The She Boss Part 40

"So that failed beautifully!" exclaimed Al Drummond to Lucy Dalles.

"Who'd have thought that old rabbit would be too quick for Hank! He must have been on his guard."

Lucy shrugged indifferently. "Filer was a master shot," she observed.

"Failed beautifully is right, Al--beautifully for us. It couldn't have happened better. Now Brother Hank is out of it. If you can contrive some way to shake Hank's partner, Pete, there'll be no one but you and me to whack up.

"Since Hank is numbered among the late lamented," she continued, "I can forgive you for bungling the Hooker end of your job. With Hank's finger out of the pot, I'm content to split with Jerkline Jo. So, no thanks to you, everything has worked out all right after all. Can't you send Pete out with instructions to bite a rattlesnake, or something like that?"

"You're mighty good-natured to-day, kid," Al said.

"Why shouldn't I be? Since we know the original doc.u.ment and that b.o.o.b's copy are both destroyed--and that before he had time to commit the directions to memory. We have nothing whatever to do but wait for Jerkline Jo to come to us and ask us what our terms are. Then if you and I aren't foxy enough to squeeze out the amiable Mr. Pete---- Well, leave it to me!"

"But have you thought," Drummond pointed out, "that perhaps Filer has committed the instructions to memory?"

Lucy scoffed at this and dismissed it with: "That old lunatic? Never!

He can hardly remember the story, and now and then forgets that he's hunting for Baby Jean and hikes back for the desert. Don't worry about his having committed anything to memory. He has no memory to commit it to!"

At about the time the foregoing dialogue was being spoken in Ragtown, Jerkline Jo, in her tent at Julia, was making strange remarks to Hiram Hooker, to wit, as follows:

"Hi-_ram_! It ti-i-i-ickles! Sto-op-op! Wait a minute, Hiram!"

"Huh!" snorted the unfeeling man. "Whoever heard of anybody being ticklish on the head!"

"But I am, Hiram! I just know I am! And isn't that razor far too sharp?"

"'There ain't no such thing,'" quoted the man out of the store of his masculine experience. "Now quit wiggling, Jo, or I'm liable to cut you."

"Now go slow, Hiram. And if I say it feels funny, you stop. Now easy at first! Horrors! I wouldn't be a man for anything!"

"Don't blame me," mumbled Hiram. "Now quit wrinkling your scalp, Jo.

Fella'd think I was going to cut your head off, the way you dodge and shrink."

They were alone in the tent. Jo was on her knees on the ground, and behind her and over her stood Hiram with an old-fas.h.i.+oned razor in his hand. Beside them on a chair lay a strand of almost black hair three feet in length, which Hiram swore that he would preserve until his dying breath. On the back of Jo's head appeared a round spot, covered with hairs half an inch in length, and these the brutal man was trying to shave off with the razor. Never had barber a more provoking customer.

"Oh, I'll look like a fright, Hiram! I've always been proud of my hair."

"It'll grow out again," he said soothingly. "Besides, what I cut off didn't cover a spot an inch and a half in diameter. With hair like yours, it can't be noticed. If I'd thought it would disfigure your hair, girl, I'd have said, 'Let the old gold go!' What an idea!"

"I positively never heard of such a weird thing. And to think it's on me! And---- Oo-oo-oo-oo! You cut me, Hiram! It's bleeding!"

"No, no, no! Only more lather. Don't wiggle, Jo!"

"There! It's all over," Hiram said after a minute of silence.

Four days later Lucy Dalles and Al Drummond stood behind the counter of the shooting gallery at Ragtown, and with a certain amount of nervous expectancy watched the freight outfit of Jerkline Jo grow larger and larger as it neared the journey's end.

Soon they heard the merry jingling of hundreds of bells, and next the big horses were planting their heavy fetlocked feet in the street, their glossy necks arched proudly as Ragtown turned out to greet them.

Lucy stood on tiptoe and craned her neck along the line of heavily loaded wagons. "Don't see Jo's whites at the tail end," she remarked.

And presently her companion supplemented: "Nor Hooker's blacks. Say, that's funny. There's only four teams, Hooker and the girl didn't come!"

"Oh, dear, dear! What can that mean? Al, Hooker must have memorized the directions! And----"

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "If he'd memorized them, why did he sit down on the desert to copy em?"

"Oh, that's right, of course! But I'm worried, Al. Something must be wrong."

Just then two men pa.s.sed along the street, and a fragment of their conversation floated to the anxious pair: "Says Jo's sick at Julia-----"

"Oh that's it!" Lucy murmured in relief. "And the hick stayed to nurse her. There's not so much freight to be hauled right now. See, Al--Heine and Keddie each are driving sixteen, with trailers. The extra horses are white and black--Jo's and Hiram's. I wonder what's the matter with Jo."

"Huh!" snickered Drummond. "The package we handed her is enough to make anybody sick! But I don't just like the way things look, either.

By golly, aren't we to know where we stand until Jo gets well!"

Three of the wagons and trailers groaned on through the town toward Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number One, while the fourth--Heine Schultz driving--entered the alley to reach the rear of Huber's store.

Twenty minutes later Schultz suddenly presented himself at the shooting gallery.

"Howdy," he greeted Al and Lucy, touching the broad brim of his hat with a forefinger. "Jo's sick. I guess you've heard."

"Yes, so some one said," Lucy smiled amiably at the dusty skinner.

"Isn't it too bad! What seems to be wrong, Heine?"

"Bad cold--settled in her lungs," replied Heine briefly. "Er--now--Jo told me to ask you somethin', miss. Either you or Drummond, she said.

I don't know what it's about. She just said: 'Go see Drummond or Lucy when you get in and ask them their terms and let me know what they say when you get back to Julia.'"

Drummond darted a quick, triumphant glance at the girl.

"Oh, yes," she said lightly to the skinner, "I know what she refers to.

Why, just tell her, 'Half,' Heine. That's all you need to say; she'll understand."

"Gotcha," said Heine, and lounged away, rolling a brown paper cigarette.

The outfit started back again early next morning; and eight days later it returned, still minus its two important figures. Again Heine Schultz rested his bony elbows on the carpeted counter of the shooting gallery, and spoke to Lucy, who this time was alone.

"About that business between you folks and Jo," he said, indolently filling a cigarette paper.

"Yes?" eagerly returned Lucy.

"Jo says tell you, 'Half is too much.'"

"Oh! She--she's still ill?"

Heine, shook his head sadly and tapped his chest. "Can't hardly hear her talk," he said. "It's fierce. Wild Cat's scared stiff about it.

Well, what'll I tell 'er, Miss Lucy?"

"I'll have to see Al before giving you an answer," she told him.

"Can't you drop around after supper, Heine?"