r. We lower
these cannisters down into the iron pipe that extends to the bottom of
the well."

"How deep?" queried Alice.

"Oh, a well may run anywhere from three hundred to three thousand feet,
or even more. This one is about one thousand. We have about a hundred
quarts of nitro-glycerine down in the pipes now; but it hasn't gone off
yet."

"Can you--er--tell me when it _will_ go off?" asked Mr. Sneed, looking
about him nervously.

"Any minute, if not sooner," replied the oil man, with a smile. "Oh,
don't run--you're safe here," he added, as Mr. Sneed began to move away.
At the same time Claude Towne, the "swell" of the company, exclaimed:

"I'm not going to stay here and get this new suit spoiled by the oil."
He was very careful of his attire.

"Oh, the oil won't spray as far as this," the workman assured him.

"How do they explode the glycerine?" asked Mr. DeVere.

"Well, the old plan used to be to drop an iron weight called a
'go-devil,' down on top of the cannisters containing the explosive. The
top can was fitted with a firing head, and when the iron weight hit
this, after a long fall, it would explode, and the concussion would set
off the rest of the glycerine."

"But this time we tried a new plan. We used a 'go-devil-squib.' That's a
sort of torpedo, holding about a quart of the glycerine, and it has a
firing head of its own. We drop that down the pipe and when it hits on
the top cannister it goes off, and sets off the rest of the explosive.
But, somehow, it didn't work this time. The charge missed fire, so now
we're going to drop down an old fashioned 'go-devil' and see what
happens."

Mr. Pertell asked, and readily obtained, permission to make moving
pictures of the shooting of the well, and was also accorded the
privilege of posing his company at the scene when the well did "spout."

"I'll have to think up some sort of a scenario to go with it," the
manager said.

"Have some poor man get rich suddenly by striking oil on his land,"
suggested Russ, "and then show what he does with his money. You can
easily get the later scenes."

"Good idea--I will," exclaimed the manager. "We'll use this as the
first, or opening, scene in--let me see, we'll call it 'The Rise and
Fall of the Kerosene King.' How's that?"

"Good!" cried Mr. DeVere.

"All right. Paul, you'll be the king. But you'll have to start as a
poor lad, and those good clothes won't do. Slip on a pair of greasy
overalls--borrow them from