By the time Link returned to Nevada from Washington, Martha had already applied for groundwater exploration and found a drilling team. Ben Stein has even started drilling.

The drilling team she found was a professional oil exploration drilling team. Ordinary drilling teams have to drill to a depth of hundreds of meters, which is very difficult.

At the same time, Martin's crew also came to Nevada. And they'll shoot a lot of footage at Hanse Farm.

In addition to the crew that Martin brought with him from Hollywood, more than two dozen cowboys rode to Hans's farm that day, and it is said that that it was also the actor that Martin needed.

On the set set by the crew, Link was very interested in the cowboys. It can be seen that they are real cowboys, and they have a toughness that ordinary western cowboys do not have.

Martin came to Link with a cowboy in his forties and said, "Link, this is Battle Furbitche, a former company commander of the Nedahua Militia. is a real red-necked cowboy and a witness to the confrontation that year. ”

"Hey Link! I've heard about you, and I have to say, you're doing a great job. "The romance of cowboys usually makes them a little bit anarchic. But Battle wasn't talking about Link's fight against the government, but about what he had done on Wall Street.

For cowboys, they want to protect their farms, which are now increasingly influenced by the world of capital. Capitalists can use politics to forcibly expropriate their land for so-called public works, such as oil pipelines. And when the construction of those projects began, the landlords themselves did not even know that their land was expropriated.

Another example is the confrontation in the past year or four. It was also an incident where the capital world invaded their cowboy world and tried to forcibly rob their farm. At least that's what they think.

Therefore, the attitude of the cowboy to the world of capital is not too friendly.

Although Link is barely a capitalist, he has never done anything that disgusts cowboys. Even if you buy a farm, you don't wait for the farm to buy it at a low price when the farm is financially difficult.

He was very famous in Nevada, or in the whole of America. I bought a lot of land first. Such a move is easy to attract attention in Nevada, which has a population of more than two million. And the confrontation between him and the Federal Tax Service, it is impossible for the cowboy not to know. Because cowboys are probably the least willing to pay taxes.

And before winning money in the casino, and finally in New York, it did what it said, making GE, one of the most famous companies in the United States, a chicken feather. That's all about shearing the wool of the capital world. All of this made him famous in Nevawa. Few people in Nevada today don't know about him.

In addition, he also started doing charity, which gave him no bad reputation among the cowboy community.

Link smiled and shook his hand and said, "Thank you." Nice to meet you. I heard your story a long time ago, when I was a child, but I admired you for your solidarity and courage to protect your rights. ”

A smile appeared on Battle's face and he said: "Although the west has been invaded by the capitalist world, our blood still advocates freedom! "It seems that Link's compliment has put him to good use.

Since it was a crew invested by himself to shoot, Link couldn't be stingy. On the first night, he threw a big party. The farm killed two cows, and he also invited employees of Huaxin, who was building the base of the wind turbine at Hans Farm, to participate.

Most actors in Hollywood are versatile, dancing and singing are better than ordinary people, even if they are not at the professional level. And the actor is also someone who is willing to show himself. They're not pop stars, so their agents don't think they're going to lose out by covering a song on such an occasion and ask them not to show off their singing skills at such a party.

But it's not just the stars who can sing. The cowboys are also not stage frightened. Bring a guitar and sing their own country songs.

Link just thought the lyrics were lyrical. Martin, however, seemed to have different feelings and thoughts. He said to Link: "It seems that the singing cowboy is not gone, but in a different way." ”

Battle also sat with them, listened to him, and said with a smile: "Although the cowboy does not have to travel long distances to drive the cattle to the train station after the advent of the big pasture, the cowboy will not disappear when the cowboy is still there! The cowboy poet can be said to be a kind of cowboy singing." It's just that the way of singing has changed. ”

"The cowboy may miss the romance of roaming the prairie in the past. Of course, cowboys are still very romantic nowadays. Link laughs as he watches the cowboys dance to the sound of the guitar. "Cowboys used to be the main force in the development of this land, and now they are the main force in cultivating this land. It's just that it's not just with the horses and ropes of the year. Now they also use tractors. ”

"Haha, that's right. Cowboys are now more than just cowboys. We're farmers at the same time!"

Link had prepared a barbecue for them tonight, as well as beer and a few bottles of red wine. As a host, he is obliged to make it pleasant for the guests to arrive.

But after tonight, all the expenses of the crew need to be handled by Martin. Even for the use of the venue, he signed a contract and received money. Of course, he didn't ask for much, and all the shots in Hans's farm totaled a dollar.

He told Benjamin and the crew to do a good job of cooperation. He himself went to Fairy Peak Farm.

He had never set foot on the land there from the beginning to the end. Even if he bought it, he never went there.

