Business & Finance: Rugged Texacan

For his temerity in trimming the elder Morgan in a stock deal, John W. ("Bet-a-Million") Gates was "exiled'' from Wall Street about 1900. One year later oil gushed in Texas and Gates plunged heavily in a struggling little business known as Texas Co. To sell its oil abroad, Texaco bought up a fleet of tankers. One of the tankers was captained by a blond, husky stripling of 22 named T. Rieber. Captain T. Rieber would not even commit himself as to his birthplace, which was in Sweden, or his first name, which was Torkild....