Chapter XVI: Part 16

Again, while at the Byram hotel in Atchison I had a severe attack in the night—and believed that the time had come when I should have the old appendix taken out. I called for Atchison’s foremost surgeon. He was in Kansas City, but would be back at one o’clock. I went up to the Atchison hospital in the forenoon, asked for a little “home” treatment. In bed, the nurse felt my “tummy,” shook her head, and said, “You will have to wait for your doctor.” The doctor said I could have the caster oil and an enema—but he told the nurse I was to have no breakfast. In the morning, I was feeling pretty good and was about out of the notion of having the operation. However, I asked the doctor what would be his charge? He said, “You are most too weak to stand it now. Come back in a week—we’ll talk it over then.” One week later, the doctor said, “Owing to your long residence in the state, and your standing in the community, I’ll do it for five hundred dollars.” I recalled that our old Nemaha County reliable had done the job for one of my friends for a very reasonable fee, and also remembered that he had charged others less reasonable. I said, “If and when the time comes, I’ll just give you $150.” He said, “I’ll do it—but if you ever tell anybody, I’ll kick your butt all over town.” You may know that we were on quite intimate terms, having on earlier occasions met at Atchison’s friendly club—or he wouldn’t have dared to talk to me like that.

Back in my home again, after enthusiastically discussing the likely prospect of the new oil field. Doctor Shaffer went out on the street to mingle with his boys, and the prospects who were now coming in from as far away as Holton, Circleville, Soldier, Corning, Goff, Netawaka, Whiting, Sabetha, and intervening farms—including my long-time friend Tommy Evans, whose farm north of Capioma had the reputation of being the best kept and most productive in the neighborhood—saying he (the doctor) would be back soon. My wife said, “It looked like your promoter friends have all ready unintentionally cut you in on the big melon should you be mindful to follow up the lead—and wish to be bothered with the Trusteeship.” She laughed, “If you don’t make that Doctor Shaffer cut you in for a generous slice you are not as smart as I think you are.”

Well, maybe I needed this tip—and maybe I didn’t.

Doctor Shaffer came back, and without more preliminaries, proposed to cut me in for two units ($250) if I would prepare him two copies in blank, of the agreement I had cooked up for the home syndicate, and, incidentally, permit Cortner and Purdum to make good on their promise to the subscribers that I would be the Trustee. He said they were expecting it, and desired to have my acceptance before going into the meeting. Thus, I wouldn’t rightly know to whom I was indebted for the generous slice of the melon.

Or was it a melon?

I suspect it was as Myrtle had said, unintentionally cooked up by the two solicitors—and that, in its final phase, it was a joint settlement, with the solicitors having to kick back a portion of their rake-off. Anyway, it was more unsolicited grapes for me—twice over the $4.50 a line, or 45 cents a word for the original draft. I used a carbon and made the two new copies at once, while Doctor Shaffer waited. He had another sale on with a Missouri group.

Fifty-three subscribers crowded into the City Hall, and all signed the agreement, and each set down the amount of his subscription opposite his name—and all wrote checks. At the finish I had fifty-three checks totaling $8,000—my own check for $250, and Doctor Shaffer’s check for $1,000, included. Doctor Shaffer would reimburse me for this $250 and also pay me the $125 promised by Charley Cortner. I was instructed to send payment for the lease in two $4,000 bank drafts. I had no intention of paying out $8,000 until those checks had time to be cleared. In the meantime our attorney had called for complete abstracts to the acreage instead of the certificates of title supplied by the vendor—delaying settlement for several weeks.

But the eight thousand dollar payment was made, and I received the $375 velvet from Doctor Shaffer—I guess. For reasons of his own, unknown to me, Dr. Shaffer had a Wichita man mail me his personal check for $375, nothing more. I suspect one of those $4,000 drafts had been deposited in a Wichita bank. The transaction was legitimate. I had nothing to cover up. This payment to me had come off the salesman and the vendor, negotiated subsequent to the pledges made by syndicate members—leaving their full “investment” intact to work out its own salvation.

This is the God’s truth—and mine, too.

Now, kindly figure out for me, if you can, where anyone had been worsted through my part in the transaction. Two “bright” young clerks in the bank here—whom I shall not name—caught it at once. That mysterious $375 check had alerted them. They put their own erroneous construction on it—and passed the word along. Then I caught “hail Columbia” from the younguns’ superior (in point of banking tenure) who had “invested $125 in his wife’s name—the idea being that a banker himself ought to have more sense than to dabble in such matters. His “boys,” as he called them, meant well, of course—and it didn’t take me too long to convince the banker that I had taken no part in the promotion. But, what if I had? It would not have been a crime. I want to say, however, that the banker did me the favor of trying to correct the false impressions he had helped set afloat. Once in a blue moon even the worst of us will meet such a manful man.

