Chapter 8 Tom Swift and His Great Oil Gusher by Victor Appleton
THROUGH THE WINDOW
Tom, having so suddenly burst into the store, grabbed the man by the collar and whirled him about so that the two were face to face. It was Hankinshaw.
“What do you mean by that?” sputtered Hankinshaw, as he tried to wrench himself loose from the strangle hold that Tom had on him, his face fairly apoplectic with rage.
“It’s up to me to ask you what you mean by daring to bother this young lady,” responded Tom, in a low tense voice while his eyes glinted like steel. “He was annoying you, wasn’t he, Mary?”
“Yes, he was,” replied Mary excitedly. “And, oh, Tom, I’m so glad you came! But please, Tom,” she added more calmly, “don’t make a scene. Let’s get out of here as soon as possible.”
Tom relinquished his hold on Hankinshaw’s collar.
“You’re right, Mary,” he agreed. “His case can wait till another time. But it’s only your being here that saves him from getting the thrashing of his life.”
“Huh!” snorted Hankinshaw, who, while not quite as tall as Tom, was much bulkier and heavier. “That’s easy enough to say. Talk is cheap. What do you suppose I’d be doing while you were trying to mess me up?”
“Nothing much,” retorted Tom drily. “That will be enough from you, Hankinshaw. Give me your parcels, Mary, and I’ll see you home.”
“The nerve of you to lay your hands on me!” snarled Hankinshaw, who was getting angrier and angrier. “I’ve a good mind to have you arrested for assault and battery.”
“Try it,” recommended Tom. “It would be a good chance to show you up for what you are. Come along, Mary.”
“Gallant knight with his fair lady,” sneered Hankinshaw.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Tom, taking a step toward him.
Before the blaze in the young inventor’s eyes, Hankinshaw stepped back hastily. As he did so, his foot struck a box on the floor and he fell backward and went through the confectioner’s window. There was a crash of splintering glass, and the next instant Hankinshaw was on the sidewalk, surrounded by a litter of glass and a score or more of candy boxes that had been flung out with him.
“Oh, I do hope he isn’t hurt!” cried Mary, in a fright.
“I guess not,” replied Tom, as they hurried outside. “You go along, Mary, before a crowd gathers. I’ll stay behind to help him if necessary.”
The confectioner had rushed outside with them, in alarm both for his window and the man who had gone through it. Mary hastened on, while Tom and the store owner, a Mr. Wilkins, helped Hankinshaw to his feet.
To their relief, they saw that apart from a few scratches on one of his hands and the damage to his dignity, no harm had come to the bulky fellow. But his eyes were baleful as he glared at Tom. If hate could have killed, Tom would have been a dead man.
“I’ll fix you for this, Swift!” he declared venomously.
“You brought it on yourself,” replied Tom. “I’m glad though that you weren’t seriously injured. You’d better get back to your hotel before a crowd gathers. It wouldn’t be pleasant for you to explain just how you happened to go through the window. Don’t worry about the glass, Wilkins,” he continued, turning to the confectioner. “If he doesn’t pay for it, I will. And mind, Wilkins, not a word as to the young lady who was in the store at the time this happened.”
“You can count on me, Mr. Swift,” replied the storekeeper, reassured by what Tom had said about the broken window. “Nobody’ll get anything out of me.”
It was lucky that the accident had occurred at a time when most of the people of the town were at supper and the streets were almost deserted. Some had gathered, however, attracted by the crash, and more were coming, and to avoid questioning Tom went off quickly toward his home. Hankinshaw after a moment of hesitation started off for his hotel, not caring to have others see him in his awkward and humiliating position.
The first thing Tom did on reaching the house was to take up the telephone and call up Mary. There was a tremor in her musical voice as she answered.
“Oh, Tom,” she said, “I’m so glad to hear from you. I’ve been worried to death ever since I left you. Was the man badly hurt?”
“Only a few trifling scratches,” replied Tom. “The fellow got off better than he deserved. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it for his hotel. What he’d like to do to me is a sin and a shame.”
“Do be careful, Tom,” urged Mary anxiously. “He had the look in his eyes of a sneak. I’m afraid that in some underhand way he may do you an injury. I’ve been worrying, too, for fear it may affect the business deal you have with him and his partners.”
“Not a chance,” laughed Tom. “He couldn’t back out now without being a loser, and he and his crowd are too canny for that. Not that I’d care a bit if he did. I’m half sorry we took the contract, anyway. If we hadn’t, this Hankinshaw wouldn’t be hanging around Shopton. But thank goodness the work is getting pretty well along now, and in a few weeks the contract will be completed. Then he’ll be nothing but a bad dream—perhaps I ought to say a nightmare. Don’t worry your pretty head any more about it.”
