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Updated: June 12, 2025
A watcher jumped up at his approach. Dave raised his hand and moved it above his head from right to left. The guard disappeared in the darkness toward the Jackpot. Presently his companion followed him. Dave was left alone. It seemed to him that the multitudinous small voices of the night had never been more active. A faint trickle of water came up from the bed of the stream.
He had never before attempted to speak in public, and he had a queer, dry tightening of the throat. But as soon as he began to talk the words he wanted came easily enough. "Jackpot Number Three has come in a big gusher," he said, lifting his voice so that it would carry to the edge of the crowd. Hundreds of men in the crowd owned stock in the Jackpot properties.
His friend had told him that Crawford's fate hung in the balance. Unless oil flowed very soon in paying quantities he was a ruined man. The control of the Jackpot properties would probably pass into the hands of Steelman. The cattleman would even lose the ranches which had been the substantial basis of his earlier prosperity.
The more Shorty considered this possibility, the greater force it acquired in his mind. Dug's hatred of Crawford, Hart, and especially Sanders would be satiated in part at least if he could wipe their oil bonanza from the map. The wind had been right. Doble was no fool. He knew that if the fire ran wild in the chaparral only a miracle could save the Jackpot reservoirs and plant from destruction.
For the present at least the fire-fighters could confine their efforts to the south and east, where the spread of the blaze would involve the Jackpot. A shift in the wind would change the situation, and if it came in time would probably save the oil property. Dave put his horse to a lope and rode back to the trench and trail his men were building. He found a shovel and joined them.
It was no matter whether he played or did not play, whether he won or lost; they were too busy to notice. But he came back, at length, to the man who wore the linen coat and who won so easily. Something in his method of dealing appeared to interest Donnegan greatly. It was jackpot; the chips were piled high; and the man in the linen coat was dealing again. How deftly he mixed the cards!
"Started in Bear Cañon, but it's jumped out into the hills." "The wind must be driving it down toward the Jackpot!" "Yep. Like a scared rabbit. Crawford's trying to hold the mouth of the cañon. He's got a man's job down there. Can't spare a soul to keep it from scootin' over the hills." Dave rose. "I'll gather a bunch of men and ride right out. On what side of the cañon is the fire running?"
It is as absorbing to the drillers as a girl's mind is to her hopeful lover. Dave found it impossible to escape the contagion of this. Moreover, he had ten thousand shares in the Jackpot, stock turned over to him out of the treasury supply by the board of directors in recognition of services which they did not care to specify in the resolution which authorized the transfer.
"Ten thousand shares." "How did you get it?" "It was voted me by the directors for saving Jackpot Number Three from an attack of Steelman's men." Graham's gaze bored into the eyes of his caller. He waited just a moment to give his question full emphasis. "Mr. Sanders, what were you doing six months ago?" "I was serving time in the penitentiary," came the immediate quiet retort. "What for?"
He would leave him in the hills above the Jackpot and show him the way down there, after which he would ride to meet the girl who was waiting for him. This would give him time enough to get away safely. It was no business of his whether or not Doble was taken. He was an overbearing brute, anyhow. An hour's riding through the chaparral brought him to the watershed far above the Jackpot.
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