ing with him when her brother burst
into the house, shouting:

"It's a gasser, Mr. Gray! Biggest I ever seen."

"Gas?" the latter mumbled, indistinctly. "Isn't there any--oil?" His
words were almost like a whisper because of the noise.

"Not yet. May be later. Say, she's a heller, ain't she? I'll bet she's
makin' twenty million feet--"

"Gasser's no good."

"Can't tell yet. We gotta shut her down easy so she don't blow the
casing out--run wild on us, understand?" Buddy was still breathless,
but he plunged out the door and back into that sea of sound.

With a tragic intensity akin to wildness, Gray stared up into Allie
Briskow's face. "Worthless, eh? And they told me ten thousand barrels."
He carried a shaking hand to his bandaged head and tried vainly to
collect his wits. "What's matter?" he queried, thickly. "Everything
whirling--sick--"

"You had an accident, but it's all right; all right--No, no! Please lie
still."

"Running wild, eh? Tha's what hurts my head so. Blown the casing
out--Bad, isn't it? Sometimes they run wild for weeks, years--ruin
everything." He tried again to rise, then insisted, querulously: "Goto
get oil in this well! I've got to! Last chance, Allie. Got to get ten
thousand barrels!"

"Please! You mustn't--" Allie had her strong hands upon his shoulders;
she was arguing firmly but as gently as possible under the
circumstances, when something occurred so extraordinary, so unexpected,
as to paralyze her. Of a sudden the interior of the dim-lit,
canvas-roofed shack was illuminated as if by a searchlight, and she
turned her head to see that the whole out-of-doors was visible and that
the night itself had turned into day.

With a cry that died weakly amid the chaos of sound beating over her,
the girl ran to the window and looked out. What she beheld was a
nightmare scene. The well was afire. It had exploded into flame. Where,
a moment before, it had been belching skyward an enormous stream of
gaseous vapor, all but invisible except at the casing head, now it was
a monstrous blow torch, the flaming crest of which was tossed a hundred
feet high. Nothing in the nature of a conflagration could have been
more awe-inspiring, more confounding to the faculties than that roaring
column of consuming fire. It was a thing incredibly huge, incredibly
furious, incredibly wild. Human figures, black against its glare, were
flying to safety, near-by silhouettes were flinging their arms aloft
and dashing b