In this story I only aim to hit the high spots—not, at any time, deviating from the truth. It was not all easy sailing for the Trustee. In a case of this kind, the conscientious person representing his friends, does not wish to let them down because of failure to collect rentals in full. With syndicate members widely scattered, the Trustee must make his own decisions—and quick. He can put up the delinquent amount himself, or he can forfeit the lease—if he does not wish to raise the ire of his friends who have paid.

Our syndicate was in reality an unfinanced holding partnership—barred from creating indebtedness, euphoniously christened “The Elkmore Oil and Gas Syndicate.” Here, I must give the wife credit—if, in the long run it really merited credit—for suggesting this expressive name, which embraces, in split infinitives, the location of the lease holdings (Elk County) and the home (Wetmore) of the “investors.” It pleased Dr. Shaffer—no end. I think it got Myrtle included in that proposed free entertainment at his hospital in Moline.

Like Doctor Purdum’s good natured crack at my purebred seed corn, those altruistically donated helpings of “grapes” showered on me by Cortner and Shaffer, had begun to “sour”—and, I may say, that they deteriorated until less than nothing was left of the windfall. It posed a perplexing dilemma.

As there was little chance of getting action before the expiration of the leases, aggravated by draggy collections of rentals, a feeler was mailed to all subscribers, in ample time before the fifth year’s payments were due. More than half of them favored dropping the leases, and sent me their written authorization. Nearly half of the interests remained expressionless. The four leases were canceled. The majority of the interests wished it so. But, it was the delinquents who hollered most, even censured me for giving up the lease—when some of the acreage came into production several years later. It seemed not to have occurred to them that wo would have lost out, anyway.

But, in the Moline field we got some experience which should have taught us a lesson, that a bird in hand is worth a whole flock in the bush—but it didn’t. We could have sold our leases at a nice profit.

An oil gusher was brought in on a large tract of pasture land one mile away from our holdings. Dr. Shaffer wired me to come down at once. He drove me out to the well. There was a terrific jam—at the well, on the road, in Moline. Crowds of people were at the well ahead of us that morning—Art Hough, a former Wetmore boy, and his oil-rich partner, from Independence, among them. Excitement was running high. One man was killed in his overturned car while rushing out from town. And I, myself, spent the night in a Moline hospital. This fact, however, does not necessarily pertain to the gusher—except to show that there was genuine good-feeling all round. I was the guest of Dr. Shaffer and his wife, who were the only other occupants of his new hospital, not yet ready for public patronage. Dr. Shaffer owned a one-eighth interest in our leases.

If you have never seen an oil-gusher, you don’t know what a thrilling sight it is—especially, if you own nearby leases. Oil spurted in gusts at regular intervals high into the air, spread out in all directions and arched down over the four case-setters, stripped to the waist, encasing them in a film of oil so heavy as to exclude them from view, at times. Art Hough and his partner, who owned some producing wells in the shallow field near Independence, wanted to buy our leases—but who would want to sell in the midst of all that excitement? And, anyway, I was not in a position to deal with them on the spot, as there were fifty-three signers in the group to an agreement which provided for fifty-one per cent of the interests to say when to sell. We did, however, later, arrange to sell part of the leases—carrying a provision for drilling—and the papers were sent to the Moline bank; but the prospective buyer was unable to come through with the money.

The gusher was on land owned, or controlled, by a Moline banker, and another man. I heard one of the partners say, not once but many times, always the same sing-song word for word, “I just told the Lord that since He had been so good to me, I shall never desecrate His holy name.” If I may express myself, unbiasedly, I would say the Lord played no favorites in the Moline field; that I think He had nothing to do with the man’s good luck, except, possibly, in a general way of being the creator of all things—else why would He have destroyed the gusher with salt-water, and got the owners the threat of a robust lawsuit to boot—for polluting a God-given stream of fresh water?

