Jack Heaton, oil prospector

Front matter

Class T Z>7 Book .0,6,9 Copyright N?

COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I High Finance 1

II Heading South 18

Chapter I

T HERE was joy in the home of the Heatons in Montclair, for Jack had recently returned after an absence of six months in The Arctics. But the happiness that marked his home-coming was suddenly changed into gloom for disaster had selected Mr. Heaton for its victim and he had been hit hard.

The old gentleman had just received a report on the status of a certain oil property in Mexico, in which he was interested, and the type-written sheets of the former, as well as numerous beautifully engraved stock certificates printed in a rich green with an impressive gold seal on each one, lay spread out before him on his desk. They represented a small fortune.

For hours Mr. Heaton had poured over the l reports and his forehead was furrowed with the force of distressing thoughts. If you could have seen him at this time you would have observed that his shoulders, which were so square and business-like when he began the task, finally began to slope and at the end of the ordeal they slumped entirely.

Trying to discover a solution for his weighty problem, he got up and began to pace the floor, forth and back across the library, thence into the parlor and back again. Occasionally he would pause before one of the frosted windows and peer out through it to the street, as though he was waiting for some one, then slowly shake his head and resume his circumscribed walk again.

As he was a man of wide business experience, and one who always had himself well in hand, his actions were quite unlike the imperturbed Mr. Heaton that his family and friends were acquainted with; but he was laboring now under great pressure and the best of men sometimes go to pieces under such untoward circumstances.

Again he returned to his desk and singling out the damaging statements he glared feverishly at them. Then came his first words of despair

“Swindled! . . ruined! !” he cried bitterly; “my savings of a lifetime gone — simply wiped out ! ’ ’

At this instant there came the crunch of quick, firm footsteps on the chilled gravel walk outside and a moment later Jack Heaton bounded in with all the life and enthusiasm of youth, almost ran into the library, leaped over the table with the agility of an Andes gazelle and tossed his hat on his father’s head with the adroitness of a juggler.

“Hello again, Had!” he ejaculated cheerily; “busy?”

Mr. Heaton turned slowly in his chair toward his son, with the latter’s hat still setting on his head at a rakish angle, and to say that it gave him an undignified appearance, especially in connection with his rueful countenance, would be putting it altogether too mildly.

“No, Jack, not busy just now, but I will be very soon. I thought when I retired a couple of years ago I was through working hut I have just learned that I must take up the lines again where I laid them down — that is if I can.

Everything is gone — wiped completely out, and I am right back now where I was twenty-five years ago.”

“Why, what has happened, Dad?” questioned Jack, who had not dreamed that a catastrophe was impending.

“Nothing more or less, my boy, than that I have lost the savings of a quarter of a century and that I must now start all over again. It’s hard, bitter hard, to have to face the world at my age penniless and to fight its uncertainties again. It will be hardest of all, though, on Mother, for we will have to give up our home here and live hand to mouth until I get started once more.”

“What has brought about all this and wh y haven’t I known anything about it before?”

“It came about like this, Jack: As you know, when you were a little chap I got into the oilengine business and worked my w 7 ay up until I became the general manager of the New York office of the Singer Company. Then you grew up, became a radio operator and started on your various travels in search of adventure and wealth and you have been, I should say, very successful in your quest of both, considering that you are yet a hoy.

I resigned as general manager of the Singer Crude Oil Engine Company for two reasons, the first of which was that I felt I had accumulated enough of this world’s goods to enable us to live comfortably for the remainder of our lives, and, second and chiefly, because the directors of my company were so ultra-conservative that newer and more progressive firms were slowly but surely making inroads on our business.

4 ‘When I withdrew I sold my holdings .in the company and, knowing oil, the ever-increasing demand for this great commodity, and the huge profits to be made out of it, I invested our nestegg in oil stocks. It was at the time when the Texas and Mexican oil fields began to boom.”

“I know,” broke in Jack; “that was soon after I came back from my whaling trip. I recollect too that there was a lot of unldcat oil stock being sold at anywhere from ten cents to ten dollars a share. I hope you didn’t get roped in for any of that paper stuff.”

“No, my boy, I was not quite as green as that, but almost. While it is true that the securities I bought were those of a new organization — -the Mexican Consolidated Oil Company , Limited , which is located at Terrazas, Chihuahua in Mexico — at the same time I had an oil expert investigate the proposition. He went down there and personally looked over the property. I am satisfied he did it thoroughly and he reported that everything was high-grade and 0. K. in every respect. On the strength of the rapidly developing oil conditions and the expert’s report I sunk all of my savings — one hundred thousand dollars — in the securities of the Mexican Consolidated.

