and went, Cooper threatened and subsided, and Balltown was bowled out. Nine-tenths of the operators figured as heavy losers. Pennsylvania’s production shrank from ninety-thousand barrels to sixty-thousand and a healthy reaction set in. Petroleum-developments often presented remarkable peculiarities, but the strangest of all was the readiness with which speculators time and again fell a prey to the schemes of Forest-Warren jobbers, whose “picture is turned to the wall.” [Illustration: S. B. HUGHES.] The professional “oil-scout” first became prominent at Cherry Grove. He was neither an Indian fighter nor a Pinkerton detective, although possessing the courage and sharpness of both. He combined a knowledge of woodcraft and human-nature with keen discernment, acute judgment and infinite patience. S. B. Hughes, J. C. Tennent, P. C. Boyle, J. C. McMullen, Frank H. Taylor, Joseph Cappeau, James Emery and J. H. Rathbun were captains in the good work of worrying and circumventing the “mystery” men. Hughes rendered service that won the confidence of his employers and brought him a competence. Never caught napping, for one special feat he was said to have received ten-thousand dollars. It was not uncommon for him and his comrades to keep their boots on a week at a stretch, to snatch a nap under a tree or on a pile of casing, to creep on all-fours inside the guard-lines and watch pale Luna wink merrily and the bright stars twinkle while reclining on the damp ground to catch the faintest sound from a mystified well. Boyle and Tennent made brilliant plays in the campaign of 1882-3. Captain J. T. Jones, failing to get correct information regarding “646,” lost heavily on long oil when the Cherry-Grove gusher hypnotized the market and sent Tennent from Bradford to size up the wells and the movements of those manipulating them. Michael Murphy, learning that Grace & Dimick were quietly drilling a wildcat-well on lot 646, smelled a large-sized rodent and concluded to share in the sport. For one-hundred dollars an acre and one-eighth the usufruct Horton, Crary & Co., the Sheffield tanners, sold him lot 619, north-east of 646. Murphy had cut his eye-teeth as an importer—John S. Davis was his partner—of oil-barrels, an exporter of crude and an operator at Bradford. He pushed a well on the south-west corner of his purchase and secured lands in the vicinity. Grace & Dimick held back their well a month to tie up lots and complete arrangements regarding the market. Everything was managed adroitly. The trade had not a glimmer of suspicion that a bombshell might be fired at any moment. Murphy’s rig burned down on May fifteenth, he was in Washington trying to close a deed for another tract and “646” was put through the sand. On June second Murphy’s No. 1, which he guarded strictly after rebuilding the rig, flowed sixteen-hundred barrels. His No. 2, finished on July third, flowed thirty-six-hundred barrels in twenty-four hours! The Mahoopany