The She Boss Part 35

"Don't you suppose he remembers me, Al? We sure had him going that night. I was Jean Prince to him, all right. And when you inked me up, and he got a look--say, he couldn't tell his story fast enough, could he?"

Drummond chuckled reminiscently. "Yes, next minute he'd have had you scalped, kid, if I hadn't slipped him another powder. Well, if he does drift back here you've simply got to lie low and keep out of his sight.

I'll tell the boys to keep their eyes open and slip me the dope if they see him rambling into Ragtown. Then you fade away till he beats it out again."

"Won't he ask about me? And try to find out where I've gone?"

"I doubt it. He's still got his precious paper. If, we'd stolen that, instead of copying it, there might be the very devil to pay. But as long as he's still got it he's too nutty to suspect. Of course, though, n.o.body can tell what's going on in the other fellow's noodle.

I'd say, though, that if you aren't here he'll think the whole business was a pipe dream."

"I hope so. We don't want any further complications. Now when are you and Hank and that friend of his going to make another attempt to get Jerkline Jo? And how are you going about it?"

"Hank's still camping up in the mountains and spying on the outfit when it travels through the pa.s.s," Al informed her. "He's watching their habits, and taking note of just how they travel along, trying to dope out something new. He'll get a scheme before spring, I'm thinking.

There's a bad hombre, kid. It would give me the creeps to know he was trailing me through those lonesome woods. Man! I wouldn't turn my back to that plug with fifteen cents in my jeans!"

"Can't we get some more of Hank's pals and simply ambush Jo's whole outfit? Collar all of them, and then get after Jo. Surely a bunch of men could take them all by surprise and put the fixin's to 'em."

Drummond snorted. "We've got to split the haul four ways as it is," he pointed out. "And that bo that helped us get Filer away--Stool--he smells a rat and is keeping an eye single to horning in on the clean-up. Lucy, I wouldn't attack Jo's bunch of roughnecks with less than a dozen men; and you can bet your young life our gang is too big as it is. Keep the home fires burning, I'll say!"

"Well, for Heaven's sake, try and get busy soon!" Lucy cried petulantly. "Goodness knows I did my part--all that any woman could be expected to do. So far I'm the only one that's accomplished anything.

Why in thunder didn't Hank's friend, Pete, 'tend to the business up there in the mountains, after you and Hank had beat it? Hooker was out, this fellow said, and the girl still tied. And then he comes out of his dope and gets on a horse, and beats it like you other two quitters!"

"He didn't have the paper," explained Al. "Besides, Pete thought he was going to croak. He was laid up longer than Hooker, even, and Hooker had got a bullet. Pete's skull was cracked, and for a time it was a toss-up whether he'd pull through or not. He went nutty up there, I guess. He was lying sidewise across the saddle, unconscious but holding on for dear life, when the horse caught up with us. And Hank and I ducked out because--well, it's hard to explain. Both of us were pretty badly beaten up, you know, and there wasn't much fight left in us. Hooker had surprised us, and we were rattled. I don't know--a fellow can't explain just why he does the wrong thing in a situation like that. But knock the fight out of a man and make him groggy, and he'll bungle every time."

"Well, do something now," ordered Lucy frigidly; and Hiram heard Drummond sc.r.a.pe back his chair in rising.

"All right--we'll see. I'll beat it now. Up late last night playing poker. Rotten luck, too!"

"Al," said Lucy's voice, "when we get that jack, are you going to give me a fair share of it?"

"Sure--sure! Why do you keep harping on that, Lucy? Haven't I promised you I would? Good night. I'm dead tired!"

Half an hour before dawn next morning Hiram Hooker crawled from his blankets in camp and fed hay and grain to Babe, Jerkline Jo's black saddle mare. Then, leaving his companions placidly snoring, he walked briskly along the trail to Ragtown. Ten minutes after his start he was knocking on the door of Jo's tiny pine cabin.

"What is it?" finally came the girl's sleepy tones. "Who is there?"

"It's I, Jo. Hiram. Will you come to the door a second? I want to talk with you."

"You big whale! What do you mean, waking me up in the middle of the night? Anything wrong?"

"No, Jo. And it's almost time to get up. The boys will be out by the time I get back. Hurry and get dressed, won't you?"

There was a rustling and quick moving about inside, and presently the door was unlocked and Jerkline Jo poked her head out inquiringly.

"I came to ask you for a few days off," he explained.

"Why, Hiram?"

"Yes, just one trip, Jo. There isn't any more freight than the rest of you can handle just now. Won't be till spring, I'm thinking."

"Oh, I could spare you now better than later on. But--but what, Hiram?"

"And I'd like to borrow Babe and your saddle and bridle, too."

"Take them," she said confidently. "Whatever your mysterious disappearance means, I know I can trust you."

