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Vachell, Horace Annesley, 1861-1955

"Bunch Grass A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch"

He never interfered with
me in my kitchen, never! Would you gen'lemen fancy a glass o'
lemonade? No? Wal--I'm glad you called in, fer I hev been feelin' kind
o' lonesome lately."
What Uncle Jap's Lily suffered when he mortgaged all his cattle to
sink a well nobody knows but herself, and she never told. The wizard
indicated a certain spot below the croppings of bituminous rock; a big
derrick was built; iron casing was hauled over the Coast Range; the
well was bored.
Then, after boring some two thousand feet, operations had to be
suspended, because Uncle Jap's dollars were exhausted, and his
patience. The wizard swore stoutly that the lake was there, millions
and millions of barrels of oil, but he deemed it expedient to leave
the country in a hurry, because Uncle Jap intimated to him in the most
convincing manner that there was not room in it for so colossal a
fraud. The wizard might have argued the question, but the sight of
Uncle Jap's old Navy six-shooter seemed to paralyse his tongue.
After this incident Uncle Jap ranched with feverish energy, and Mrs.
Fullalove said that the old man had gotten over a real bad dose of
swelled head.


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