"Burk" was a one-story town, or at least most of its buildings projected only one story above the mud, and that mud was mixed with oil. Leakage from wells, pipe lines, storagetanks, had made the mass underfoot doubly foul and sticky, and where it was liquid it shone with iridescent colors. Mud was everywhere; on the sidewalks, inside the stores, on walls and signboards, on the skins and clothing of the people. Through the main street the procession of cars plowed, then out across the railroad tracks and toward the open country beyond. When it came to a halt, as it frequently did, above the hum of idle motors could be heard the clank of pumps, the fitful coughing of gasengines, the hiss of steam. This, of course, was soon drowned in a terrific din of impatient horns, a blaring, brazen snarl at the delay. The whole line roared metallic curses at the cause of its stoppage. Even the railroad right of way had been drilled. Switch engines shunted rows of flats almost between the straddling derrick legs. Gray's driver had been dumb thus far, now he broke out abruptly: "Speaking about mud; I was crossing this street on a plank the other day when I saw a bran'-new derby lying in the mud and picked it up. Underneath it was a guy's head. "'Hullo!' I said. 'You're in pretty deep, ain't you?' "The feller looked up at me and said: 'This ain't bad. You'd ought to see my brother. I'm standing on his shoulders!'" The chauffeur laughed loudly at his own humor. "_Some_ country, I call it! But the sun's out, so it will be blowing sand to-morrow." When Burkburnett had been left behind, another and a vaster island of derricks came into view. It marked the Burk-Waggoner pool, part of the Northwest Extension, so called. The car was waiting its turn to cross a tiny toll bridge spanning a sluggish creek, the bed of which ran seepage oil from the wells beyond, when the driver grumbled aloud: "Four bits to cross a forty-foot bridge. There's a graft for you! One old nester above here tore a hole in his fence opposite a wet place in the road and charged us half a dollar to drive through his pasture. But it was cheaper than getting stuck. He had to carry his coin home in an oat sack. After a few weeks somebody got to wondering why that spot never dried out, and, come to investigate, wha' d'you think?" "I seldom think when I am being entertained," his passenger declared. "Well, that poor stupid had dammed the creek, and every night he shut the gate and flooded his road."