thusiasm; this would be a lesson.

Queer how women interfere with business. Here he was going at things
backward, whirling out to the oil fields when he should be with McWade
and Stoner. They would probably be distracted at his nonarrival,
but--this was business, too. And she would drive out to get him. There
would be the long ride back. Far away across the undulating prairie
fields the horizon was broken by a low, dark barricade, the massed
derricks of the town-site pool. So thickly were they grouped that they
resembled a dense forest of high, black pines, and not until Gray drew
closer could he note that this strange forest was leafless.

By now the roads were quagmires, and the unceasing current of traffic
had thickened and slowed down until Gray's car rocked and plunged
through a hub-deep channel of slime. There was but one route to the
Extension, and it led through the very heart of Burkburnett; there were
no detours around the town, no way of beating the traffic, therefore
vehicles, no matter how urgent their business, were forced to fall in
line and allow themselves to be carried along like chips in a stream of
tar.

"Burk" was a one-story town, or at least most of its buildings
projected only one story above the mud, and that mud was mixed with
oil. Leakage from wells, pipe lines, storagetanks, had made the mass
underfoot doubly foul and sticky, and where it was liquid it shone with
iridescent colors. Mud was everywhere; on the sidewalks, inside the
stores, on walls and signboards, on the skins and clothing of the
people.

Through the main street the procession of cars plowed, then out across
the railroad tracks and toward the open country beyond. When it came to
a halt, as it frequently did, above the hum of idle motors could be
heard the clank of pumps, the fitful coughing of gasengines, the hiss
of steam. This, of course, was soon drowned in a terrific din of
impatient horns, a blaring, brazen snarl at the delay. The whole line
roared metallic curses at the cause of its stoppage.

Even the railroad right of way had been drilled. Switch engines shunted
rows of flats almost between the straddling derrick legs.

Gray's driver had been dumb thus far, now he broke out abruptly:
"Speaking about mud; I was crossing this street on a plank the other
day when I saw a bran'-new derby lying in the mud and picked it up.
Underneath it was a guy's head.

"'Hullo!' I said. 'You're in pretty deep, ain't you?'

"The