midnight
For six days after the night of revelations Kent dived deep , personally and by paid proxy , in a sea of secrecy which , but for the five pregnant minutes in the doorway of the governor 's office , might easily have proved fathomless . On the seventh day the conflagration broke out . The editor of the Belmount _ Refiner _ was the first to smell smoke and to raise the cry of `` Fire ! '' but by midnight the wires were humming with the news and the entire State was ablaze . The story as it appeared under the scare headlines the next morning was crisply told . An oil company had been formed with Senator Duvall at its head . After its incorporation it was ascertained that it not only held options on all the most valuable wells in the Belmount region , but that its charter gave it immunity from the law requiring all corporations to have their organizations , officers , and operating headquarters in the State .