Page:Melville Davisson Post--The Man of Last Resort.djvu/282



NE morning in the early winter the red roan horse, with his head over the high fence of his pasture, saw two men standing in the neighboring meadow contemplating in silence a gigantic derrick. One he immediately recognized as his master Rufus Alshire, and the other resembled in a very large degree a certain obnoxious person who on a memorable summer night had smeared his well kept mane with most disagreeable petroleum.

Presently the grazier spoke. “I judge that it will not now be necessary for Jerry to invoke the tedium of Federal tribunals, there seems to be grease enough here to pay everything and wind up the lawsuits.”

The driller looked up at the oil streaming down from the timbers of the derrick; then he made a mighty angular gesture with his bare right arm.

“By jolly!” he said, “there is money enough in that hole to pay off the national debt.” 258