In the matter of a fresh try to reopen the Wetmore oil test, I protested the contract offered by the two Kansas City promoters, maintaining that we had no valid authority to sign anything in the name of “the people” and that liability would fall on the individual signers. One of the committeemen who had been in various lines of business in Wetmore, and had finally settled himself in a real estate office, said, “Why, John—there haint a day but what I make contracts like that.” Questioning the man’s competency in such matters, I said, “I wouldn’t doubt it in the least—but it will take still more plausible argument to induce me to sign this one.”

The other members of the committee had caught the spirit of the meeting in the opera house, and were anxious to see further development of our oil prospect. They conferred the “favor” of the trusteeship on committeeman Sam Thornburrow, cashier of the State Bank—and they all signed the contract. Then the promoters went back to Kansas City to await the hatching of the egg they had laid here. And in due time, Sam got notice from a lawyer in Kansas City that he was about to be sued for breach of contract. Then one morning as I was passing the bank Sam hailed me. He said, “You know, those Kansas City fellows have sued me for $1,000—what would you do about it?” Remembering how they had “ribbed” me for refusing to sign with them, I said, “I’d pay it.” After he had turned this over in his troubled mind a few times, I told him to pay no attention to it—that the promoters were most likely trying to frighten him into a settlement; that they would have to start their action in Kansas—and that I doubted very much if they would risk doing this, as the contract would show them up for the grafters they were.” The Kansas City promoters did not follow through with their claim for damages.

It took only one more throw at the get-rich-quick oil game to convince me that it just could not be accomplished by throwing in with the other fellow on his home grounds, after he had carried the project to a point where any day’s drilling might bring riches. But I’m still strong on the home-test—for that would be furthering something for the good of all the home folks.

Our Wetmore group, with “investors” at Goff and Bancroft, contributed a sum said to be $14,350 toward the completion of a well in a producing field east of Enid, Oklahoma, on land owned by a Bancroft man. The headquarters of the Company was in a fair sized city in southern Kansas, with a department store owner as president, a physician and surgeon as secretary—and a banker deeply interested in a covered-up sort of way. The president and the land owner had departed with our money, supposedly to complete the well—and then we would all most likely be “sitting pretty.” But in about a week we got notice of a called meeting to vote $30,000 increase in capital stock. Also, we were advised of the bringing in of a gas well of ten million feet potential on the lease adjoining the company ground on the south, still farther away from the known production area on the north, proving that we were still “sitting pretty.” Had this been reported before we joined-up with our Southern Kansas financiers, I, for one, would have kept my money. Sane people do not let the public in on a speculative enterprise after its success is practically assured.

Our Wetmore “investors”, gave me proxies, and sent me down to investigate. I first went with the land-owner to the Oklahoma field. We found no activity at the well on his land, but the rig was still up. And the drillers were working on the reported gas strike just across the road. They told me that they had struck a small flow of gas—that it was not strong enough to blow your hat off the casing.

I got back to the Kansas headquarters on Saturday about noon, and went at once to the department store owned by the president. He introduced his wife, who worked in the store, and his father-in-law, whom I shall call Mr. Shapp—though this is not his real name. The president insisted that I take dinner with him at his home. I sensed something was wrong—but I couldn’t place it just yet. I learned later that Dr. Lapham had got wise to something pertaining to the call for an increase of capital stock, and had written him a critical letter. Dr. Lapham told me later that it was a “scorcher”—and I can well believe it was. They were all rather upset. Of course the president, and the secretary, and the banker, knew some things which I didn’t know—yet. My dinner host was a bit “jumpy” because of that “scorcher” letter of Dr. Lap-ham’s, and my appearance two days in advance of the called meeting. But had he known what I had just learned at the dinner table, he could have trusted me implicitly.

Some years prior to this I had sold, through advertisement in the Topeka Capital, 500 shares of our mining stock to the fictitious Monroe P. Shapp, of that address, and through him 200 shares in the name of his daughter, Ella J. Shapp. Now, when the merchant called his wife “Ella” I put two and two together—then I knew that I was among old friends. And I couldn’t find it in my heart to get rough with them.

Not that I had any apologies to make for our mine promotion. We had used their money, as promised, in the development of the mine, and at this time were still putting our own money into it—and we had no intention of going out and selling a block of stock to rub out the deficit. That would have been illegal in Nevada. But the fact remained that we had not as yet been able to make any returns to stockholders.

When I called on the secretary of the oil company, he said he could not give me any time that afternoon, that he had to perform an operation at the hospital at 4 o’clock. I said to him, in the presence of the president, “You fellows seem to be scared about something—but you need not be. I give you my word that I am not here to make trouble. All I want to know is what chance you have to make good, and if it will be to our interests for me to vote my proxies for the increase of capital stock at the meeting Monday.” The secretary looked at the president, and the president looked at the secretary—then they both looked at me. The president nodded—and the secretary said, “Come along with me.”

