They got to San Elido; and Dad said, “We’ll jist stop and shake hands with Jake Coffey.” They drove up to the store, and Bunny jumped out, and there was a clerk and he said, “Jake’s gone up to Paradise to see the well. Have you heard the news? Excelsior Pete has got a gusher, there’s oil all over the place!” Bunny ran out and shouted to Dad, and leaped into the car, and gosh-amighty, the way they did burn up that road across the desert! Dad laughed, and said the speed-cops would all be up at the well. They got to Paradise, and the town was deserted, not a soul on the streets, and not a car, except those that were hurrying through, like the Rosses. A burglar could have made off with the whole place—but any burglar would have been watching the gusher, along with the speed-cops! You had to park your car a quarter of a mile away from the well, and you could hear the gusher roaring like Niagara Falls! And then, walking, you came round a turn in the road, and you could see the valley, and everything in sight was black; there was a high wind blowing, and it was a regular thunder cloud, a curtain of black mist as far as you could see. The derrick was hidden altogether—you had to make a detour, behind a little ridge, and come over the top to windward, and there the crowds were gathered, staring at the great black jet that came rushing up out of the ground, a couple of hundred feet into the air, with a sound like an endless express train going by. You could see men working, or trying to work, under the derrick; you could see a bunch of them with picks and shovels, throwing up a sort of dam to hold the oil; they wouldn’t save much, Dad said, it evaporated too fast. Dad could watch this scene philosophically; it wasn’t his “funeral.” If it had been one of the independents, like himself, he’d have offered to help; but this was a dirty crowd, Excelsior Pete, they didn’t think the little fellows had any business on earth, there was nothing too mean for them to do. Of course, it was a shame to see all that treasure going to waste; but you couldn’t be sentimental when you were playing the oil-game. What you had to watch out for was that the wind didn’t shift suddenly and ruin your good suit of clothes! VIII They watched for a while, and then they remembered they had a well of their own, and drove back to Paradise, and across the valley to the Watkins ranch. They had a long talk with the foreman; Dad examined the core, and the report of the chemist who had tested the oil; he saw that the “washing” was going all right, they would be ready for the cementing off in the morning. Everybody was on tiptoe; they were going to do their job better than the “Excelsior Pete” crowd, and not smear all the landscape with crude petroleum. The tankage was at the railroad depot, and they inspected the foundations, just completed for the tanks.