Chapter XX: Drummond's Passenger

The summer progressed, and great changes were wrought on the desert. To the last soul Ragtown moved from its first location into the hospitable arms of Mr. Tweet--but Tweet's hospitality demanded its price. Outfit after outfit came crawling across the desert to pitch camp somewhere along the line and begin its portion of the big work in band. There was a post office at Ragtown, twenty or more saloons, dance halls and gambling dens combined, restaurants, tent hotels, stores, and even a bank and a motion-picture show. Thousands of rough, hard-drinking, hard-fighting men thronged the mushroom town, and it resembled a mining town of California's early days. Miners and cattlemen, too, made the town headquarters, and there were frequent fights and an occasional shooting scrape. The cost of everything was high. Money flowed freely, as did bootleg jackass brandy. It seemed that the prohibition enforcement officers had been unable to locate the infant town. The rough, unrestrained life of the frontier was rife at Ragtown, and Twitter-or-Tweet Orr Tweet gleaned shekels right and left.

Jerkline Jo had not seen Al Drummond to speak with him after the fight. He had been laid up for a week from the terrible battering that Hiram had given him, and when he was about again he left the country in his touring car.

His drivers continued to transport freight to the new Ragtown and to certain independent contractors who had reached the work. In truth, it developed that there was plenty of hauling to keep both outfits busy, and Jerkline Jo was making money hand over fist, as was every one who had services to offer or something to sell.

Tehachapi Hank no longer stood like an ogre guarding the portals to the mountain pass. Drummond had been beaten on that deal, and the gunman's removal was an admission of defeat. Consequently, Tweet exacted no charge for the trucks to cross his ranch. Things were running smoothly between the two freighting enterprises, and Jerkline Jo hoped against hope that there would be no more trouble. But she had not liked the baleful look in Drummond's eye when she caught it on the street in Ragtown one evening. It was plain that he considered great humiliation had been heaped upon him, and that he was waiting and watching for an opportunity for revenge.

Then one day she met him face to face in Julia, and stepped to him to tell him about the boulder in the road. His glance was like a knife thrust as he turned on his heel and stalked away before she could speak. After that, of course, she made no further effort to enlighten him.

As the weeks passed it developed that Orr Tweet was not the slowest salesman in California, where salesmen--especially land salesmen--achieve their greatest triumphs. Not only did he sell lots and building sites in Ragtown, but he disposed of the surrounding acreage to would-be ranchers and speculators, and had been able with ease, he informed his old friends, to meet his second payment on the ranch. He urged Jo to invest her earnings in the company, and after consideration she resolved to take a chance with him; for here and there, where wells had been sunk and pumping apparatus installed, the once barren land was turning green and showing evidences of rich and productive soil.

So things stood, or refused to stand, in Ragtown and the vicinity when Drummond drove in one day with no less a passenger than a pretty girl, all pink and white, named Lucy Dalles. Hiram Hooker came face to face with her in Ragtown's boisterous business street an hour after her arrival, for Jo's freight outfit was at rest there for the night.

Lucy was as pretty in her petite, doll-like way as when she had so fascinated him in the city, but now he could not help comparing her hothouse beauty with the brown-skinned, outdoor desirability of Jerkline Jo. Jo could have picked up this frail, silk-garbed creature and thrown her overhead; yet in pure womanliness and tenderness Lucy was not her equal. Jerkline Jo was a queen--a ruler--a fearless woman with a purpose in life, big of body and soul and brain. Lucy Dalles was merely a pretty girl, with an ambition for money and life's frivolous pleasures. Hiram understood this now.

She greeted him glowingly, and called him by his first name.

"I told you I was coming," she cried, giggling. "And isn't this rich? If only I were writing scenarios now!"

"Aren't you?" asked Hiram.

"No, I gave it up. They got too exacting for me, and began buying the picture rights of books and magazine stories by established authors in preference to original scripts for the screen. I was a piker, anyway--nothing in me, I guess. So I threw up the sponge."

"You're still a waitress, then?"

She looked at him archly. "Not on your sweet young life!" and she laughed. "I didn't throw ambition overboard when I quit writing scenarios. Writing in any form is usually a slow road to success, I've learned. I never wanted to be a writer just for the sake o' the work. I want jack, and lots of it, and what it'll buy."

Hiram felt a sudden disgust for her and her sordid aims in life. But to appear polite he asked:

"What are you doing, then?"

"Everybody I can," she retorted. "I worked in a beauty parlor for a little as a hairdresser and manicure. I'm out for the money, Hiram. I'm not a pickpocket yet, but that's because I don't know how to be one. But if you've got any loose change in your pockets watch out. I'm out for the coin. But here comes Al. He brought me down. He's going to set me up in business."

"Drummond?" he asked. "He and I don't speak. We had a little trouble."

Again she arched her penciled brows. "He didn't tell me," she said. "He'll be sore at me talkin' to you then. See him over there by that saloon? He's stopped and is scowling at us. Well, I'll just stick with you to show him his place. Take me somewhere, Hiram; I want to see the life."

