Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-05-04

was Its antipodes, young, big, not jaded.
Southwest he set his course. and arrived in
Galveston Just as the Beaumont Oil fields
burst into fame with all the world amazing
fury of their own gushers.
Young Radford knew less about the oil
business than even the Pennsylvania ex-
perts, who came into the field with old
traditions Of how to handle slow streams
of high-grade oil. They were like trout
fishers with tarpons on their hooks. Bank
ruptcies and fortunes danced before the
onlooker's eyes, while whole lakes Of sub
terrene grease exploded through long pipes,
filed the air with hydro-carbonic typhoons
and settled on the ground In unctuous
rivers Of unholy smell.
New England was never like this"
said Radford. "but it looks interesting as
we'll as instructive" He hired himself out
as a helper on a drilling rig to learn the
trade-if trade 1t was to gamble with
earth's "innards'' in such uncertain, but
epic fashion.
Promotions were rapid, for derricks
were .springing up as fast as hammers
could wed nail and pine. Before he was
aware of 1t, Radford, who but yesterday
had not known a chain-tong from fish
tail drill-bit was invited to take charge
OF brand-new derrick. Then the num-
Der OF earthward sticks began to gain on
the upward glory: People came to offer
him wonderful bargains which would
make anybody rich without doubt, but
which the present owners for various rea-
sons of health, family, etc, could not stop
10 develop. but was D0rn III new
England. He was not convinced.
The oil fever began to lag in Texas.
Then came a great find at Batson's prat-
RE. There was an overnight exodus. Seth
arrived among the earliest, on a COW pony
after blowing through swanIps at night.
He decided to back his judgment. He
bought little shoestring strip of ground
before the prices had jumped very far. AS
soon as the derrick was up and the pipe
down he brought in a gusher so big that
he could not get tanks fast enough to hold
the oil. He saw liquid dollars belonging
to him sliding away by the hundreds. But
most of them he managed to capture.
He named the well the "Alice"-after a
certain person.
! The price of oil was high. The Southern
Pacific was using 1t on the engines and
the supply was short.
Factories began to burn II instead of
coal. Before Radford quite realized 1t he
was worth about $4,000, and more bub-
bling up as fast az 1t could climb out OF
| the ground.
He called himself genius. He was a
, Koal oil King with two ks. He wondered
| what he should present to his native town
"a library? manual training school? or a
park? He wrote to Alice to ask her ad-
vice She was q Galveston girl. The first
one he had met after he struck Texas.
One was enough. 1t had taken single
| look from her deep, dark Texan ewes and
| two words In her mellow southern speech
| to paralyze all his powers of resistance.
| His heart looked. no farther. 1t said
| "J'y suis: Jy reste."
/ He had not known her long when he
l came to agree with her opinion that, In
| the civil war. the north had seeded from
the south and from all decency, and hac
somehow, after a series Of ignoble de-
feats. emerged victorious only because thu