Western news and the Libby times. [volume] (Libby, Mont.) 1920-1933, 1931-11-12

was brought to her that weeks of
drilling on the sterile little Sloat farm
had brought up gusher. They had
come running to her across the
trampled fields with the news She
had stood there on the back porch OF
the shabby farmhouse. bony drudge.
unlovely as the house itself.
millions T. they shouted at her.
millions and millions! What are you
going to do?"
Fred Sloat's wife had looked down
at her hands. shriveled and gnarled
from alkali water and rough work.
She wiped them now on corner OF
her gingham apron with a gesture OF
utter finality. Her meager shoulders
Strengthened The querulous voice
took On note OF defiance.
From now on I'm goin' to have the
washin done out"
In those first few frenzied weeks
there was no time for scientific meth
DDS. That came later Now. In the
rush of it. they all but burrowed In
the red clay with their finger nails.
Men prowed the plains with divinIng
rods, with absurd things called witch
sticks, hoping thus to detect the pre-
cious stun beneath the earth's surface.
For years the meandering red clay
roads that were little more than trails
had seen only occasional buggies. farm
wagons, horsemen. an Indian family
creeping along In miserable cart or
--rarely-an automobile making peril.
GUS progress through the thick dust In
the dry season or the slippery dough
In the wet. Now those same roads
were choked. impossible. The fraiI
wooden one-way bridges over creeks
and draws sagged and spIntered with
the stream OF traffic, but no one took
the time to repair them. A torrent OF
vehicles OF every description flowed
without ceasing. night and day. Ere
quently the torrent choked itself with
Its own volume. and then the thou
sands were pfieh there, locked, ours
Ing. writhing. battling. on their way to
the oil fields. From the Crook Nose
field to Wahon was scant four miles:
1t sometimes took half day to cover
1t in a motor car. Trucks. drays,
wagons. rigs, fivvers. buckboards
Every day was like the day of the
Opening back in SO. Millionaire pro-
motors from the East. engineers, pros
pectors drillers. tool dressers. shoot
ers, bumpers. roustabouts. Indians.
Men In London-talored suits and shirts
from Charvet's Only the ruthless and
desperate survived In the days OF
the covered wagon scarcely twenty
years earlier those roads had been
trails over the hot. dry plains marked
BY the bleaching skull of steer or the
carcass OF a horse. picked clean by
the desert scavengers and turned
white and desolate to the blazing sky.
A wagon wheel, a rnsted rim. split
wagon tongue lay at the side Of the
trail. mute evidence OF traveller la
boriously crawling his way across the
prairie. Now the bitches by the side
of these same roads were strewn with
the bodies OF wrecked and abandoned
automobiles. their skeletons stripped
and rotting. their lamps staring up at
the sky like sightless eyes. testimony
to the passing OF the modern ravisher
OF that tortured region. Up and
down the dust-choked roads. tenders
ripped Off like flies wings. wheels in
terlocking. trucks overturned, loads
sunk In the mud. plank bridges split
ting beneath the strain. Devil take
the hindmost- 1t was like an army
push. but without an army's morale or
discipline Bear Creek boosted q kill. |
ing day and not jail nor court
house for miles around Men and
women. manacled to a common chain, |
were marched like slave convlcts down
the road to the nearest temple OF JUS
tice, q rough pine shack In town |
that had sprung overnight on the I
prairie There were no railroads !
where there had been no towns.
Boilers loaded on two wagons were
hauled by twenty-mule-team outfits.
Stuck In the mud as they inevitably
were, only mules could have pulled the
load out Long lines of them choked
the already impossible road. Wagons
were heaped with the pipes through
which the oil must be led: with lum.
Der. hardware. rigs. tools. portable
the vast paraphernalia of
sudden wealth and growth In a
frontier community.
Tough careless young hoys drove the
nitro lycerin cars, a deadly job on
those rough and crowded roads. It
was this precious and dreadful stun
that shot the oil up out Of the earth.
Hard lads In corduroys took their
chances and pocketed their high pay,
driving the death-dealing wagons, sing
Ing as they drove, red shirt tail tied
to pole Haunting Its warning at the
back Of the load. Often an expected
wagon would fall to appear. The
workers on the field never took the
trouble to trace It or the time to wait
for It They knew that somewhere
along the road. was a great gaping