Chapter 12 Tom Swift and His Great Oil Gusher by Victor Appleton
THE NEW DRILL
Tom did not mention the matter of Hankinshaw’s behavior to his father the next day, because he did not want to worry him. He had also put Koku under a strict injunction not to speak of the events of the night. But to Ned, when he turned up at the office, he narrated the whole affair.
The latter was boiling over with indignation.
“It was a pity that you didn’t give him all that was coming to him,” he declared. “There isn’t a doubt but what you could have sent him to prison. Still, I suppose you were right in not giving the matter publicity. I tell you, Tom, we’re dealing with a shady crowd, and I wish we’d never taken the contract.”
“So do I,” agreed Tom. “And I’ll be heartily glad when the whole matter’s off our hands. Of course, this special thing was probably done by Hankinshaw without the knowledge of the others. He was playing a lone hand, and if he’d got hold of the invention he’d have got all the profit from it.”
“Maybe,” assented Ned. “But Thompson and Bragden, although more polished, are probably just as crooked at heart. It’s my opinion the whole gang are tarred with the same brush. All I want now is to see the last of them. When we’ve once delivered the last shipment and have got our money for it, I’ll feel like celebrating.”
“Well, we’ll only have to be patient for about two weeks more,” Tom consoled him. “Jackson agreed with me yesterday that it will take only that time to finish up the contract. By the way, how about that third check for five thousand? It’s due now, isn’t it?”
“Was due three days ago,” answered Ned. “Late, as usual. I’ve had to draw on them. Like pulling teeth to get anything out of them. We have to do our work twice over—once in actually doing it and the second time in getting our money for it. But we’ve got them on the hip now. They’ve paid so much that it will be more profitable for them now to pay the rest than to cheat us out of it.”
“There’s some silver lining to the cloud, anyway,” observed Tom more cheerfully. “If it hadn’t been for this contract I wouldn’t have been thinking about oil and wouldn’t have perfected this new idea of mine. We’ll forget all about this bother when the money comes rolling in from the patent rights. That is, if it does,” he added, with a return to his habitual caution.
“No modifications, you old gloom hound,” laughed Ned. “You gave yourself away that time. Own up, old boy, you know that you’ve got a good thing. Come now, don’t you?”
Tom grinned.
“On the level, Ned, I feel pretty sure of it,” he confessed. “Of course, ‘there’s many a slip between the cup and the lip,’ and I may be letting myself in for a disappointment. The next few days will tell. By day after to-morrow I’ll be all ready to put the new drill to a practical test. It won’t take long to know whether it’s going to work or not.”
The next two days were busy ones for Tom. He was, too, at high nervous tension, wondering whether his idea would “go over big” or fail. He had checked and re-checked on his figures, and could find no flaw in them. And figures did not lie. Still——
He saw nothing of Hankinshaw. Either the man had left town temporarily or he was keeping carefully under cover. Tom did not care which, as long as the rascal kept out of his way.
At last the momentous morning came when Tom was to try out his new drill. A few trusted workmen had been chosen to work the machinery. That was all they were concerned with, and they would be in no position to gauge the meaning of whatever results would be obtained. Jackson was there to help, and Ned and his father were also on hand.
The miniature well was started, and for a time nothing was heard but the creaking of the derrick and the chugging of the drill as it worked its way through the soil. Tom, of course, knew the ordinary rate of progress made in well digging with the usual type of drill. But by how much would he be able to beat it? Or would he beat it at all?
The morning passed with interest at fever heat. It seemed to Tom that he was making rapid progress. But the results of any one hour would not give him a sufficient basis to generalize from. Special circumstances might make the results small or great. The work would have to be spread over several hours before he could reach an average from which he could draw safe and sound conclusions.
At noon the men stopped for lunch, but Tom was too much excited to eat. He spent that time in studying the character of the soil through which the drill had been biting its way and the depth that it had reached.
The results astounded him. He thought he must have made a mistake in his calculations and went over them again. But no. The figures were correct. Was he dreaming?
His father, who had been looking over his shoulder, was equally startled.
“Why, Tom!” he exclaimed, “do you realize what that means? That’s three times as much as you could have got with the ordinary drill.”
“I know,” said Tom, in a voice that he tried to keep calm. “I thought I must have miscalculated. Do you see any error in the figures?”
“None at all,” was the answer. “They’re perfectly correct. But it seems almost beyond belief.”
“Well,” said Tom, “one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one test doesn’t prove that others will be just like it. Perhaps the soil was lighter and easier to penetrate than it really seems. The real test will come when we strike rock.”
They struck rock that afternoon, and the way the drill ground and scrunched its way through it was music to Tom’s ears. It ate its way with surprising rapidity, which was the more remarkable because the specimens brought up showed it to be of a remarkably hard quality. Here again the same comparative gain was made over the ordinary rate of rock penetration.
Still Tom refused to be rushed off his feet, and the work went on for two days more, days of steadily decreasing doubt, days of steadily increasing jubilation.
At the end of the third day, Tom knew that beyond the peradventure of a doubt he had “struck it.” He would have been delighted if his new drill had proved to be able to do half as much again as the one commonly in use. He would have been astounded had it proved to be able to do twice as much.
But the result had far outrun his wildest expectations. The principle that he had embodied in his new drill had trebled its effectiveness. He had hit on something that was destined to revolutionize the oil industry.
Once more that inventive brain of Tom Swift’s would startle the world!