CHAPTER XXIII
THE GUSHER
Jackpot number three had come in with a roar that shook the earth forhalf a mile. Deep below the surface there was a hiss and a crackle, theshock of rending strata giving way to the pressure of the oil pool. Fromlong experience as a driller, Jed Burns knew what was coming. He swepthis crew back from the platform, and none too soon to escape disaster.They were still flying across the prairie when the crown box catapultedinto the sky and the whole drilling superstructure toppled over. Rocks,clay, and sand were hurled into the air, to come down in a shower thatbombarded everything within a radius of several hundred yards.
The landscape next moment was drenched in black petroleum. The fineparticles of it filled the air, sprayed the cactus and the greasewood.Rivulets of the viscid stuff began to gather in depressions and to flowin gathering volume, as tributaries joined the stream, into the sumpholes prepared for it. The pungent odor of crude oil, as well as thetouch and the taste of it, penetrated the atmosphere.
Burns counted noses and discovered that none of his crew had been injuredby falling rocks or beams. He knew that his men could not possibly copewith this geyser on a spree. It was a big strike, the biggest in thehistory of the district, and to control the flow of the gusher wouldnecessitate tremendous efforts on a wholesale plan.
One of his men he sent in to Malapi on horseback with a hurry-up call toEmerson Crawford, president of the company, for tools, machinery, men,and teams. The others he put to salvaging the engine and accessoriesand to throwing up an earth dike around the sump hole as a barrieragainst the escaping crude. All through the night he fought impotentlyagainst this giant that had burst loose from its prison two thousand feetbelow the surface of the earth.
With the first faint streaks of day men came galloping across the desertto the Jackpot. They came at first on horseback, singly, and later bytwos and threes. A buckboard appeared on the horizon, the driver leaningforward as he urged on his team.
"Hart," decided the driller, "and comin' hell-for-leather."
Other teams followed, buggies, surreys, light wagons, farm wagons, andat last heavily laden lumber wagons. Business in Malapi was "shot topieces," as one merchant expressed it. Everybody who could possibly getaway was out to see the big gusher.
There was an immediate stampede to make locations in the territoryadjacent. The wildcatter flourished. Companies were formed in ten minutesand the stock subscribed for in half an hour. From the bootblack atthe hotel to the banker, everybody wanted stock in every company drillingwithin a reasonable distance of Jackpot Number Three. Many legitimateincorporations appeared on the books of the Secretary of State, and alongwith these were scores of frauds intended only to gull the small investorand separate him from his money. Saloons and gambling-houses, which didbusiness with such childlike candor and stridency, became offices forthe sale and exchange of stock. The boom at Malapi got its second wind.Workmen, investors, capitalists, and crooks poured in to take advantageof the inflation brought about by the new strike in a hitherto unknownfield. For the fame of Jackpot Number Three had spread wide. Theproduction guesses ranged all the way from ten to fifty thousandbarrels a day, most of which was still going to waste on the desert.
For Burns and Hart had not yet gained control over the flow, though anarmy of men in overalls and slickers fought the gusher night and day. Theflow never ceased for a moment. The well steadily spouted a stream ofblack liquid into the air from the subterranean chamber into which theunderground lake poured.
The attack had two objectives. The first was to check the outrush of oil.The second was to save the wealth emerging from the mouth of the well andstreaming over the lip of the reservoir to the sandy desert.
A crew of men, divided into three shifts, worked with pick, shovel,and scraper to dig a second and a third sump hole. The dirt from theexcavation was dumped at the edge of the working to build a dam for thefluid. Sacks filled with wet sand reinforced this dirt.
Meanwhile the oil boiled up in the lake and flowed over its edges instreams. As soon as the second reservoir was ready the tarry stuff wassiphoned into it from the original sump hole. By the time this was full athird pool was finished, and into it the overflow was diverted. But inspite of the great effort made to save the product of the gusher, thesands absorbed many thousands of dollars' worth of petroleum.
This end of the work was under the direction of Bob Hart. For ten days hedid not take off his clothes. When he slept it was in cat naps, an hoursnatched now and again from the fight with the rising tide of wealththat threatened to engulf its owners. He was unshaven, unbathed, hisclothes slimy with tar and grease. He ate on the job--coffee, beans,bacon, cornbread, whatever the cooks' flunkies brought him--and did notknow what he was eating. Gaunt and dominating, with crisp decision andyet unfailing good-humor, he bossed the gangs under him and led theminto the fight, holding them at it till flesh and blood revolted withweariness. Of such stuff is the true outdoor Westerner made. He may dropin his tracks from exhaustion after the emergency has been met, but solong as the call for action lasts he will stick to the finish.
At the other end Jed Burns commanded. One after another he tried all thedevices he had known to succeed in capping or checking other gushers. Theflow was so continuous and powerful that none of these were effective.Some wells flow in jets. They hurl out oil, die down like a geyser, andpresently have another hemorrhage. Jackpot Number Three did not pulse asa cut artery does. Its output was steady as the flow of water in a pipe.The heavy timbers with which he tried to stop up the outlet were hurledaside like straws. He could not check the flow long enough to getcontrol.
On the evening of the tenth day Burns put in the cork. He made elaboratepreparations in advance and assigned his force to the posts where theywere to work. A string of eight-inch pipe sixty feet long was slidforward and derricked over the stream. Above this a large number of steelrails, borrowed from the incoming road, were lashed to the pipe toprevent it from snapping. The pipe had been fitted with valves of varioussizes. After it had been fastened to the well's casing, these weregradually reduced to check the flow without causing a blowout in the pipeline.
Six hours later a metropolitan newspaper carried the headline:
BIG GUSHER HARNESSED;AFTER WILD RAMPAGE
Jackpot No. 3 at Malapi TamedLong Battle Ended
Gunsight Pass: How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West Page 23