What followed immediately afterwards is county history.  Uncle Jap decided to borrow money to develop his bonanza.  The Autocrat, with tentacles stretching to the uttermost ends of the earth, may—­I dare not affirm that he did—­have issued instructions that such money as Jaspar Panel asked for was to be paid.  Jaspar Panel asked for a good deal, and got it.  He sunk more wells and capped them; he built reservoirs, he laid down pipe line.  The day of triumph dawned when an English company offered to take all the oil Uncle Jap could supply, provided it were delivered free on board their vessels.  Then came the crushing blow that the railroad would not transport Mr. Panel’s petroleum.  If they did—­this was not the reason given by the shipping agents—­the Autocrat might be displeased.

Meantime the banks politely requested Jaspar Panel to meet his obligations.

Hitherto, Uncle Jap had been a man of simple and primitive beliefs.  He had held, for instance, that a beneficent Providence will uphold Right against Might; he had pinned his faith to the flag under which he fought and bled when a boy; he had told his Lily (who believed him) that American citizenship is a greater thing than a Roman’s in Rome’s palmiest day:  a phrase taken whole from the mouth of a Fourth of July orator.  Last of all, he had believed devoutly in his own strong hands and will, the partnership of mind and muscle which confronts seemingly insuperable obstacles confident that it can destroy them.

And now, hour by hour, day by day, conviction settled upon his soul that in this world one only reigned supreme:  the Autocrat of Oil, whose High Priest was Nathaniel Leveson.  After heart-rending months of humiliation, upon the eve of foreclosure by the banks, Uncle Jap wrote a forlorn letter to Nathaniel, accepting his offer of fifty thousand dollars for the lake of oil.  Mr. Leveson, so a subordinate replied, was not buying oil properties!  For the moment he was interested in other matters ...  Uncle Jap happened to read next day that Leveson, treading in the footsteps of his Master, was about to present a splendid church to the people of San Lorenzo.  Uncle Jap stared at the paper till it turned white, till he saw in the middle of it a huge purple blot ever-increasing in size.

That evening he cleaned his old six-shooter, which had made the climate of the county so particularly pestilential for the wizard with the hazel twig.

“Pore critter,” he muttered as he wiped the barrel, “he was down to
his uppers, but this feller------” Mrs. Panel, putting away the supper
things, heard her husband swearing softly to himself.  She hesitated a
moment; then she came in, and seeing the pistol, a gasp escaped her.

“What air you doin’ with that, Jaspar Panel?”

Uncle Jap coughed.

“There’s bin a skunk around,” he said.  “I’ve kind o’ smelled him for weeks past, hain’t you?”

“I never knowed you to shoot a skunk with anything but a shot-gun.”