than he brought into this town about five hun- dred men he knew. Most of ’em had worked for him. Others were friends. He had roughnecks, fdrillers, dive keep- ers—a Derringer mob gathered from a comnlicloooks.com