6 ‘ Almost up to the present time the company has fully come up to my expectations and I have received a large dividend quarterly. When the last dividend was due I learned to my surprise that it would not be paid. I immediately wrote to Mr. Simmonds, a friend of mine at El Paso, who also owns stock in the company, and this report here is the result of his inquiries.

“You can look over these papers later if yon care to. In brief, they disclose the following astounding facts : First, that by some hook or crook ten of the seventeen oil producing wells of the company have been turned over to a

Mexican official for a ridiculously low sum and, quite as extraordinary, the other seven wells which up to two months ago had been producing to their usual capacity suddenly showed little or no signs of activity.”

1 1 Have the officers of the Mexican Consolidated Company made any statement to explain this strange condition of affairs?” asked Jack.

“The New York representative of the company informs me that there has been a steady decrease in the daily output of the seventeen wells for some time and that the officials were convinced the source of the oil supply was about exhausted. He also told me they claim they sold the ten gushers to a Mexican Government official at a nominal figure— a mere song in fact — because he had grown suspicious. Mr. Perez, the oil company’s representative here, says he has not been able to get word from the oil fields for the past two weeks for the revolutionists are in control of that part of the country.”

“The whole thing looks very fishy to me,” reflected Jack. “If it was known that the oil supply was rapidly being exhausted the company could not have sold them at any price, let alone to a Mexican official. And can a company dispose of its property without notifying its stockholders V’

“Anything can be done in Mexico to-day if the men higher up are permitted to participate,” Mr. Heaton answered with some bitterness.

“By which you mean that they must get a rake-off /’ said Jack, whose choice of words was not as dignified as that of his father’s.

“Exactly. The most crooked looking part of it all is that the company which now purports to be almost insolvent has, through a Wall Street broker, offered to buy my stock in at ten dollars a share. If I accept their offer I will lose ninety thousand dollars cold and that spells ruin for me. On the other hand I can save ten thousand dollars from the wreck if I sell now and that will help me to get a fresh start. Now, Jack, you see just how the matter stands.”

Jack sat for a few moments lost in thought. He was naturally high spirited and always optimistic, by which I mean that he had the nerve to look on the bright side of life no matter how black it seemed. For many months he had been planning a trip to penetrate the jungles of Brazil in search of a hidden valley of diamonds which had been revealed to him by Princess Mabel when he was a captive of the old cannibal overlord, King Oopla.

His father’s sudden reversal of fortune meant that he would have to postpone this new high adventure, at least for the time being, and bend all of his energies and concentrate all of his efforts to help him out of the difficulty and to retrieve his fortune if possible.

Jack had already seen enough of Mexican character when he was a wireless operator in the coastwise service to know that many Mexicans are most unscrupulous in their undertakings of love, war and business. That the Mexican Consolidated Company , Ltd., or some one interested in it, was trying to buy back his father’s holdings for a measly ten per cent of the amount he had originally paid for them convinced him that there was “dirty work at the crossroads” going on.

“Isn’t it the usual way, Dad, for a company which has gone bankrupt to simply shut up shop and make no attempt to pay its stockholders even in small part?”

io JACK HEATON OIL PROSPECTOR

4 ‘That is the way that companies which are organized for the sole purpose of selling stock generally wind up, but legitimate companies that are insolvent are placed in the hands of receivers, who operate them for the mutual benefit of all concerned,” his father explained.

This sudden generosity on the part of the alleged defunct oil company to take up the outstanding stock on a ten per cent, basis aroused Jack’s fighting blood as well as his suspicions. That in its present state the stock was hardly worth the paper it was printed on, in-so-far as his father was concerned, Jack hadn’t the slightest doubt, but he was equally certain that it was worth its face value to some one else.

“Don’t sell yet,” he advised his father. “There’s a snake in the grass somewhere and it’s the one best bet that to sell now means a dead sure loss to you of ninety thousand pesos in American gold. While you may lose all by hanging on to your stock, at the same time it is my belief that by hanging on to it you stand a long chance of winning out. I’ve found out, Dad, that it’s hanging on the last fifteen minutes that usually wins the fight for a fellow.”

“I know, Jack, but if I should hang on and

1 1 tlie stock should prove worthless in the end I’ll lose every cent and I can’t afford to take the risk on Mother’s account.”

