The She Boss Part 17

"He says he's a promoter and capitalist," Hiram repeated.

"Of course he's talking nonsense."

Hiram then told of Mr. Tweet's card, which promulgated his operations as a salesman of banana lands, and of the stock he claimed to own in the new ditch digger.

"I thought perhaps he was some sort of a book agent," said the girl, laughing.

"I don't know much about people," Hiram confessed with nave simplicity. "I can't judge folks very well--some folks, anyway."

"I'm afraid he's a wind bag," decided Jo. "Well, we'll befriend him to the grade, anyway, and I guess that then he'll be obliged to s.h.i.+ft for himself. If freight were moving freely, and every day, I might manage to use him--but that won't be the case at first. So we'll have to bid him good-by at the camps. I have an idea he can take care of himself."

Jerkline Jo glanced at her leather-protected wrist watch.

"It's eight minutes of twelve, Hiram," she announced. "I'll roll out my biscuit dough. Can you yell? If so, shout ahead to Blink Keddie and call a halt for noon."

Hiram rose to his six feet one and cupped his great hands about his mouth. The mellow call that he sent out had rung through miles of Mendocino forest, and now caused every skinner in the line to turn and look back. A wave of Jo's hand and they understood the noon had come.

When they were in camp, and the teams had been fed and watered from the great tank wagon, and Jerkline Jo, with the able help of Twitter-or-Tweet, had made ready the steaming meal, there arose loud praise of the girl's idea concerning the fireless cooker.

"By golly, Jo, this here's grub!" applauded Jim McAllen. "Some scheme, ol'-timer!"

"I thought it was a kind of a nutty idea when you sprung it, Jo,"

confessed Tom Gulick, "but I'm strong for the cooker now. Long may she wave! Pa.s.s the gravy, Blink."

Jerkline Jo glowed with pleasure over her success.

Mr. Tweet made himself very useful by acting as waiter, and hopped about with pots and pans, leading the steaming food on the skinners'

plates. Jo watched him with interest, but still was unable to consider him anything but an imaginative failure--a man who perhaps had seen better days.

When they had finished eating, he collected the dishes, and, as water was heating on the oil stove, had everything washed up and in its place before the resumption of their travel.

"He's clean and neat and thoughtful," Jerkline Jo reflected. "Perhaps I'll be able to use him after all. We could use an extra man as roustabout, if business gets good. I'll see. He seems so fond of Hiram, and, really, if it weren't for him, I'd never heard of Hiram."

She grew thoughtful then, and a trace of red showed under her brown skin. Why had she become so interested in this big countryman from the very start, she wondered.

It was a long, tiresome trip, and days before they reached their temporary destination Hiram Hooker was riding in Jo's wagon, deep in history and algebra and grammar, for Jo had with her all of her schoolbooks.

The days seemed short to both of them. As the magnificent whites plodded steadily on, there was added to the music of the nickeled bells the rapid clicking of Jo at the portable typewriter, or the slower, hesitating peck of Hiram Hooker. They were a silent pair, for they were deep in their studies.

Strange indeed was the picture they presented as they were moved slowly along under the hot desert sky. But for Hiram, at least, this was the beginning of everything. Some magic touch had set him on the road that for years he had longed to travel--the road to knowledge and a better life. Beside him rode the adventure girl who had been beckoning him out of the woods of doubt and ignorance, the girl who had colored his dreams up on lonely Wild-cat Hill.

Hiram quickly became a favorite with Jo's skinners, too; for anybody or anything that the girl approved of was sure to make an appeal to the loyal little crew who swore by Jerkline Jo. Besides, Hiram was irresistible in his quaint geniality and his musical drawl. They called him "Wild Cat" at first, but when they considered his hugeness and uniform good nature the name seemed a misnomer; so they amended it and called him "The Gentle Wild Cat." This moniker clung to Hiram Hooker through all of his subsequent life in the desert.

The seventh day after their start, at evening, they rolled into Julia and set the populace agog with speculation.

As the whites pa.s.sed the depot the station master came out.

"Does a fella named Jerkline Jo belong to this outfit?" he asked, walking along beside Jo's wagon.

"I'm Jerkline Jo," she told him.

