"Right!" said Gray. "Wells, as you know, are drilled as close to the side lines as the law allows. When oil is found, the adjoining landowner can compel his lessee to put down a well to offset every one that threatens to draw oil from beneath his property." "That's what I've just been telling you." "Many an operator has gone broke offsetting wells in order to protect his leases, especially if he has a number of neighbors who all start drilling promptly. That is one of the many production troubles--and there's a saying that trouble begins when the oil starts." "You said it. But to offset the Nelsons so's to cripple 'em--" Brick Stoner shook his head. "It ain't hard to borrow money for good offsets. 'Most any bank will lend." "It is hard for anybody who is overextended to borrow. Possibly my plan won't work, but to annoy, to harass, to embarrass, to stretch them thin--it's all a part of the game. People are never as well off as we think they are. The Nelsons are close to the sand in a number of places. I want to procure the adjoining acreage. For every well they make, I'll force them to drill six more. The day they strike oil I'll have a string of derricks every two hundred feet along their side lines." It was Mallow who spoke next. "That will cost you dollar for dollar, boss. Have you got chips enough to match their stack?" "I don't have to invest dollar for dollar. My money will go for leases, and I'll let drilling contracts, fifty-fifty, sixty-forty, seventy-thirty--anything to get quick action. Other people's money will do the work for me. Remember, I'm not after oil, I'm after a man." "I'll say you are!" Stoner looked up from a frowning contemplation of the maps. "And if you'll take a chance I'll show you how you can drill one well and cost them three--that is, provided you hit." As the others leaned over his shoulder he explained: "Here's a square block of four twenties--separate leases, all of 'em--and the Nelsons own three. You can cop the fourth twenty, drill right at the inside corner, where all the lines cross. If you pull a duster, you'll be out and injured, maybe twenty-five thousand, but if it comes wet they'll have to protect those three leases with three offsets. It ain't a bad-looking piece of ground; you'll have about a one-to-three chance of making a well." "How many companies have you gentlemen promoted?" Gray inquired. "Twenty-two. And from a shoestring. Every well went down, or is going down, and every dollar we got right here on the street." "And all of them are dry, are they not?" McWade spoke up, defensively: "Sure. They were all wildcats of the wildest kind. But we don't deal in oil, we sell stock. Every issue we've put out has gone above par at some time or other, and that's playing the game square with our customers, ain't it? We see that they have a chance to get out with a profit; if they hang on it's their own fault. That's how we've built up a clienteel."