“But if you sell fo these bunco men you will only save ten thousand dollars and that’s not nearly enough. What we want to do is to save all you have invested in these oil securities — if they are worth anything, and I believe they are.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Dad. As you say, I’ve been pretty successful in my undertakings, considering that I’ve been a rolling stone, and I’ve something more than ten thousand dollars saved up from my various ventures. If you’ll agree to hang on to the stock I’ll cover your ten thousand should you lose out, with my own money. ’ ’

“That is certainly fine of you, Jack,” exclaimed Mr. Heaton with a certain suspicious moisture in his eyes, “but I really couldn’t accept your hard-earned money, my hoy, under any circumstances.”

“Hard earned nothing,” Jack replied lightly; “why, for every adventure I’ve had there was not only the fun of it hut I’ve been fairly well paid besides. That last trip to the Arctics I made on the whaler, though, netted me more than all the others pnt together and it was what I’d call easy money, too.

“ What’s more to the point, yon ’re not going to have to accept anything from me because you’re not going to lose; no, not as long as I have two good mitts to prevent these crooks from swindling you,” declared Jack, emphasizing his meaning by drawing a bead on an imaginary Mexican oil promoter with his index fingers.

“But how do you propose going about it, Jack? It looks to me as if the horse has already been stolen and it’s only a question of time until the thieves will get the buggy.”

“Well, one thing’s certain, and that Is as long as there’s no one on the ground to look things over you’ll always be in the dark. So to-morrow I’m going to ‘hop on a rattler,’ as Bill calls a train, run down to Chihuahua* and look things over as your special representative. Never mind about the expense, Dad, I’ll take care of that, and what’s more, I’m going to move heaven and earth to see that you get what you are entitled to. You can bet your bottom

dollar that no pack of greasers can swindle my Dad out of his life’s savings and get away with it.”

“ Mexico is a bad country at best to get into and especially at this time, Jack. You know the natives haven’t got any use for the Americans and right now it looks as if we are going to have more trouble with her. ’ ’

“ All I’ve got to say is that I’ve been through one war already, and I just missed being served up as a cannibal stew, so I guess I can’t fare much worse at the hands of those blood-thirsty greasers . Besides, I’m going to take my old buddy, Bill Adams, who was chief gunner on the submarine H-24, with me. Bill’s served in the old Regular Army on the border, speaks Mex like a native and knows the greasers from A to izzard. ’ ’

“Son, you certainly khQw how to cheer a fellow up and put confidence into him after he’s lost all hope. If you are so determined to see that your poor, old Dad gets a square deal, why, all that I can say is go ahead, and you can rest assured that my support is back of you and my blessing with you.”

“I’ll have to go to New York right away and dig up Bill, ^ y said Jack, “so, as they say in Mex, Adios.”

With that the youth hurried out to catch a train for the city, where his friend lived with his widowed mother. Bill, be it known, had been with Jack through many of his adventures. Although the gentleman in question could hardly be classed as a high-brow, having lived and worked the greater part of his life in the gas-house district in upper Manhattan, he measured up to what he had chosen to style himself, namely, “a dead-game sport, see cull.”

As Jack had often said, Bill was “white clear through/’ and as he was absolutely unafraid he could be depended on under any and all circumstances. Moreover, he was handy with a gun of any kind or size, and all of these qualifications made him a pal worth while.

Reaching 34th Street via the Hudson Tubes, Jack took the subway to Broadway and 128th Street. There he descended to the street, for this locality lies between two hills and the subway penetrating them is connected by means of a great viaduct.

After a walk of some five blocks east along Manhattan street he came to a two-story building and on the door a glittering brass plate proclaimed that the gymnasium of Prof . William Adams, Physical Instructor, was on the second floor.

Jack mounted the steps two at a time and without any formality walked right into the professor’s gym. In the center of the large room a platform was built up and this squared ring was four-posted and roped. Engaged therein were two husky looking specimens of the genus homo, ducking, side-stepping, uppercutting and in other devious ways disporting themselves in the gentlemanly art of selfdefense.

In one corner was a rich brewer who had evidently consumed over-much of his own output, toiling, sweating and grunting at the wall weights. Two more portly patrons with red noses who looked as though they had been melted and poured into their gym suits, were playfully throwing a medicine ball at one another, emitting the while sounds like those of a porker under a gate, as it slipped through their flabby arms when they would shoot baleful glances at a third party who deigned to notice them occasionally.

i6 JACK HEATON OIL PROSPECTOR

The third party was none other than the famous Prof. William Adams, and he was in turn directing his attention to a sallow-faced, bilious-looking youth who feebly tugged at the oars of a rowing machine.

