ere laid and unsightly tank farms were
built.

Ranger became a mobilization point, a vast concentration camp for
supplies, and amid its feverish activity there was no rest, no Sundays
or holidays; the work went on at top tension night and day amid a
clangor of metal, a ceaseless roar of motors, a bedlam of hammers and
saws and riveters. Men lived in greasy clothes, breathing dust and the
odors of burnt gas mainly, eating poor food and drinking warm, fetid
water when they were lucky enough to get any at all.

This was about the state of affairs that Calvin Gray found on the
morning of his arrival. He and Mallow had managed to secure a Pullman
section on the night train from Dallas; the fact that they were forced
to carry their own luggage from the station uptown to the restaurant
where they hoped to get breakfast was characteristic of the place. En
route thither they had to elbow their way through a crowd that filled
the sidewalks as if on a fair day.

Mallow was well acquainted with the town, it appeared, and during
breakfast he maintained a running fire of comment, some of which was
worth listening to.

"Ever hear how the first discovery was made? Well, the T. P. Company
had the whole country plastered with coal leases and finally decided to
put down a fifteen-hundred-foot wildcat. The guy that ran the rig had a
hunch there was oil here if he went deep enough, but he knew the
company wouldn't stick, so he faked the log of the well as long as he
could, then he kept on drilling, against orders--refused to open his
mail, for fear he'd find he was fired and the job called off. He was a
thousand feet deeper than he'd been ordered to go when--blooie! Over
the top she went with fourteen hundred barrels.... Desdemona's the name
of a camp below here, but they call it Hog Town. More elegant! Down
there the derricks actually straddle one another, and they have to
board them over to keep from drowning one another out when they blow
in. Fellow in Dallas brought in the first well, and it was so big that
his stock went from a hundred dollars a share to twelve thousand. All
in a few weeks. Of course, he started a bank. Funniest people I ever
saw, that way. Usually when a rube makes a winning he gambles or gets
him a woman, but these hicks take their coin and buy banks.... Ranger's
a real town; everything wide open and the law in on the play. That
makes good times. Show me a camp where the gamblers play solitaire and
the women tak