tes, kept away, surrendering the place to tenderfeet and to
promoters. Of these, thousands came, and never was there a harvest so
ripe for their gleaning.

Naturally a little country town like this could not hold the newcomers,
therefore Wichita Falls became their headquarters. Here there were at
least a few hotels and some sort of office quarters--sheds beneath
which the shearing could take place--and there the herd assembled.

Of course, the cougars followed, and, oh, the easy pickings for them! A
fresh kill daily. Warm meat with every meal. Such hunting they had
never known, hence they gorged themselves openly, seldom quarreling
among themselves nor even bothering to conceal the carcasses of their
prey. It was easier to pull down a new victim than to return to the one
of the day before.

Rooming houses slept their guests in relays, canvas dormitories sprang
up on vacant lots, the lobbies of the hotels were packed with
shouldering maniacs until they resembled wheat pits, the streets were
clogged with motor cars, and the sidewalks were jammed like subway
platforms. Store fronts were knocked out and the floor space was railed
off into rows of tiny bull-pen brokers' offices, and in these companies
by the hundred were promoted. Stock in them was sold on the sidewalks
by bally-hoo men with megaphone voices. It seldom required more than a
few hours to dispose of an entire issue, for this was a credulous and
an elated mob, and its daily fare was exaggeration. Stock exchanges
were opened up where, amid frenzied shoutings, went on a feverish
commerce in wildcat securities; shopgirls, matrons, housemaids gambled
in shares quite as wildly as did the unkempt disreputables from the oil
fields or the newcomers spilled out of every train. People trafficked
not in oil, but in stocks and in leases, the values of which were
entirely chimerical.

But this speculative frenzy was by no means local. Burkburnett became a
name to conjure with and there was no lack of conjurers. These latter
spread to the four points of the compass, and the printing presses ran
hot to meet their demands. A flood of money flowed into their pockets.
While this boom was at its height a new pool, vaster and richer, was
penetrated and the world heard of the Northwest Extension of the
Burkburnett field, a veritable lake--an ocean--of oil. Then a wilder
madness reigned. Daily came reports of new wells in the Extension with
a flush production running up into the