Part 30 (1/2)
”There's the d.i.c.kens to pay!” he grumbled. ”They know I have to have hay right along. I've a standing order for at least half a load of hay every trip. These settlers are buying it fast. I have only ten bales on hand. Next fellow that comes along will probably want all ten of them. A nice mess! What's the matter with those Ikes over there at Julia? Are they asleep?”
”It seems they've had some difficulty in getting alfalfa here lately,”
the girl explained. ”I'm sorry, Mr. Huber. The best I can do for you is to promise to bring every bale I can next trip.”
”Rush it,” ordered the merchant. ”If you can make it, let somebody else's order ride, Jo, and bring me every pound you can.”
”I'll see what can be done,” was her promise as she left and went to the little cabin that she had had built for her at the edge of town.
Here she cleansed herself of the stains of the trip, and subst.i.tuted for chaps and flannel s.h.i.+rt a new tailor-made suit which had just come from Los Angeles. As she was about to go out again Twitter-or-Tweet Orr Tweet knocked on her door.
”Jo,” he said with his whimsical smile, ”I'm showing a couple o' men some property, and thought you might like to take a ride. You've never seen much of the cultivated land, have you--except from a distance?
Come 'n' see what chances your money's got in Paloma Rancho, the Homesteader's Promised Land of Milk and Honey. Won't be gone over an hour.”
His car was waiting, with his two prospective land purchasers in the tonneau. Jo readily agreed, for she had nothing to occupy her, and Tweet helped her in beside the driver's seat, after introducing the men to her.
Tweet drove slowly and talked a great deal, steering the car with one hand and directing his conversation at all three of his listeners. He dwelt at length to the strangers on Jerkline Jo's great success in her freighting enterprise, not neglecting to mention that she was investing a great portion of her profits in Paloma Rancho. The men were impressed.
Jo, too, was impressed with Tweet's abilities as a salesman. He emanated confidence, and his enthusiasm seemed well-founded and sincere. In fact, the new alfalfa ranches and the orchards of young pear trees looked promising indeed, and the projects showed evidences of thrift and capability on the part of the ranchers and near-ranchers who had bought land on contract from the discoverer of Paloma Rancho's dormant possibilities.
Tweet told of his idea of eventually tapping the mountain lake near which Jo was wont to camp and bringing the water down to irrigate such portions of desert land as might require it; for there were places where three hundred feet of boring had not developed a drop of the precious fluid. The promoter had an engineer's estimate of the cost of the entire water system, and said that his original figures had been pretty close.
It all seemed feasible, and things looked generally prosperous. Jo enjoyed her ride and the opportunity to see what had been accomplished.
Returning, however, the complete enjoyment of the trip was marred by tire trouble, and, with one thing and another, it was nine o'clock at night before the party, reached Ragtown.
They were ravenously hungry, and Tweet invited the three to dinner in the town's closest approach to a satisfactory restaurant. It was after ten o'clock when they left the table. Tweet gallantly asked to accompany Jo to her cabin, and both were laughing at the absurdity of a girl like Jerkline Jo needing an escort, when Hiram Hooker hurried up to them.
”Well, I c'n see who's cut out,” said Tweet, a.s.suming a mournful expression. ”So, if you don't mind, Jo, I'll get over to the hotel and keep after those two suckers. Take care of her, Wild Cat, and do whatever she tells you to do, or answer to me with your life. There's only one Jerkline Jo, you know, and the world needs her all the time.
So long, playmates!”
”Jo,” said Hiram when Tweet had bustled away up the dimly lighted street, ”there's an awful mess. Heine and Jim and Tom and Blink are all drunk as fiddlers!”
”What!” Jo stopped in her tracks and held him by the arm. ”Oh, dear!”
she cried. ”How could they do such a thing! I've watched them so carefully, and they've been so good. But the moment I'm out of their sight for a few hours---- Oh, dear! I didn't think that they'd treat me that way!”
”I can't get it straight myself, Jo,” Hiram told her. ”They always hoist a few when we get in, and sometimes I join them. I've never before seen any of them when he wasn't at least able to ramble safely back to camp. But to-night they're all four dead to the world. I can't even shake a word out of them. Heine just sits there in the Dugout, with his head on his breast, and is like a dead man.”
”Where were you?”
”In camp--studying. About half past nine I thought I'd stroll into town and get a cigar and see what the boys were doing. I couldn't find them in the Palace, and went from place to place till I stumbled on them in the Dugout, every last one of them down and out. I was looking for Tweet, to have him take the bunch of them to camp in his car, when I saw you folks come out of the restaurant.”
”The Dugout,” puzzled Jo. ”Do they go there often?”
”Hardly ever. It's the worst dump in town, as you know. They're all crooked enough, but I've heard strange whisperings about certain shady happenings in the Dugout.”
”Was anybody with them?”
”Not when I found them.”
”Hiram,” said Jo, ”it sounds like dope to me. They're loyal to me, I tell you. No, they're not to blame--they'd never treat me that way.