A great many petroleum wells have been salted and sold in this way, but it sometimes happens that the would-be swindler gets the worst of his bargain. I knew one case, in 1863, where a man baited a well in the above way, and sold it. He laughed that evening over his sharp trick; but he laughed less the next morning, when he passed the well and saw that the tools had been withdrawn, and the well was flowing at the rate of three hundred barrels a day. A few hours after the purchasers entered upon their work, they struck oil and were happy. [Sidenote: A NEAT SWINDLE.] A trick that has been practised in the oil regions to some extent is to convert a well which has no oil in it into a genuine flowing well. I have known this to be done by conducting a pipe underground from a tank at a genuine well a few hundred yards away. The pipe opens into the baited well, and it can readily be seen that with a good “head” on the pipe the well will be a perfect flowing well, to all intents and purposes. Men are engaged in barrelling the substance, and a visitor can see with his own eyes the amount of the yield. If he wants to buy a well, nobody has any great desire to sell, and he may have difficulty in buying the whole thing outright; but he can get an interest in it for a comparatively low figure. Sometimes he may buy one man’s interest, and then another man’s, and he thinks he has struck a very fine bargain. But during the night, after his purchase, the oil ceases flowing, and he finds that his property is worthless. Another swindle of the same sort is to have a tank filled with oil, and a pipe run through one of its supporting posts, and under ground into the well. The pumping machinery is kept at work, and it may be pumping, say, at the rate of one hundred barrels a day. But all the time that the pump is working, the oil is running into the well, and it may run in and be pumped out again and again. The operation is a simple one, and well calculated to deceive. [Sidenote: FRAUDULENT OIL COMPANIES.]