books in his saddlebags. If the day were fair he'd get off his
horse, tether it to a tree and climb high on the ridge. There with
statute or law reporter in hand he would read aloud for hours. Again
he'd close the book and with head erect, hands behind him, young Harkins
would repeat as much as he could remember of the text. Often he waxed
enthusiastic. He longed to be an orator. Sometimes thoughtless
companions would jeer at the young Demosthenes, even pelt him with
acorns and pebbles from ambush. But Walter Scott Harkins wasn't daunted
by any such boyish pranks. He kept on orating.

In the meantime, as he rode the lonely mountain paths, he took notice of
the fine timber, just as his grandfather had before him. He was admitted
to the bar in 1877 and hung out his shingle at the door of his
grandfather's office. Like Hugh Harkins, the grandson also began
investing his earnings, meager though they were, in timber land.

One summer evening near dusk the young lawyer was riding toward the
mouth of Big Sandy when he was startled to see in the distance a giant
tongue of flame shooting skyward. At first he thought there was fire on
the mountain but he soon discovered that the flame did not spread but
continued in a straight column upward. He sat motionless in the saddle
for a moment. By this time darkness had descended. The young lawyer was
fascinated by the brilliant flame and determined to test its strength.
Taking a law book from his saddlebags he opened the volume and, to his
surprise, was able to read the small type by the light of the distant
flame with as great ease as though an oil lamp burned at his elbow. Then
he recalled the story of how Dr. Walker, the English explorer, had once
read his maps by the light of a burning spring. Unlike the early
explorer young Harkins determined to do something about it. The legal
mind of the lad spurred his zeal to find the cause of the illuminating
flame.

Walter Scott Harkins not only found the cause but he probed the effect
with fine results. With the aid of other interested persons he acquired
mineral rights of lands in the Big Sandy country which included the
burning spring, the like of which in the next decade was to illuminate
towns and cities and operate industries as far removed as one hundred
miles.

Moreover Walter Scott Harkins lived to see more than 75,000 acres of his
own forest leveled, whereby he piled up a fortune that could scarcely be
exhausted even unto the fi