It seems the directors had carried on with the drilling after company funds were exhausted, incurring personal obligations, and stopped the drill when approximating the required depth for a strike, with a large deficit—which, with our contribution, was now reduced to something like $9,000. While in the office of the physician-surgeon-secretary going over the books, the banker—of German extraction, if not the whole thing—came in, and nodding toward a back room, said as if in great distress, “Dokther—I’ve got a stick in the eye.”

I decided that I ought not vote for the increase of stock—and, without leave, came home on Sunday. One of our group, an ex-businessman, attended the meeting on his own hook to get first hand knowledge of the situation. He wired Joe Searles Monday afternoon, saying, “Bristow absent; could I vote the proxies?” I told Joe to wire him, “Yes—if you have them.” I had just turned them in to Joe. In a couple of days Searles got a long letter from him—written by a stenographer in Kansas City—berating me for running out on them, and boasting of the business-like interest he himself had taken in the meeting, saying, “I stayed with them until we got in proxies enough the next day to get the money—and I bought $250 worth more of the stock.” He did not say—probably didn’t know—if his purchase was of the newly voted stock, or from the old issue. I had a strong suspicion that we had all ready bought and paid for a generous take of the newly voted stock—and got short changed as well.

I had called on that “stick-in-the-eye” banker a short while before, and obtained from him the log of a producing well recently brought in by Frank Letson and associates in the Enid field—and this, I think, might have been what had alerted the banker; or, maybe, the president had sent his partner scurrying in to forestall an admission of their questionable finagling. I wanted that log to compare with the log of “our” drilling, which I had obtained from “our” president. Then, too, Frank Letson was a younger brother of Ed and Ella Letson who were my schoolmates in Wetmore, when their father, Bill Letson, owned a general store here; before going to Netawaka to engage in like business. I had called at the Fleming and Letson bank in Enid two days before, but did not get to see either of my old acquaintances.

The Fleming bank, now an imposing brick structure having tall columns, on the east side of the square, was started on the south side, opposite the land office, in a small frame building in the new town after the opening of the Cherokee strip, in 1893. I also had occasion to call at the old bank about six months after the opening, to get a paper notarized.

Attorney Elwin Campfield, in the law office of John Curran, formerly of Seneca, on the west side of the Enid square, filled out relinquishing papers for me, without charge—we had been neighbors in the Bleisener building in Wetmore—and suggested that I wait in the Curran office a few minutes when he would have one of the office force notarize it for me, presumedly also without charge—a small matter hardly worth waiting for. Up here the fee for such service was then, and still is, twenty-five cents. I told Elwin I would go over to the Fleming bank and get it notarized, that I wanted to pay my respects to Ollie, anyway. 01 had grabbed off, at Netawaka, a red headed girl (Ella Letson) whom I had thought pretty nice when we were care-free kids running wild on the streets of Wetmore in the early days.

Well, 01 was sure glad to see me—and he would gladly remember me to Ella. When he had returned the notarized paper to me, I said, “How much, 01?” He said, “Five dollars!” I shot him a wordless blank look. He laughed, and said, “Oh, give me two-and-a-half.” There had been a time in that frontier town when one could get most anything asked for services, but that time was now over and passed—half-over, anyway.

That officious Wetmore man was in Dr. Lapham’s office when I reported my findings. I told the group that I had spoken only for myself when I gave those finaglers my word that I was not there to make trouble—that I had to do this to get them to open up. I told the group that I had no desire to pursue the matter further, but that they themselves were not barred; that any one of them who might wish to, could notify the Blue Sky Board in Topeka—and the Board would do the rest.

The man who had taken matters in his own hands and helped put over the vote for the increase of capital stock without the formality of first finding out what it was all about, popped up and said, “You had no right to tell them that.” He insisted that I should make the complaint. And the surprising thing is, he had some supporters. There were some hard losers in the group. I had not made the investigation with the intention of filing a complaint—wouldn’t have accepted the assignment had it carried any such provision. I don’t like fussing.

