Campbell's Kingdom Read Online Free PDF

back and clipped the end of a cigar. ‘Fothergill writes that for some reason best known to yourself you don’t want to sell.’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘Not till I’ve seen the place, anyway.’
    He gave a grunt. ‘There’s been too much delay already.’ The door opened behind me and the secretary placed a file on his desk. He opened it and flipped through the documents, the tips of his fingers smoothing his cheeks along the line of the jaw. Then he sat back and lit his cigar. ‘I quite appreciate your wanting to see the property before disposing of it, but in this case it’s just not possible. Did Fothergill give you all the details?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t able to get the position regarding mineral rights clear and—’
    â€˜Mineral rights!’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t worry about the mineral rights, if I were you.’ He leaned back and stared at me out of small, clear blue eyes. ‘It’s oil you’re thinking of, is it? I warned Fothergill to make it perfectly clear to you that there wasn’t any oil. Did he give you my letter?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said.
    â€˜And you’re not satisfied? All right. Well let me tell you that Roger Fergus had a geophysical outfit up in the Kingdom last summer and Louis Winnick’s report on that survey finally damns Campbell’s ideas about oil up there as a lot of moonshine.’ He reached forward and pulled a document from the file. ‘Here’s a copy of that report.’ He tossed it on to the desk in front of me. ‘Take it away and read it at your leisure. In any case, the mineral rights don’t belong to you. They belong to Roger Fergus.’
    â€˜But I thought I had a controlling interest in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company?’
    â€˜Certainly you do. But the mineral rights were mortgaged as security for the cash Fergus advanced the company. Of course,’ he added, with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘that was just a matter of form. They weren’t worth anything. Roger Fergus knew that. He was just being kind to the old fellow and we fixed it that way so that Campbell wouldn’t think it was charity.’
    He paused, evidently to let this piece of information sink in. His manner was vastly different to Fothergill’s—to any solicitor I had ever met, for that matter. It was more the manner of a business man, hard and factual. He was like a battering ram and I could feel him trying to steamroller me into selling. To gain time and sort out my impressions I glanced down at the report and my attention was caught by the final paragraph: ‘. . .
Therefore I have no hesitation in saying there is absolutely no possibility whatever of oil being discovered on this property. Signed—Louis Winnick, Oil Consultant
.’
    â€˜Is a survey of this nature conclusive?’ I asked him.
    â€˜Not entirely. It won’t prove the presence of oil. But it’s pretty well a hundred per cent in indicating that a territory is not oil-bearing. In this case, when you read the report through, you’ll find that the strata under the surface is far too broken up to contain any oil traps.’
    â€˜I see.’
    So that was that. My grandfather’s vision of a great new oilfield in the Rockies was scientifically disproved. I suddenly felt tired and dispirited. I had come a long way, buoyed up with the feeling that I had a mission to accomplish. ‘I’d like to see the place,’ I murmured.
    He leaned back and drew slowly on his cigar. I think he was giving me time to adjust myself. ‘Ever seen a big mountain range?’
    â€˜I’ve ski-ed in the Alps.’
    He nodded. ‘Well, the Rockies are just about as high. The difference is that they extend north and south the length of the North American continent and they’re about 500 miles through. Travel gets to be pretty difficult at this time