“Sure enough.  You got a haid on yore shoulders.  Dave, you attend to that.  Bob, hit the dust for the big saloons and gather men.  I’ll see O’Connor about the railroad outfit; then I’ll come down to the fire-house and talk to the crowd.  We’ll wake this old town up to-night, sons.”

“What about me?” asked the messenger.

“You go back and tell Jed to hold the fort till Hart and his material arrives.”

Outside, they met Russell riding down the road, two saddled horses following.  With a word of explanation they helped themselves to his mounts while he stared after them in surprise.

“I’ll be dawggoned if they-all ain’t three gents in a hurry,” he murmured to the breezes of the night.  “Well, seein’ as I been held up, I reckon I’ll have to walk back while the hawss-thieves ride.”

Five minutes later the fire-bell clanged out its call to Malapi.  From roadside tent and gambling-hall, from houses and camp-fires, men and women poured into the streets.  For Malapi was a shell-town, tightly packed and inflammable, likely to go up in smoke whenever a fire should get beyond control of the volunteer company.  Almost in less time than it takes to tell it, the square was packed with hundreds of lightly clad people and other hundreds just emerging from the night life of the place.

The clangor of the bell died away, but the firemen did not run out the hose and bucket cart.  The man tugging the rope had told them why he was summoning the citizens.

“Some one’s got to go out and explain to the crowd,” said the fire chief to Dave.  “If you know about this strike you’ll have to tell the boys.”

“Crawford said he’d talk,” answered Sanders.

“He ain’t here.  It’s up to you.  Go ahead.  Just tell ’em why you rang the bell.”

Dave found himself pushed forward to the steps of the court-house a few yards away.  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.  At Dave’s words a roar went up into the night.  Men shouted, danced, or merely smiled, according to their temperament.  Presently the thirst for news dominated the enthusiasm.  Gradually the uproar was stilled.

Again Dave’s voice rang out clear as the bell he had been tolling.  “The report is that it’s one of the biggest strikes ever known in the State.  The derrick has been knocked to pieces and the oil’s shooting into the air a hundred feet.”

A second great shout drowned his words.  This was an oil crowd.  It dreamed oil, talked oil, thought oil, prayed for oil.  A stranger in the town was likely to feel at first that the place was oil mad.  What else can be said of a town with derricks built through its front porches and even the graveyard leased to a drilling company?