America 1881: They Call Me Legend

Chapter 173: Drilling out a future

Vaughan rode at the front of the team as always.

He was in a very happy mood.

The geologist is already under his control, and he has already made arrangements for his followers in the fortress.

As soon as we find oil, hey...

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but show a proud look on his face.

Roswell is still my Roswell. With these yellow-skinned scum, they just want to fight me. Are they worthy?

However, just after walking west out of the stone fortress, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Sir, which direction are we going?" asked the soldier behind Vaughn.

Vaughn couldn't answer. According to his usual experience, whichever way the wind blows, drill in that direction.

As a result, when shepherds near Roswell drove their sheep to new pastures, they occasionally found that their sheep would get stuck in holes for no apparent reason or simply disappear.

At first they thought it was a rock rat, until they heard the rumbling of machinery.

The same situation also occurs in different terrain locations such as nearby deserts and at the foot of mountains.

Five years of wasted time and countless useless holes in the ground around Roswell proved that his experience was wrong.

Holmes and Chen Jianqiu drove their horses and slowly walked in front of him.

When passing by Vaughn, Chen Jianqiu did not forget to glance at him, cluck his tongue, and shake his head.

Vaughan was so angry that he almost cursed.

Why are you, a little miner, playing the harp with me? Okay, I think you can play the harp for a few more days.

Holmes dug out his precious notebook from his bag and pulled out a map.

This map looks a bit old, but it is still densely marked with many marks.

"This was hand-painted when I came here last time," Holmes said to Chen Jianqiu.

He studied the map carefully, then turned the horse's head and pointed in the direction of the small town of Roswell.

"Go there."

This is the completely opposite direction to what they were traveling in just now. In other words, they need to turn around and the distance they just walked will be completely in vain.

Turning around a carriage carrying a steam drilling rig was quite troublesome, and the soldiers driving the carriage dared not speak out in anger.

"Are you sure?" Vaughn asked Holmes, "It's a small town, and people have been coming and going for so many years. How could there be crude oil?"

"That's because you are blind." Holmes showed the arrogance of an intellectual as he drove his horse past Vaughan again.

"You can really delay things." Chen Jianqiu added.

Vaughn endured it.

The team turned around and headed towards the town.

Holmes did not lead the team into the town, but passed by the edge of the town.

Only then did Chen Jianqiu get a closer look at the specific situation of the town.

There are indeed few people in the town. Except for those who live in the pastures outside the town,

There were only a few people with Latino faces on the edge of the town, sitting in front of their houses and watching their team pass by.

The broken signs hanging on the closed rooms indicate that someone may have been here before.

After passing the small town, they turned to the southeast.

Not far away, Chen Jianqiu saw the grassland Holmes mentioned.

Compared with the Chihuahuan Desert to the west, this place can be regarded as an oasis. However, the grass on the ground looks like it has been chewed. It seems that this place is often visited by herders.

Holmes had already dismounted. After comparing his map, he began to tap the stones along the way with a pick hammer, and then observed the traces on the cross sections of the stones.

After a while, they came to the edge of the pasture, near an irregular terrain that looked vaguely like a river.

With the help of Chen Jianqiu, Holmes hammered and hammered here for more than half an hour.

Vaughan and his soldiers stood there with their arms akimbo, watching the two men chiseling for half an hour.

After repeated confirmations, Holmes straightened up, pointed to the surrounding area, and said to Vaughan and his soldiers who looked confused:

"That's it! Just dig in here."

"Um, where exactly is it?" Vaughn still looked confused.

"Why are you so stupid?" Holmes cursed, "This area is fine, there is an oil spring below."

Upon hearing this, Vaughn quickly asked the soldiers behind him to unload the things from the carriage.

They had a lot to do. They needed to build the frame with the wood and assemble the heavy real steam turbine to drive the drill.

However, these things were all done by a dozen soldiers, with Vaughn holding his pocket and watching intently.

Chen Jianqiu and Holmes walked aside.

Chen Jianqiu took out two cigars from his saddle bag, lit one, shook it twice, and handed it to Holmes.

Holmes put it in his mouth and took a sip, then put the cigar in his hand in front of his eyes and looked at it:

"Huh? Isn't this the box I bought in Lincolnshire last time? I've been wondering since then where that box of cigars went."

"They were scattered by bullets, so I picked up a few and brought them back." Chen Jianqiu lit one for himself, with a blush on his face and no mention of bribing the police with cigars.

"Are you sure there is crude oil down here?" Chen Jianqiu took a puff of cigarette.

