"How much farther have we to ride?" questioned Randy.

"Ten miles, that's all," replied his uncle.

They had made two changes since leaving New York City, but each stop had been less than an hour in duration; so to these boys so used to outdoor activities it felt as if the whole journey had been continuous. They were bound for a small town which in years gone by had been known as Steerville, but the name of which since the oil boom had been changed to Columbina. This, so far as d.i.c.k Rover could ascertain, was the nearest point to where the Lorimer Spell tract was located.

"We'll take a look around Columbina first," Jack's father had said. "I want to see how that claim looks. Then I'll take a run over to Wichita Falls and get those doc.u.ments belonging to Spell from the safe deposit box in the bank."

"I see an oil well!" shouted Fred presently, and he pointed out of the car window to where the huge derrick could be seen over a distant rise of ground.

"There is another! And another!" added Andy, a few minutes later.

"Now we must be coming into the oil fields," announced d.i.c.k Rover, and his face showed that he was just as eager as the boys. "Just think of how some of these wells have made a great many comparatively poor people almost millionaires over night!"

"It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it, Dad?" exclaimed Jack. "No wonder they call this the land of luck."

"But don't forget the disappointments, Son. Many a man has put his all into sinking a well only to find it absolutely dry."

"And wells cost so much to sink, too!" put in Fred. "Ten to forty thousand dollars each! It's an awful amount to gamble away."

"Not all of the wells cost that much, Fred. In some places they strike oil at a distance of a few hundred feet. But here they have to go down much deeper. Many good wells are down three thousand feet or more."

The train had stopped at one or two towns, and now the porter announced that the next stop would be Columbina, and he took their suitcases to the platform for them. Presently they rolled up to a small wooden station, and the travelers alighted. Then the heavy train rolled westward.

"Welcome to Columbina!" cried Andy jestingly. "Some big city, I must declare. I wonder where the Waldorf-Vanderbilt Hotel is located?"

"What's the matter with going to the Ritz-Copley Square?" added his twin, with a grin.

"Perhaps we'll be thankful to get any kind of a shake-down, boys,"

announced d.i.c.k Rover. "This certainly is worse than I antic.i.p.ated, although I knew that we couldn't expect much in one of these boom towns."

To a newcomer Columbina certainly offered no special attractions. Only a few years before it had been nothing but a point where the ranchmen had shipped their steers on the railroad, with a tiny stockyard and a small ranchmen's hotel and saloon combined. Now the boom city, if such it might be called, consisted of a long straggling main street with a much dilapidated boardwalk on one side only. In the middle of the street the mud was all of a foot deep, and through this wagons and automobiles plowed along as best they could. All of the buildings were of wood, and none of them more than three stories in height. There were half a dozen general stores, the same number of eating and drinking places, and two buildings which were designated as hotels, O'Brian's being one and Smedley's the other. There was also a long, shed-like moving picture theater advertised to be open twice a week, in the evening.

"I was advised by a man on the train to try the Smedley Hotel first,"

said d.i.c.k Rover. "He thought I'd find a better cla.s.s of people there than at the O'Brian place. Wait till I ask the station master where the hotel is located."

"You can't miss it," said the station man, when applied to. "It's down at the end of that boardwalk. If you go any further you'll sink into mud up to your knees," and he smiled feebly.

"Any chance of our getting in there?"

"Just as good a chance as getting in anywhere. They tell me O'Brian's place is so full they're falling out of the windows," and the station master chuckled over his little joke.

"Anything in the way of a taxicab around here to take us and our baggage up there?"

"Taxicab? The last man to run a taxicab was Jim Lumpkins, and now Jim's struck oil and he's so rich he won't do nothing. If you want to get up to Smedley's I reckon you'll have to hoof it."

"Come on, Dad, let's walk up there," said Jack.

"But your suitcases are pretty heavy," answered his father, with a smile.

"Oh, we won't mind those," declared Fred. "We've hiked around with just as much to carry many times."

"I sha'n't mind it myself," declared his uncle. "Campaigning in France was a splendid thing to harden one's muscles."

They set off down the one business street of which Columbina boasted.

They had to pick their way carefully along the dilapidated boardwalk. At one point they came opposite O'Brian's Hotel. Downstairs was a saloon, and in this a noisy bunch were talking and singing.

"I don't know as I would care to stop there," remarked Randy. "It looks like rather a tough hole to me."

"You are right," responded Jack. "I'd rather go to some private house, if I could find one, or else buy a tent and hire a place where we could pitch it."

"Gee, that's an idea!" cried Andy. "I'd much rather go camping out and do my own cooking than put up with just any old thing."

At length they came to Smedley's Hotel. It was a new building, three stories in height, with a restaurant occupying one-half of the lower floor. Half a dozen men were occupying chairs on the front piazza, and they eyed the newcomers curiously.

"Looks fairly clean, anyway," whispered Fred to his cousins. "I wouldn't want to get into some old ranch that was full of bugs."

The office of the hotel was about twelve feet square, with a sanded floor. On one side was a plain wooden settee, and on the other an equally plain counter on which rested a register and a bell. Behind the counter was a tall, freckle-faced man with a shock of red hair.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said hospitably. "What can I do for you?"

"We want to know if we can be accommodated here," answered d.i.c.k Rover.

"There are five of us."

"How long do you want to stay?"

"I don't know exactly. Several days at least, and maybe a week or two."

"I see." The hotel proprietor scratched his head thoughtfully. "I've got one big room left and one small room directly opposite. The small room has only a single bed in it, but the other room has a double bed and I could easily put two cots in there besides that."

"Would you mind showing us the quarters?" questioned Jack's father.

Experience had taught him when in out-of-the-way places not to accept hotel accommodations until he had inspected them.

"Sure thing, Brother. Just follow me."

The boys waited below while d.i.c.k Rover and the hotel man went upstairs.

A minute later they came down, and then Jack's father registered for the entire crowd.

"You pay for your meals in the restaurant when you get 'em," announced the hotel man. "The rooms are separate. Three dollars each per day."

The rooms to which they had been a.s.signed were on the third floor of the hotel. One was amply large for all of the boys, and the other, while much smaller, had good ventilation and d.i.c.k Rover said it would suit him very well.

"The whole outfit is better than I was afraid it might be," he announced. "Some of these boom towns have wretched quarters for newcomers. In fact, I've read in the newspapers that in many places the newcomers had to roll themselves in blankets and sleep out in the fields."

"I was reading about one place where they set up cots on the floor of a general store at night and sold the right to sleep on a cot until seven o'clock in the morning for one dollar," said Randy.

There was no running water, but each room was supplied with a bowl and pitcher, and after the extra cots were placed in the larger apartment an extra bucket of water was also brought up by a maid.

Although they did not know it, the Rovers had no sooner disappeared upstairs than two of the men sitting on the veranda of the hotel came into the office and looked over the register.