Then, too, the president and the land owner had not solicited me to buy stock, nor made promise to me that the fund would be used to complete the well. Their contact had been with Dr. Lapham and other members of the group. I went in with them solely because my neighbors had invited me to join them, and because I didn’t want to stand idly by—and watch them make a “killing.” However, on invitation, I went up to Dr. Lapham’s office at the virtual close of a “pep” meeting, after the check-writing had begun. I asked for information as to how the company was organized—particularly as to whether or not the stock was non-assessable? The president and the land-owner really didn’t know. But they went to Topeka the next day and secured a transcript of the incorporation papers, which were acceptable. And I was invited to go before the adjourned meeting the following evening, and voice my approval. Then the check writing was resumed.

Also, my conscience told me, in a flash, that it would be a rather poor spirited person who should wish to send his neighbor “up” for the mistake of keeping bad company. It looked as if our old farmer-neighbor had been caught in between two fires, and didn’t know which way to “jump”—or worse still, that there was now no open way out. Thus, it may be said, that our old Bancroft farmer-friend, in his most uncomfortable position, was comparable to the banker held as hostage by a bold gang of robbers who had just looted his bank. I know. I spent two days with the dispirited old man in the oil field.

The Blue Sky Board was fostered to check on promotions whose stocks were strongly, if not wholly, tinctured with the azure blue. Along about 1905-06-07 questionable promotions—mostly mining—sprang up all over the country. Kansas City had several going full blast at one time. I had occasion to call on one of them; had arranged the meeting through correspondence. I entered a very large room where perhaps thirty or forty girl-typists were busily preparing literature to be sent out by mail to inquirers secured through newspaper advertisements. The printed portion of the literature had been prepared by “experts” copy-writers—and it is surprising how those fellows could make an inferior proposition appeal to the gullible.

The Fiscal Agent’s secretary, or outside girl, stationed near his private office—he had a better looking secretary in his office—said she believed the “boss” was not in. I gave her my name and stated my business. She went into the private office, and returned saying, Mr. so-and-so would see me. However, had I been a questionable caller, the outside girl would have told me upon returning that he was not in, and that she had learned from his inside secretary that he had gone out of town and would not be back that day. This was the system. The “boss” did not want to see any of his subscribers—nor an officer of the law.

One of those Kansas City promotion companies was selling stock in what was called a Ten Million Dollar Development—that is, ten million shares, par-value one dollar, sold at two cents a share, the idea being to offer the purchaser a lot for little money, out in our mining district in Nevada. It was highly advertised as the “Extension of the Great (Searchlight) Quartette Vein.” The outfit was actually sinking a shaft about a half-mile out in the valley west of the mountain-situated Quartette mine—a rich gold producer—without reasonable chance of picking up anything in the way of values. Too many promotions like this were victimizing the people. The Blue Sky Board’s function was to keep them out of Kansas.

In our own mine promotion, I did some newspaper advertising in Topeka—but, first, I had to get a clearance from the Blue Sky Board (in Bank Commissioner Dolley’s office) showing that our company was on the square; that the stock was a fair risk; that purchasers were fully and truthfully informed; and most important of all, that the purchasers would get a run for their money—meaning that the money so collected must not be used in paying for a “dead horse.”

On full-page advertising in a number of papers, I received on the average one inquiry for each 3,000 circulation—but I sold practically all of them. This was only about one-hundredth part of the returns the Kansas City fellows were getting. And I had strong copy, too. The newspaper boys said it was unusually strong. But I made the mistake—from the promoter’s view point—of telling the readers the truth, that we had not carried the proposition to a point where we were about ready to begin handing out dividends, which was the Kansas City boy’s big drawing card. This was costing too much—and I discontinued selling the stock, hoping that we might yet find an Agent who would have better luck. We used up the funds on hand; then went at it individually again. And the six miners continued on the job, taking their full wages in our treasury stock.

Let it be understood that the mining stock I sold was far from being in the blue sky class—and that the job of selling it was “wished” on me. While in the process of incorporating, our president, Frank Williams, had made tentative arrangements with Los Angeles “Fiscal Agents”—that’s what they called themselves then—to sell our treasury stock, but failed to conclude a satisfactory contract with them. He had encountered the same questionable line of approach out there that caused me to turn down the Kansas City “Fiscal Agents.”