Listen for a moment to what the professor is saying. “Come on, now, cull! Snap out of that dope. You’re not learning how to play the pianny now. I’m trying to work some of the cigarettes and cabarets out of that puny little system of yours. Say, I’m a Hindu if a good breath of wind wouldn’t blow you so far that it’d take your mother and seven dollars in postage stamps to find you again.”

Then catching the baleful glances cast by the medicine-ball experts, he adds, “All right, butter-tubs, time’s up and you can quit now; but to-morrow fifteen minutes longer for yours, see!” A second later he was in the ring. “Fierce footwork, Tommy — think you was dancin’ with your grandmudder. What’s the matter — got lead in your shoes? That guard of yourn, Paddy, would make an old timer think he’d swallowed a feather and tickle hisself to death.”

It was at this stage of the game that Bill

Adams, alias Professor William Adams, caught sight of Jack.

* ‘Hello, Buddy, how’s tricks,” and then seeing the sober expression on his sometime pal’s face he added, “What’s eatin’ you now?”

Bill lead the way into his private office, which consisted of a corner roughly partitioned off, and Jack lost no time in unloading his troubles on his old side-kick.

Chapter II

L IKE most of the human race who are born in poverty and have to battle every inch of the way for the mere right to live, Bill Adams could not tolerate injustices, neither could he bear to stand idly by where there was suffering. Naturally, since this was his disposition, he was all sympathy as he listened to Jack’s tale of woe and he was anxious to help right the great wrong that had been done Mr. Heaton.

“You’re dead right, Jack,” he said emphatically, “it’s too big a roll to let a bunch of greasers get away with without putting up a fight. Sure I’ll go down with you and I’m glad of the chanst.”

“But how about these physical wrecks here that you’re restoring to youthful health and vigor! What are you going to do with them!” queried Jack.

“Oh, them blokes will get along all right without me. These birds that are in bum health are as funny as a crutch. First they come to me and beg me to make men of them and then as soon as I start in they begin to grouse, and kick and call me a slave-driver. I’m sick of the whole bunch of them. If their brains were made of dynamite they couldn’t blow a thimble over. That’s why I’ll be glad to get away for a while. I need the rest-cure and the sooner we start the better I’ll like it.”

‘ ‘ Then what do you say to leaving to-morrow morning?”

“Suits me fine,” said Bill; “when and where will I meet you?”

“At the Pennsylvania Station at ten-thirty sharp in the morning. The train pulls out at ten-fifty and I’ll have the tickets and our passports 0. K.”

“I’ll be there.”

When Jack reached home that evening he found his father in quite a cheerful frame of mind for a man who had been swindled out of a fortune.

“A man called on me shortly after you left, Jack, and he insisted on giving me a certified check, or the cash if I preferred it, for ten thousand dollars in payment for my thousand shares of stock. He told me that this would positively be my last chance to sell at any price. On your advice I flatly refused,” explained Mr. Heaton.

“ Bully for you, Dad. Bill and I are leaving to-morrow morning on the Pennsy for El Paso and from there on down to the oil fields of Terrazas.”

Both his father and mother had grown so accustomed to Jack’s long and hazardous trips that they thought little more of his going to Mexico than if his destination had been Philadelphia.

Shortly after dinner, which, as I once mentioned before, is always served in the evening in Montclair, Jack went up to his room and began to carefully overhaul his belongings. From the bottom drawer of his dresser he produced a pair of prospector’s boots, serviceable alike for riding or walking, two pairs of riding breeches, four flannel shirts, two silk bandannas, a broad brimmed, low crowned Stetson hat and, last of all, a Colt’s .45 caliber revolver and a leather cartridge belt and holster.

From a closet came a .30 caliber Winchester rifle, a leather scabbard for carrying it on horse-back, and finally an extra large canteen. These articles of clothing and implements of warfare he packed in his big suitcase. To the end that he might get up early he turned in though it was not yet ten o’clock.

For once in his life he was unable to go to sleep the instant he touched the bed. Instead, he lay awake thinking, for he realized that he was about to undertake an adventure far more dangerous than any he had ever made before. And, what was more to the point, his father’s fortune was at stake and he was determined to learn the truth about those oil properties whatever the odds might be. Thus it was that the chimes of St. Andrew’s Church round the corner struck eleven, twelve and then one o’clock before Jack got to sleep.

