The Coolidge examiner., 1931-11-27
CHAPTER XIl-Continued

~
Sabra was revoted, alarmed, and
distressed, all at once. She gained
reinsurance by telling herself that
this was just one of DOnna's queer
jOkes-part of the streak in her
that Sabra had never understood
and that cOrreSpOnded to the prac-
tical joker in Yancey. That, too,
had always bewildered her. Alb
sorbed in the workings of the grow
ing, thriving newspaper the cOnver-
sation faded to a slim and almost
unimpOrtant memory.
Sabra was sufficiently shrewd
and level headed TO take Sol Levy's
sound advice. "You settle down 10
running your paper, Sabra, and you
won't need any oil wells. You can
have the best-paying paper and the
most powerful in the Southwest.
Bigger than Houston or Dallas or
San Antonio. Because Usage is 60
\ ing to be bigger and richer than
any of them. You mark what say.
Hardy any oil in the town of Usage.
but millions of barrels of oil all
around it, This town won't be torn
to pieces, then. It'll grow and grow.
Five years from now it'll look like
Chicago.
"Oh, Sol, how can that be?"
You'll see There where the
gambling tent stood with a mud
hole in front of it a few years ago
you'll see in another five years Il
skyscraper like those in New York y
She laughed at that.
Just as she had known that Yam
cey had again left her on that
night of the Mescal ceremony, so
now she sensed that he would come
back in the midst of this new in
sanity that had seized all Okla
hOma. And come back he did, from
God knows where. on the very crest
of the oil wave, and bringing with
him news that overshadowed his
return. He entered as he had left,
with no word of explanation, so
bizarre as to cause everything else
to fade into the background.
He came riding, as always, but 1t
was a sorry enough nag that he be-
strOde this time; and his white
sOmbrerO was grimed and battered.
the Prince Albert coat was spotted,
the linen frayed, the whole figure
covered with the heavy red dust of
the trampled road. He must have
ridden like an avenging angel. for
his long black locks were damp, his
eyes red trimmed. And when she
saw this Don Quixote so sullied,
SO shabby, her blood turned to
water within her veins for pity.
She thought. it will always be
like this as long as he lives. and
each time he will be little more
broken, older, less and less the
figure of splendor | married. until
at last
She only said. -Yancey," quietly.
He was roaring, he. was reeling
with JOvian laughter as he strode
into the Wigwam Office where she
sat at her neat orderly desk just
as she had sat on that day years
before. For a dreadful moment she
thought that he was drunk or mad.
He flung his soiled sombrero to the
desk top, he swept her into his
arms, he set her down.
''Sabra Here's news for you.
Jessei Heb, jesse Where's that
rum-sOaked son of a printers devil?
Jesse! Come in here! Cd, I've
been laughing so that | almost
rolled off my horse" He was strid-
ing up and down as of old. his
shabby coat tails spreading with
he x-fn nf hfc hn
beautiful hands gesticulating. the
fine eyeS-blOOdShot now-still
flashing with the fire that would
burn until it consumed him.
''Oil, my children! More oil than
anybody ever thought there was in
any one spot in the world. And
where! Wherel On the Usage In
dian reservation. 1t came in an
hour ago, like the ocean. 1t makes
every other field look like the Sa-
hara. There never was such
joke! It's coSmic-it's terrible.
How the gods must be roaring.
Laughter unquenchable among the
blessed godsr ="
"Yancey dear, we're used to oil
Oul HeIc. IL an OIu
now. Come home and have a hot
bath and clean Clothes" In her
minds eye she saw those fine white
linen shirts of his all neatly stacked
in the drawer as he had left them.
For answer he reached out with
one great arm and swept a pile of
exchanges, copy paper, galley
proofs, and clippings off the desk,
while with the other hand he seized
the typewriter by its steel bar and
pumped it to the floor with a force
that wrung protesting whine and
Zing from its startled insides. He
had always scOrned to use type
writer. The black swathes of his
herculean pencil bit deeper into
the papers surface than any type
writer's metal teeth.
Hot bath Hot HI, honey Do
you realize what this means? Do
you understand that two thousand
Usage Indians, squatting in their
rags in front of their miserable
shanties, are now the richest ma
ton in the world? In the world, ]
tell you. They were given that
land-the barest, meanest desert
land in the whole of the Oklahoma
country. And the government of