Fairville Peak Farm is actually a large valley surrounded by high ground on three sides. The farm is flanked by mountains on both sides of the east and west, and to the south is a low knot of mountains where two mountains meet. The whole farm is like a tall glass, but the walls are thick. The high ground on both the east and west belongs to him.

He was still thinking about raising cattle here. And now it seems that whether the ground is developed there depends on whether Ben Stein can find a source of groundwater.

The latter is drilling the first well there.

The personnel of Huaxin Company left here after signing the contract, and it was not yet time for construction. It will take at least three months for Huaxin to come here to build the base of the wind turbine. The first wind turbines will not be installed until at least next year.

Ben Stein was a little neater than he had when he first met Link. But it can be seen that his life is still not good. It's only been a few days, and he's already tanned.

He brought two pickup trucks to pick up Link and take them to the drilling site.

Link noticed that the car was heading towards the high ground to the east. And their car drove down the hillside to the east of the mountainous high, and then he saw a borehole in a valley.

Ben Stein said to him, "Here we are. ”

After getting out of the car, Link asked him, "Why do you want to drill a well in the mountains? Isn't it easier to drill into the aquifer in the valley?"

Ben Stein said, "Mr. Hans, it is common practice to think that the bottom of the valley is indeed lower and more accessible to the aquifer underground. But when the geological fold is squeezed, it flips over and sleeps on the ground. He put his palms together, first upright, then bent to one side. "After the folds that slept were invaded, most of them were stripped away and piled up in the low-lying areas to form the current valley. And the valley of tens of millions of years ago is directly below the current mountain. Directly below the current slope may be a mountainside. ”

Link remembered that he had indeed mentioned this principle in his field class in middle school. The American plate, driven by the sinking and subducting Pacific plate, does have folds that invert to the west.

However, Ben Stein thinks that the valley is only an underground mountainside, and there is no aquifer, so doesn't that mean that the aquifer is narrow and deep?

Ben Stein took him to one of the tents, pointed to a detailed topographical map of Nevada on the table, and said, "Mr. Hans, look here." ”

He used his finger to draw diagonally from the northeast corner of Nevada's eastern border to the west, all the way to the middle of the western border, and said, "Look at the terrain of southern Nevada." There are a lot of parallel folds here. Neva was a large lake in ancient times, and the peaks that still stand are hard basalt. These are the remains of those ancient folds, which are evidence of large-scale eruptions of ancient volcanoes. These basalts won't be the oldest layers, but the older ones will still fold and bend like them. Basalt, on the other hand, is impermeable, so the aquifer is separated by these folds into waterways. It may also be that there is only one, or it may be that there is an aquifer under these folds. ”

Link frowned and said, "Then how can you be sure that there will be a confined water layer under this fold?"

"Because the deep wells I drilled earlier proved to have two huge folds that went all the way to central Nevada. The northern part of the farm is a separate two folds, and the southern part is a closed knot, and the probability of both mountains being tangled together at both ends is relatively low. That's why I chose this place. In fact, I think there will be aquifers in the eastern highlands of these huge folds. It is a geological site formed at the same time. ”

So far, Link can only say, "I hope you're right!"

When they left the tent, he saw a dozen or so tents in this little valley and said, "Is it dangerous to live in tents in this wilderness?"

"We're only worried about sandstorms. In the valleys, the wind is more destructive. As for wildlife, we've seen coyotes all around us in the last few days. But the roar of the machines and the lights kept them from approaching. Benstein laughs. "And we work twenty-four hours a day, the staff have guns, and the coyote pack doesn't have the guts to sneak up on us. ”

Although it is located in a desert area, there is still some desert vegetation high up here. There is even a sparse grove on the eastern side of the valley. So there are some wild animals inhabiting here, and if there is prey, there will be predators.

The drilling machine looked huge, but I didn't know how efficient it was. He asked, "How deep do you drill now, and how long do you think it will take to get to the aquifer?"

"Because we've been drilling on basalt since we started, we're making relatively slow progress at the moment. Until now, we have only gotten fifty meters into it. We're looking for an ancient aquifer. The basalt above it may be very thick, or it may be several layers of basalt, with some sandstone in between. So we need to look at luck, and if the rock formations underground are all hard species, we need more time. However, according to my estimates, the least optimistic scenario is that as long as the drill bit keeps going down, we will be able to drill to a depth of 800 meters in two months. ”

Two months, the least optimistic estimates. But Ben Stein also says that the worst case scenario is that the rock formations below are all the hardest.

Link had learned about these things and didn't plan to stay in this noisy place anymore. But he didn't plan to go home right away. He needs to visit the farm to see how it can be developed and used in the future.