trucks. Some of the latter bore the names of well-known companies such as Gulf, Continental, Skelly and Schlumberger. Others belonged to smaller oil and uranium firms that Sandy had never heard of.
“Donovan, Ralph, and I had better go in and chew the rag with them awhile,” the oilman continued. “Why don’t you fellows look the town over until it’s time for dinner? You’d just get bored sitting around.”
The boys were drifting over toward the Council Hall for a better look at the many Navajos in stiff black hats and colorful shirts who clustered around its doorway when they heard a familiar shout.
“Wait up!” Pepper March dashed across the dusty street and pounded them on their backs as if they were his best friends. “Gee, it’s good to see a white man you know.”
“You saw us only yesterday,” Sandy pointed out rather coldly.
“Oh, but that was business. Come on. I’ll buy a Coke. What have you been up to? How do you like working for an old crank? What’s biting Hall’s geologist? Boy, isn’t it hot? Did you know that I’m learning to fly Red’s Bonanza? How’s your well coining along?”
“Whoa!” cried Quiz. “Relax! We’ve been working like sin. We like Mr. Hall. His geologist is going to bite your Mr. Cavanaugh pretty soon, I’m thinking. It is exactly 110 degrees in the shade. We did not know you were learning to fly a plane. And the situation at the well is strictly our own affair.”
“Uh—” said Pepper, “you’re not sore about what happened yesterday, are you? Red was only trying to make a sale.”
“Nope. We’re not sore,” Sandy answered. “But we’re beginning to take a dim view of your boss.”
“Why, Red’s the grandest guy you ever met. Do you know what he’s got me doing?”
“There you go again, asking personal questions,” said Quiz.
“I’m helping him set up a string of light beam transceivers that will keep his camps here and at Shiprock in constant communication with his agent down at Gallup.”
“What on earth for?” Sandy almost choked on his Coke in amazement. “What’s the matter with the telephone, telegraph and short-wave radio stations that are scattered all over this territory? And how come Cavanaugh has to have a permanent camp at Window Rock, and an agent in Gallup?”
“Now who’s asking the questions?” Pepper said smugly. “Have another Coke?”
“No, but we’ll buy you one,” Quiz replied, and added with a wink at his pal, “It must be quite a job, setting up one of your stations.”
“Sure is!” The blond boy expanded at this implied praise. “It’s never been done before over such long distances, Red says. You have to focus the beam perfectly, or it’s no good. But, after you do that, nobody can eavesdrop on you unless…”
He stopped short, and jumped off the diner stool as though it had suddenly become hot. “Well, so long, fellows. I’ve got to be getting back to camp. See you around.” And he departed as abruptly as he had come.
“Now what kind of business was that?” Sandy asked as he paid the entire bill.
“Monkey business, I guess,” Quiz answered. “I think Mr. Hall ought to know about those stations, and maybe Mr. White, the Indian Agent, should be told too.” He kicked at the dust thoughtfully as they walked slowly down Window Rock’s main street.
“Hmmm. You have to get a license from the government to operate a short-wave station,” said Sandy. “But I don’t suppose you need one yet for a light-beam job. Now, just supposing that Cavanaugh wanted to—”
“Wanted to what?”
“That’s what I don’t know. But I sure would like to find out. Let’s be getting back to the motel.”
They found themselves in the middle of a tense scene when they entered the motel patio. Twenty or thirty oil and uranium men were gathered there, their chairs propped comfortably against the adobe walls, while they listened to Cavanaugh and Donovan argue the merits of the big man’s electronic explorer.
“You all know, my friends, that uranium ore can be, and has been, found with a one-tube Geiger,” Red was booming. “But that’s like throwing a lucky pass in a football game. To win the game, you need power in the line—power that will let your ball carrier cross the line again, and again, and again, the way I became an All-American by scoring those three touchdowns against California back in 1930.”
“Oh, no!” Quiz whispered as he and Sandy founds seats in a far corner. “This is where we came in last time.”
“In searching for oil, or even for uranium under a heavy overburden of rock,” Cavanaugh went on, “you need at least the simplest scintillation counter because it is sixty times as sensitive as a one-tube Geiger. Better yet is the really professional counter—as much as 600 times more sensitive than the best Geiger built. Best of all is my multiple scintillator—100 times more sensitive than the best single tube. Even you won’t disagree with that, will you, Mr. Donovan?”
“Not at all,” answered the bald man after several furious puffs on his pipe. “I only say that, in addition to the best possible electronic instrument, you need an operator who thoroughly understands radiation equipment. Also, you should have a crew of geologists and geophysicists who know how to balance radiation findings against those established by other methods.”
“Nonsense,” shouted the ex-football player. “Many of my customers have located oil-containing faults and stratigraphic traps with my detector where all other instruments had failed. You’re just old-fashioned.”
“Maybe I am,” said Donovan, “and then maybe I just don’t like to have wool pulled over my eyes, or the eyes of men I consider to be my friends.”
“I’m not pulling wool. Halos or circles of radiation can be detected on the surface of the earth around the edges of every oil deposit. That’s a proven fact.” Cavanaugh pounded on the arm of his chair with a fist as big as a ham.
“Is it?” Donovan asked gently. “Jakosky, who is an authority on exploration geophysics, says, and I quote his exact words: ‘Atomic exploration is still in its infancy.’ Let me tell you a story:
“Back in the early days of the oil business, a number of people made fortunes by charging big fees to locate petroleum deposits with the help of split willow wands. They’d walk around with the split ends of the wands between their hands until, they said, some mysterious force pulled the big end downward until it pointed to oil. A man who helped Colonel Drake promote his original oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania, back in 1859, actually located several profitable fields with the ‘help’ of a spiritualist medium.”
“He could hardly have failed,” one of the onlookers spoke up. “In those days, oil was literally bursting out of the ground along many Pennsylvania creek beds.”
“That’s right, Tom,” Donovan agreed. “Oil was everywhere, so those dowsers, or ‘creekologists’ as they often were called, did very well until the search for oil moved west where deposits were scarcer and much deeper underground.
“Around 1913, geologists had to be called in to do the exploration. They’ve been responsible for finding practically all the fields discovered
