Adventure Magazine Cover — page 61: what you’re looking at

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

Wien es oe = (Sah rer S — % if B -—B an 2 ps Hye ca: x S pprare a y, df eres ane 3 Ro) om <p oe Geka | ~ in umd @ Ag. © pumdo ot ves, HH , Spiri “. * ie Blatt IT > RAYMON D S:SPEARS Author of “The Diversions of a Monographic Professor,” “River Law ghter,” HERE are some who say the Old West is dead, but its spirit lives, sometimes in the most unexpected of humans. Lots of people want to make us believe that the very best thing that the frontier gave humanity has given way to the artful palaver of the real-estate agent and the promotion of fake oil stocks. As it happens, this is the story of Timmy Keyes, who dealt in stocks which were good under the blue-sky law, in bonds that a bank would accept as collateral on a note, and in lands that he would tell the truth about, though it killed a sale. He believed in the eternal compensation from faith in stead- fast toil and unwavering belief in the God- dess of Chance. Timmy had his reward. When the oil boom struck Piute County, Timmy’s faith in his own country found him just staggering under a burden of sage, alkali, desert and rocky wash. Somehow, he had dreamed, a boom would be justified and he would find himself wealthy beyond his dreams. - He had figured on irrigation or on chem- istry revealing use for the unlimited quanti- ties of many kinds of salt in his possessions; he had dallied with a salt bush that would serve as cattle-feed; he had bored for fresh water and found oil—crude, explosive, smoking, salable oil! That was the reward of Timmy Keyes’ faith. Away down under the dry and arid surface of Timmy Keyes’ possessions, where he hoped to find water that a cow at least could drink, he found a fluid that was worth “The Spirit behind the Bluff,” $2.18 a barrel at current market rates, according to the analysis. He had. paid seventy-five cents a barrel for water; now folks would pay him cash for what flowed out of his own land! Faith in one’s own home country? Is it rewarded? Ask Timmy Keyes! To Timmy’s region swarmed thousands of hungry adventurers. Where there had been a struggling, parched and desperately hopeful scattering of humans now struggled and swore and schemed a mob without dis- cipline. Timmy was rated at more than a million. He was hailed as the biggest man in all that part of creation. His credit was unlimited. His acclaim was heard over a dozen oil regions. Timmy could hardly believe his good fortune, his luck, the payment that had been made for his faith in the land. He was, in all the throng, the most surprizing man to meet, to see. He was fairly frightened by his wealth, there was so much of it. He was actually pale when he contemplated his responsibilities. He had amassed square miles of sage and alkali when those lands were to be had for a few cents an acre. He had taken what seemed to be the leavings of desperate, poor men. The acres had now begun to spurt oil! His wealth made him respectable, but he was and looked to be a “‘little man.” He weighed enough, he was tall enough, he filled clothes of sufficient size to permit him to walk with his head up. Nobody ever said Al Jennings wasn’t much, because he copyright, 1921, by Raymond S. Spears. 51 DOOKE © inn