"You! Huh! Well, there's a wire for you. I'll run and get it."

Jo called to her ten whites to halt, and the wagon came to a rest. A minute later the yellow paper was in her hands. She read:

Twenty tons awaiting you at Mulligan Supply Company, Julia. Get it over the mountains at once to Breece Brothers, Hunter & Stevenson, and Washburn-Stokes. Drummond's trucks are coming. You are in for a stiff fight. Good luck. DEMAREST.

CHAPTER XV

MR. TWEET NEGOTIATES A LOAN

Oblivious to the staring eyes of the little desert town of Julia, Jerkline Jo, after pitching camp near water on the edge of the village, began hurrying about on her business.

She was directed to the man who owned the land on which the teams and men were now resting, and found that she could make a deal to lease the property at a reasonable figure. She made a freckle-faced boy happy with a bright new dime, and sent him back to her men with instructions for them to pitch the tents permanently and proceed to make the spot the Julia headquarters of the outfit.

She wired her thanks to Demarest and a.s.sured him that the order would go forward next day, if the dealers had it ready. Next she hunted up the Mulligan Supply Company and found that it was a new concern in Julia, having just moved in with a large stock of goods from Los Angeles. It was a branch of a big Los Angeles jobbing firm, and the new railroad across the mountains had brought it here.

The manager greeted her warmly, and told her that he had heard of her through Mr. Demarest. The entire order was ready for immediate s.h.i.+pment, he said, so Jo hurried back to camp and had her men hook two horses on each of six wagons, now empty, and drive to the store, where they were backed in to the loading platform.

They ate their supper then, and afterward worked far into the night loading case goods, baled hay, grain, new tools, and innumerable like commodities. When the wagons were loaded and the great tarpaulins hauled down over everything but the hay and grain, it was necessary for Jo to appoint a watchman for the night. She had no more than broached the subject when Playmate Tweet, who had helped manfully with the loading, offered his services.

"I been just ridin' all day," he said, "and tryin' to convince Pete that I'm a reg'lar fella. I'll squat on the goods till mornin', come what may."

In truth Jo did not just like to trust him. The goods, amounting in value far up into the thousands, were now under her complete control, and she was accountable for every penny to the purchasers of them. But she had not the heart to refuse Tweet's offer, and she wanted her skinners to rest for the remainder of the night, in view of the hard work that lay before them. So she accepted, and Mr. Tweet took his post.

He was there like the boy on the burning deck when they came with the teams early next morning, walking about briskly to keep warm through the cold desert dawn, whistling merrily. Jo had brought his breakfast on a plate, and hot coffee in a bottle.

Carter Potts, the blacksmith, was left behind to set up his shop and care for the extra mules and horses.

Quickly the teams were hooked on, and with complaining groans and heavy wagons, each now weighing with its load upward of six and a third tons, moved through the sleepy town toward the distant mountains.

"Hooker," said Tweet, as he sat beside his friend behind the laboring blacks, "this is a man's life. This is doin' somethin'! This is gettin' somewhere! This is livin'! I envy you, Hiram. I envy you that big body of yours and the way you can handle ten big horses as if you were drivin' a trick donkey hitched to a clown's cart. Wild Cat, you're a lucky man. And what a glorious woman, Hooker, to throw the magic over it all! You're the man for her, my boy--the only man I ever met that oughta have the nerve to try to win her. And she fell for you, you big buffalo with the voice of a turtle-dove! Play her carefully, boy, and you can win. Don't go at it like you did with Cream Puffs, up there in Frisco. But you'll win her, Hiram--it's in you to do it. Now, Hooker, can you slip me a five-spot when we get to the camps?"

"I haven't much more than that, Playmate," Hiram averred.

"Well, you got a job, ain't you? I haven't. Money didn't seem to worry you much when you were puttin' on your Follies o' Nineteen-twenty with Lucy, up there where the white lights gleam."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Hiram.

"This is your foolish day, ain't it? I'll tell you what I'm _not_ goin' to do with it. I'm not goin' to hire an automobile at four dollars an hour and take a la.s.sie out for a ride over the desert."

"I'll try and let you have it."

"Just how much jack you got on you yet, Hooker, old friend from Wild Cat?"

"Seven dollars."