Might say that in the first place, on his recommendation, I had joined Frank Williams in the purchase of the initial lead-zinc-vanadium claim—only lead discovered then—on which our corporation was mainly based. Included in the corporation also were three (gold) claims in the Crescent district, owned by Frank and his brother Tommy Williams, A. M. Harter, and Jonah Jones. These Crescent claims were taken in on a basis of one-sixth of the combined value. Our lead claim had the further approval of that veteran millionaire miner, Green Campbell—indeed, had he not died suddenly of pneumonia, Green, instead of I, would have been Frank’s partner. Frank had been with Green Campbell, and his uncle Elwood Thomas—all three of the men former Wetmore citizens, in the Goodsprings district for twelve years, at that time.

Then, too, those Crescent gold claims held appeal. What think you that your heart would have done to you, had you been able to go out on your own holdings and scrape up dirt—disintegrated rock, assaying $544 gold to the ton—at a time when the fabulous production of the not too distant Comstock mines in Nevada, with less glowing beginning, was being proclaimed all over the land as having saved the credit of the Nation during Civil War days.

And, by the way, isn’t it about time for us to dig again?

Please—somebody, anybody, everybody—pray with me for a redeeming Comstock as of yore, only let it be such stepped up magnitude as to save, beyond the possibility of a slip, the credit of our Uncle Sam, even in his magnanimous undertaking to tide, piggyback, all those unstable old country states over the troubled waters of world unrest—in an effort to convince a certain belligerent-minded Old World character that war is, a la Sherman, indeed “hell.”

But remember, mines are made—not found.

Before incorporating, we (Frank and I), worked the lead claim for nearly two years—or rather, Frank did the work and I paid him one-half of the prevailing miner’s wage. We were trying our best to make a paying mine of it—and may I say that, encouraged by occasional shipments, there were times when we believed we were right at the door of accomplishment.

The point I’m trying to stress here is, that we did not acquire the mining claims for the purpose of launching a stock-selling enterprise, as was so of ter done about that time. But we learned that more often than not even promising mining prospects require the expenditure of more money than we, as individuals, could devote to it—hence the incorporation.

Thus it is that, in the fullness of Time, I have tried mining—to the tune of Six Thousand Dollars, plus; out of pocket—and I’ve tried oil, not once but three times; and I’ve even tried real estate speculation in the boom days of Port Arthur, Texas—all avenues leading up to the coveted get-rich-quick-field—and so help me, I have never taken down a dollar.

I promised my companion of the day that I wouldn’t tell about our “investments” in Port Arthur town lots. But that was a long time ago, between the time he was elected Governor of Kansas, from Nemaha County, and the time he served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City, Missouri. So I opine that it doesn’t matter now, since he is safely beyond the pale of political patronage. In the new boom town of Port Arthur that warm January day about the turn of the century, the “boomers” showed us the location, with rock foundation all ready in place, for a bank building, with brick enough piled on the site to build an edifice big enough to house all the money in the world. But the most revealing report I ever got from my friend, the Governor, on our investments, was that the restless bank foundation and its companion brick pile had gone on the prowl, virtually slipped from one end of the plotted business section to the other end, taking now and then a rest period.

The old regulars in our group of “investors” are about all dead now—or have dropped the Big Idea. Joe Searles, at present prescription clerk in a Sabetha drugstore, never in too deeply with the old group, is in line to get his now. He has taken on both leases and royalties in the Strahm field. The development so far has been done by the Carter Oil Company, holding most of the leases. But private interests are trafficking in royalties in a big way. Should Joe make good—that is, break into the big money where the Internal Revenue take would warrant him in throwing away a portion of his winnings in “wildcatting,” I suggest that he come home—and finish the Haigh-Lapham oil test. This—and other betterments for the old home town—is what I planned on doing, had I become burdened with mine-made money.

Also, let it be understood that I took no part in the organization of our group of “investors,” or the promotion of any of our oil speculations.

And now a last word.

Since it appeared that our Southern Kansas co-partners had risked their own money, or more likely their credit, in completing the drilling, incurring disappointment—and, crowded by an unseen hand, (which I believe I could have put my finger on), had taken the wrong way out of the dilemma, and if I were not mistaken they yet had a long, long way to go to get out of the woods; so then, let us be lenient. Why say an unkind word about your neighbor—when it gets you nothing? Don’t know if they ever sold any more of the newly voted stock, or if they did any more drilling. Never heard from them again.

In tolerance of human frailty, let me say that our old Bancroft farmer-friend, allied with keener personalities, had always been a reputable man—that the doctor-secretary, and the merchant-prince apparently stood high among their fellowmen—and then there was Ella J., holder of some mining stock. But, even so, had I not lost interest in the investigation, considered it hopeless, I believe I could have found “sticks” in more than one eye.