“But keep away from him all you can, won’t you?” pleaded Mary.
“I guess he’ll keep away from me,” laughed Tom. “But I’ll promise you, if that will make you feel better.”
Tom’s prediction proved correct. For several days Hankinshaw did not appear at all at the works. And even when he resumed his visits they were brief and less frequent than usual, and he avoided meeting Tom as much as possible.
In the meantime, the high board fence around a section of the grounds of the plant had been completed. Material of various kinds had been carried in and set up by a group of chosen workmen under the close supervision of Jackson. Gradually a structure arose that would have seemed strange to the eyes of the people of Shopton, though familiar enough to dwellers in the oil fields of California, Oklahoma and Texas.
Tom was building an oil derrick and getting together a full paraphernalia of cables, drills and other tools necessary in oil-well digging. Everything was on a miniature scale to save expense, for the structure was only designed to be temporary and would be demolished when the need for it had passed.
“Aren’t you going to a good deal of trouble and expense for this one job?” asked Ned, a little anxiously. “It won’t take much to eat up all the profit there is on this contract.”
“Don’t worry, old boy,” replied Tom. “If this one contract were the only thing concerned, this wouldn’t be necessary, for all we have to do is to follow the specifications of their plan. But I’m doing this for a different reason. This isn’t for the benefit of Thompson, Bragden and Hankinshaw, but for trying out something new for the Swift Construction Company. Do you get me?”
“Do you mean that you’ve hit on a new invention?” asked Ned eagerly.
“Something like that,” answered Tom with a smile. “Not that I’d call it an invention—yet. I’ve got a whole lot of things to work out in connection with it. But the idea I’ve struck seems feasible enough as far as I’ve gone. I’m getting rid of the technical difficulties one after the other, and the farther I go, the more convinced I am that I’m on the right track. But nobody knows better than you that there’s a long step between theory and practice. The thing that seems perfect in the study may prove to be a flivver in the field. That’s the reason why I’m rigging up this miniature oil-well outfit. I want to put my idea to a practical test. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. If it doesn’t, I’ll discard it and hunt up something better.”
“Go to it, Tom, and good luck to you,” cried Ned enthusiastically. “I’d have bet my life you’d hit on something new.”
“Hold your horses,” cautioned Tom. “The best laid plans sometimes ‘gang agley.’ I’m a long way off yet from certainty. But I’m far enough along to justify this expense to find out whether I’m right or wrong.”
So the work went on until the structure was complete, and any one who entered the gates of the carefully guarded enclosure would have rubbed his eyes and wondered how long it was since Shopton became an oil field.
The most prominent object was the derrick, or rig, a framework tower wide at the bottom and tapering off at the top. This was for the purpose of carrying two pulleys, the crown pulley in the center and the block through which the sand line ran. Over the crown pulley ran the cable by which the drilling tools were suspended or lowered or raised. At one side of the rig was the bull wheel, or windlass, upon which the cable was wound, and at the other was the walking beam, a heavy timber hung in the center so that it could undulate up and down.
Then there was a choice collection of drilling tools, consisting of a bit, an auger-stem, a sinker bar, a rope socket and jars, all of which were strung together and suspended from the crown pulley by the cable. In addition there were the wrought-iron casings for the lining of the projected experimental well. Nothing essential had been overlooked, and before long Tom found himself in a position to begin the tests on which he was counting so much.
Ned in the meantime had been having troubles on the accounting end. At the expiration of the two weeks when it was stipulated that the second five thousand dollar payment should be made, the check was not forthcoming. Ned telegraphed to Thompson and hunted up Hankinshaw. Both of them put the blame on Bragden, who at the time, they stated, was on a short vacation from which he would return in a few days, when the matter would be promptly adjusted. This, however, did not satisfy Ned, who recognized the familiar tricks of “shoestring” concerns, and he proceeded at once to “put on the screws.” But it was only when he threatened immediate stoppage of work on the contract that the draft he had sent through was finally honored.
“I told you they were as slippery as eels,” Ned reminded Tom, as they looked at the cashier’s check whose delay had been so annoying.
“Yes, and perhaps you wouldn’t have been so far wrong if you had added that they were as crooked as corkscrews,” replied Tom.
“Bless my premonitions! I’m afraid you’re right,” exclaimed a voice behind them.