Half an hour afterward Hiram swung himself into Jo's big California saddle, and then leaned over and spoke to Blink Keddie and Heine Schultz, busy at harnessing the teams.

"I don't know when I'll be back, boys," he said. "But remember what I told you: Don't let Jo out of your sight in the pa.s.s--nor anywhere else, for that matter--and keep your guns handy all the time."

"Don't worry, Gentle Wild Cat!" Schultz a.s.sured him.

"So long, then," said Hiram, and swung Babe into the road that connected Ragtown with the line of camps which dotted the desert from end to end.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A TALE OF THE DESERT'S DEAD

No land seems so delectable as the desert early on a crisp morning.

The rare air causes the blood to pound through one's veins, and an unexplainable rapture seizes man's spirits.

Jo's black mare, Babe, had not been ridden for weeks, and every greasewood bush that she saw became in the weird light of sunrise a grotesque goblin ready to spring at her and devour her whole. At least, so she pretended, and as her natural weapon of defense lay in flight, she kept Hiram Hooker busy holding her down to a fast gallop.

The low-hanging tapaderos flapped loosely. Hiram's borrowed silver-mounted spurs--a reminder of Tom Gulick's cow-punching days in Utah--jingled merrily. The heavy six-gun at his hip flopped against the silver-rimmed cantle of Jo's fifty-pound saddle. The smells of the morning were sweet. Away over the vast expanse of bronze greasewood, far-flung b.u.t.tes caught the early rays of the sun and took on something of the likeness of a solar spectrum, purple at their bases, the colors ranging upward through blues and greens and yellows to a spun-gold glitter at their summits. Jack rabbits loped away through the brush.

Now and then a coyote, ears p.r.i.c.ked up, trotted along, his tail dragging. Tecolote, the little desert owl, came from his hole and sat on the pile of dirt beside it, while his wife peeked out with her round head just above the ground and gave silent approval to her lord and master's querulous criticism of the rider.

Life was good--life was glorious. Life was love! The poetic heart of the man from Wild-cat Hill sang ceaselessly. He was away on his romantic quest to serve the most splendid girl a man had ever loved!

As the morning progressed and the sun climbed higher and higher, Babe bore him through many camps, both large and small. At each he drew rein and made inquiry after an old prospector called Basil Filer, who drove six burros. No one had seen such a man, however, and Hiram continued on toward the north until noon. Then he stopped for dinner and to feed and rest the mare at Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number Two. They had come twenty-one miles that morning, he learned at dinner in the huge dining tent; and when he started out again he held Babe in, because she was soft for want of exercise.

On and on they traveled, nevertheless, Hiram making inquiry at every camp. At last, thirty miles from Ragtown, he got word of the prospector. A camp freighter who traveled to the north for supplies from Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number Three had seen such a man trudging along with his long staff, eyes bent on the ground, behind his six burros. He had been seen about ten miles farther north, traveling south, the day before.

Hiram loped on, and now reached a strip of the right-of-way where camps were few and far between. The desert was dryer here than in the vicinity of Ragtown, and greasewood and whispering yuccas gave place to low sage and the s.h.i.+mmering dry lakes, which lure thirsting men on to their doom with their mocking resemblance to the life-saving water the wanderer craves.

Always, it seemed, there was somewhere within the range of Hiram's vision one of those weird whirlwinds sweeping along. Often they were so far away they seemed motionless, and looked like brown funnel-shaped pillars, wrong end up, supporting the turquoise sky. Again, they were close--sometimes six or seven in sight at once--as they spun like huge tops, sucking up everything loose in their path, and whirling it round and round with stupefying rapidity.

At last one of them overtook the horse and rider, and the mare stopped short, thrusting her head between her front legs and tucking in her flowing tail. Hiram had time only to grab his hat and throw himself forward along the mare's neck; the next instant it seemed as if a million tugging hands had hold of him and were trying to whirl him into the heavens and carry him, like a garment whipped from a clothesline, into mysterious distances.

When it had pa.s.sed he sat erect once more and dug the dirt from his ears and eyes, trying to follow the twister's progress as it sped drunkenly on to find other victims.

Then it was that Hiram saw the pack train, not far distant over the desert, making ready to receive the coming whirlwind. The burros, wise little animals that they are, had huddled together, tails outward, heads down; and in the center of them Hiram saw a man just stooping for the protection of their bodies. Next instant the group vanished--was swallowed up by the wind demon.

When the old man looked up after the onslaught, Hiram was riding upon him. The prospector stood trying to stare at him from the center of his pack train, wiping his watering eyes and sand-stained mouth.

"h.e.l.lo, there!" called Hiram. "It spoke to us in pa.s.sing, too. How do you like 'em?"