Still beyond this, in the open air, was a rusty boiler, with a pipe discharging into its open furnace door. This pipe led from a small tank that was filled by the jet of natural gas, discovered by Arthur and his father; and natural gas was to be the only fuel used in drilling and operating the Dale-Dustin well.
At length, after a month of hard work and vexatious delays, the “rig-builders” finished their labors, and the well drillers came in their place. To Arthur’s great joy, they were headed by his “dear giant,” Brace Barlow, who, having heard that his little friend was interested in a new oil well, applied for and obtained the contract for drilling it. “And Arthur, lad,” he said, after the first warmth of their greeting was over, “if this well proves a ‘duster,’ it won’t be because it isn’t drilled fair enough, or deep enough. I’ll keep the temper screw turning, and the drill going, till we strike something to stop it, if it’s only an order to quit, or the bottom of the appropriation.”
Brace Barlow brought with him a delightful surprise for Arthur in the person of his Cousin Cynthia, who, upon Miss Hatty’s invitation, came to make a visit at Dustin farm. The two children enjoyed each other so thoroughly that it was a pleasure to see them together. Arthur had so much to tell and Cynthia so much to hear concerning his wonderful journey to Dalecourt, and they had so many plans to make for the future, that the days were not half long enough for them. In the evenings, when the day’s work was done, Arthur generally sat with Brace Barlow, listening to his tales of adventure in the oil region, or relating incidents of the recent journey, in which Brace was fully as much interested as Cynthia.
Thus the boy discovered how the mysterious five-dollar bill came to be in his precious book, and Brace learned of what service it had been to them.
Day after day the powerful drills worked steadily downward through hard and soft rock, sometimes descending only six or eight feet in twenty-four hours, but generally cutting through twenty or thirty feet of material in a day. The first and second sandstones or “sands” were passed, and at length the drill was down a thousand feet. At this depth it had not yet reached the third, or oil-bearing, sandstone. Occasional puffs of gas came up through the casing of iron pipe that was driven down as fast as a hole was cut to receive it; but there was no sign of oil.