The abandoned well did not propose to be snuffed out unceremoniously or to enact the role of “Leah the Forsaken.” In its bright lexicon the word fail was not to be inserted merely because it was too fresh to participate in the salt-trade. Far from retiring permanently, it spouted petroleum at a Nancy-Hanks quickstep, filling the pit, running into the Fork and covering mile after mile of the water with a top-dressing of oil. Somehow the floating mass caught fire and mammoth pyrotechnics ensued. The stream blazed and boiled and sizzled from the well to the Cumberland River, thirty-five miles northward, calcining rocks and licking up babbling brooks on its fiery march! Trees on its banks burned and blistered and charred to their deepest roots. Iron-pans at the salt-wells got red-hot, shriveled, warped, twisted and joined the junk-pile! Was not that a sweet revenge for plucky No. 1, the well its owner “had no use for” and devoutly wished at the bottom of the sea? The Chicago fire “couldn’t hold a candle” to this rural conflagration, which originated the expressive phrase of “hell with the lid off,” applied sixty years afterwards by James Parton to the flaming furnaces at Pittsburg. Unluckily, the region was populated so sparsely that few spectators had front seats at “the greatest show on earth.” The deluge of oil ceased eventually, the fire following suit. Anon the salt industry began to languish and the works were dismantled. No more the forest-road echoed the sharp crack of the teamster’s whip or heard his lusty oaths. The district along the South Fork was left as silent as “the harp that once through Tara’s halls the soul of music shed,” ready to be labeled “Ichabod,” and tradition alone preserved the name and record of the “Beatty Well,” THE FIRST OIL-SPOUTER IN AMERICA! To future generations tell The story of the Beatty Well, The father of oil-spouters! In spite of quips and jibes and sneers Of arrant cranks and doubters, Whose forte is flinging wretched jeers, It richly merits hearty cheers From true petroleum-shouters. [Illustration: DR. W. GODFREY HUNTER.]