Hiram did not know what to say. He would have preferred to terminate the conversation. Lucy Dalles held no fascination for him now. Hiram had met and loved a woman without parallel in his brief experience of life. But he could not be impolite, so he sauntered down the street with the girl, trying to make conversation and hoping that Drummond would not be offended all over again.

In all the resorts men and women were crowding before the bar, gambling with abandon or dancing.

"Buy me a drink, Hiram," Lucy pleaded. "I just want to go into one of these places. Women do it here, I understand."

Hiram shrugged and led her into the Palace Dance Hall, conducted by a notorious character, who followed big construction camps, called "Ghost" Falcott because of his chalk-white skin.

It was pay day at Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's, and the Palace was crowded. They found a place at the bar, however, and the girl stood looking over the half-drunken throng with eager eyes, now and then casting a glance through the door to see if Drummond was following her.

Their drinks had just been served when into the dive, with a grinning construction stiff on each arm, marched Jerkline Jo, laughing gayly.

This was no new sight. Frequently Hiram had seen his adventure girl in such places, laughing and chatting with old friends of the grade. Always, it seemed, they respected her and took her actions for granted.

"Hello, Gentle Wild Cat!" Jo called, catching sight of him. Then she noticed that he was with the girl, and a quick look of puzzlement came in her dark eyes.

Hiram made haste to call her.

"I want to introduce you," he said quickly.

Jo turned, still holding to the arms of the stiffs, and Hiram made the introduction. Jo responded pleasantly, and the look that came in her eyes told Hiram that she remembered the name and knew who Lucy was.

"Sorry I can't join you, Hiram," said Jo. "These plugs have got me dead to rights, and I've promised to set 'em up to the house."

She released the arms of the stiffs, and, cupping her hands about her mouth, shouted above the general din:

"Drinks for the house on Jerkline Jo! Le's go!"

Some one nudged Hiram on the other side, and he turned to find Orr Tweet.

"Did you ever see the likes o' that Jerkline Jo?" he said admiringly. "What a woman, Hiram! She can get away with anything, and there ain't a stiff on the grade that would think any the worse of her for it. She's pure-hearted and clean-minded, and everybody knows it and treats her like the lady she is. But say---- For Heaven's sake! Look who's here!"

His steel-blue eyes had taken in Lucy, who stood studying Jerkline Jo, the center of a crowd of rough, appreciative men who wrung her hands right and left.

Lucy turned and flashed Tweet a bright smile. "I remember you, o' course," she said, shaking hands. "They tell me you hit the ball an awful bang down here in Ragtown. I always knew you were there when you talked to me up in Frisco."

For several minutes, while bartenders worked frantically to supply Jo's big order, Tweet and Lucy talked, and Hiram watched Jo. Then Tweet excused himself and hurried away after some man--a prospective citizen of Ragtown, no doubt--and Lucy turned to Hiram.

"So that's Jerkline Jo, is it?" she said half scornfully. "What is she, Hiram?"

"A lady," said Hiram with a dangerous note of warning in his tones.

Lucy sensed it and shrugged. "Maybe she is," she said lightly. "I don't know anything about her beyond what I've heard, of course--except that she's a heart-breaker--a man-killer. But what's she doing here?" she could not help tacking on.

"I might come back and ask you what you're doing here," Hiram retorted coldly.

Lucy shrugged. "Oh, I don't make any pretenses of piety--now," she said significantly. Then, casting a defiant glance at him, she produced a silver cigarette case, took a cigarette from it, and begged for the end of his cigar at which to light it. "They say Jerkline Jo is grabbing off big jack. How 'bout it?" She puffed indolently, greatly to her companion's disgust.

"She works hard and earns money," Jo's supporter defended. "She raised the wages of all of us, too, as soon as business began to look up. We skinners get ninety dollars a month and board now."

"Ninety dollars a month!" Lucy said jeeringly. "D'ye call that money! I didn't think you'd continue to be such a fish as long as this, Hiram."

"Well, I'm investin' it," said Hiram. "It may be more some day."

Luck looked suddenly into Hiram's eyes, then let her lashes cover her own.

"I guess this pious Jerkline Jo has got you goin'," she observed.

"I work for her," said Hiram awkwardly.

"Any man would, I guess. Men are all suckers."

Hiram said nothing to this, and presently, stating that he would be obliged to return to camp, asked Lucy if she was ready to go.

Rather petulantly she gave in, and just outside the door they encountered the glowering Al Drummond.

"Lucy," he said sharply, "come here!"

"I'll have to go," Lucy said to Hiram. "See you later, honey boy from the woods. Good night!"

Hiram saw Drummond take a step and roughly grab Lucy's arm as she tripped up to him. They walked away, plainly indulging in a heated argument.

"'Honey boy,' huh!" and Hiram snorted. "Men are suckers--till they meet a regular woman!"

He hurried back to camp and rolled himself in his blankets without further thought of the girl who had caused him to make such a fool of himself in San Francisco. Had he but known it the advent of Lucy Dalles in Ragtown was to have a great deal to do with the future fortunes of both Jerkline Jo and himself.