The lone policeman making his rounds in the cold wintry night passed the house but he did not see the skulking figure that crept from shadow to shadow until it was directly under the library window. There it stopped, then drew from its coat a long bar of steel, sharpened at one end like a cold chisel, and with this jimmy it pried np the window.

This done, the marauder was inside the house the next instant. He threw a small spot-light from an electric flash-lamp on the floor of the darkened library, then caused it to travel up the wall and finally, when he brought it to rest, it covered the door of a wall-safe. The burglar gave a grunt of satisfaction and set the lamp on the table so that the circle of light fell full upon the dial of the combination lock.

His next move was to draw from the pocket of his roomy coat a breast drill with which he quickly drilled a hole in the steel door near the lock. This done, he poured a little high explosive into the hole, put a fuse with a blasting cap on one end into it and lit the free end.

The safe-blower then stepped into the parlor to await the result of his work, but he had not long to wait, for almost immediately there came a muffled thud which jarred the house like a young earthquake. He returned to the safe, threw his flash light on it and found that the door had been blown open and the contents exposed to plain sight. The burglar rummaged through the papers and scanned them with hot haste.

When the explosion occurred Jack sat holt upright in bed. His first thought was that the dynamite plant at Tom’s River had blown up but his intuitive caution led him to see if all was well in the house. Putting on his bath robe as he went, he noiselessly decended the stairs and crept into the parlor.

There in front of the safe he could see the dim form of a man going through his father’s papers. Jack regretted that he had come down unarmed but he knew that the least delay would give the burglar a chance to escape.

Two quick steps and a little jump landed Jack on the safe-blower’s back. The latter uttered a guttural cry of rage and then let go a string of Spanish cuss-words. Small as he was he fought like a wildcat and with a desperate effort he finally got one hand free and Jack caught the gleaming flash of a knife in the air.

He was too quick for the would-be killer and sprang back just in time to miss a vicious thrust which, had it reached him, would certainly have ended his career. Like a flash Jack took a step forward, gauged the distance between his opponent’s head and his own foot and with the same calculating coolness which the star punter of a football team exhibits when in a tight place, he gave him a terrific kick full on the point of his chin. The knife flew from his nerveless grip and the burglar crumpled up on the floor.

By this time Mr. Heaton had been awakened by the noise of the scuffle and he now appeared holding a flash-light in one hand and his revolver in the other.

“What’s the matter, Jack,” he asked anxiously.

“Nothing the matter now, Dad, but there came mighty nearly being something the matter. This rascally greaser was going through your safe when I surprised him. Like the cutthroat that he is, he drew a knife on me and as I was unarmed I was forced to use a trick taught me by a French sailor. As you can see, it was a good one, for he’s still dead to the world. Keep your eye on him and keep him covered with your gun while I go to the garage and get a rope.”

Jack reappeared in a few minutes with some twenty feet of hemp-rope, a little larger than a clothes-line. Before trussing up the fellow he went through his pockets. From an inside one he drew forth a bulky envelope and tossing it to his father he said: “That’s yours, Dad.”

“By gravy,” exclaimed Mr. Heaton in astonishment, “those are my Mexican Consolidated stock certificates. What in thunder do you suppose the fellow could have wanted with them?”

“Maybe he thought it was paper money,” suggested Jack.

“Not much chance of that, Jack. Even a blind man could tell these certificates from greenbacks. Say, son, I wonder if this attempt to rob me could have any bearing on my refusal to sell these securities to-day. You know I told the representative who called on me that I was going to hang on to this stock until my dying day, let come what may.”

“That’s just about the size of it, Dad,” agreed Jack; “they want your stock bad and not being able to get it on a ten per cent basis they sent this crook up here to get k for nothing. Well, my idea of it is that we’ll turn him over to the police and he’ll get about ten years at hard labor.”

In the meantime Jack had tied the legs and arms of the housebreaker, safe-blower, and, I dare say, it would be perfectly all right to call him a horse-thief to boot, securely together. This operation had the effect of restoring him to consciousness. He jabbered in his native tongue, made grimaces with his face and struggled violently to get loose, but it was no go and he lay there on the floor a helpless captive.

“Pretty sight, isn’t he,” Jack laughed. “I wonder how he came by that ugly looking scar across his forehead. Wonder if the bad honibre who gave it to him was also responsible for relieving him of the upper half of his right ear. ’ ’

So that there might be no commotion in the neighborhood — for Montclairites particularly dislike anything that in the least savors of notoriety — Mr. Heaton asked Jack to go out and get the policeman on the beat rather than to call up the police station on the ’phone when half, or a dozen, reserves would be sent up to get the fellow. x