"Not sure, let's try to hit it." Holmes passed the smoke he inhaled in his mouth for a while, then spit it out from his mouth, "I have found this place before, and I can't hit this thing if I don't hit it."

, never know if there is.”

"Does it have to be drilled very deep? Will it spurt out?" Chen Jianqiu searched for memories about the oil field before traveling, which he had seen on TV or the Internet.

His impression of oil drilling is: the drilling rig drills down, and the black liquid spurts out.

"No, according to my experience, if you can find it, it's all shallow oil on the surface. It's a little deeper than the oil exposed on the ground in Pennsylvania. It doesn't have as much pressure and won't spurt out." Holm.

Si smoked a cigar and shook his head, spreading knowledge about oil in this era to Chen Jianqiu.

Vaughn didn't notice the two men smoking cigars on one side. His attention was entirely on the busy soldiers.

As their commander said, these soldiers are very skilled at their job.

In the evening, they had set up the frame and camp, and assembled the steam engine and drilling rig.

Two strong-looking soldiers were shoveling coal into the boiler. They were about to start the steam turbine and start drilling.

Holmes looked on. He knew nothing about machinery, while Chen Jianqiu, a geologist's assistant, was also pretending to record something.

"How deep?" The soldiers looked at Holmes.

However, the geologists haven't answered this question yet, and Vaughn next to them has already told them the answer first.

"Drill until crude oil comes out!"

Holmes' previous words gave Vaughn full confidence. At this time, he was full of enthusiasm, and his five-year wait was finally about to bear fruit.

So, the drilling rig started like this.

In this era, the efficiency conversion of steam engines was not high, and the efficiency of the drilling rigs it drove was even lower.

By midnight on the first day, they had drilled down about fifteen feet (about four and a half meters).

Vaughn and Holmes were getting ready for bed.

But the drilling rig and the soldiers on the night shift couldn't rest. Firstly, there was no reason to stop the steam engine after it started. Secondly, Vaughan, who was full of enthusiasm, hoped that his soldiers could continue to fight until crude oil was drilled out.

Chen Jianqiu found a tent and got in and slept with his clothes on. However, the steam turbine outside made a huge noise. This was a disaster for Chen Jianqiu who would wake up at the slightest movement.

Fortunately, he didn't need to rest for long.

The next morning, when he came to the drilling rig in high spirits, Vaughn and Holmes were already standing there.

Both of them had dark circles around their eyes, but they both looked very excited.

The next day, forty feet (about twelve meters), nothing was found.

On the early morning of the third day, Vaughn and Holmes were still standing at the edge of the drilling well early.

The dark circles under their eyes became deeper.

When the depth of the drilling rig reached fifty feet, Holmes, who had begun to become a little distracted, suddenly ran towards the drill hole like crazy.

"Water! Water!" He pointed around the drill hole. Everyone came over to take a look and saw liquid overflowing from around the drill pipe.

Vaughan dipped his finger into some liquid and smelled it in front of his nose. He looked at it again and cursed: "It's damn water. What do we need water for? Keep drilling!"

But Chen Jianqiu's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Holmes rushed to Chen Jianqiu and said excitedly: "Let me just say that there is an aquifer here. Thank God, New Mexico has abundant groundwater resources. This is just surface diving."

But for Vaughn, these obviously have little to do with him.

So the drilling rig continued to operate.

In the afternoon, dark clouds began to gather in the sky for some unknown reason. The dry place here seemed to be experiencing the few rainfalls in the year just like Lincoln County.

When the drill bit reached about sixty feet (about eighteen meters), the drill suddenly stopped.

When Vaughn saw the machine stopped, he immediately yelled: "What the hell are you doing? Why don't you continue drilling?"

The soldier operating the machine looked nervous and said to Vaughan with an embarrassed look on his face: "Our drill bit seems to have fallen into a gap."

"Are you pigs? Ah? You've been doing this for so many years? How can something like this still happen?" Vaughan was holding his head in a frenzy.

Now that the drill bit fell off, there was no way to continue. The soldier controlling the drill had no choice but to pull up the drill pipe.

"Everyone, let's take a rest first." Holmes said to the soldiers, while Vaughn was squatting in the corner alone, not knowing what he was thinking.

Chen Jianqiu hung a jar from the drill hole.

All the water he brought went into the boiler, and he was going to get some water to wash his face.

However, when he just poured the water from the jar into the basin, he was stunned.

There was a thick, black liquid floating on the water in the basin.

oil!

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Second update

(End of chapter)