THE RETURN OF JERKLINE JO
When the long overland train contemptuously groaned to a reluctant stop
in Palada the infrequent occurrence told the town that Jerkline Jo had
returned for her foster father's funeral and the readjustment of his
badly involved affairs. Old friends, old pals, old lovers crowded
about her on the depot platform, wringing her strong hand in sympathy
and offering help. The village hack was running no more now, so
friends carried her baggage for her to the house on the hill, where lay
the body of Pickhandle Modock.
Friends stayed with her that night. The funeral was solemnized next
day. In all the world, now, Jerkline Jo had not the semblance of a
relative, so far as she knew. She even did not know her name, and of
Pickhandle Modock's family she had met not a single soul. But she had
youth, courage, and ambition, and she went bravely at the many tasks
before her.
With the old justice of the peace she took up her father's affairs, and
it soon became evident that to attempt to continue the store under
existing conditions would be the part of folly. The business was
deeply in debt to jobbers in the cities on the coast side of the
mountains, and such stock as they would accept must go back to them to
cancel their claims. The store building was mortgaged; the residence
property was mortgaged. The teams and wagons and the blacksmith shop
seemed to be all that she could save from the wreckage, and these
appeared to be more of an encumbrance than otherwise.
Still, she decided, against the advice of all well-meaning friends, to
try to hold on to them and to be able to own them, clear of any claims
against them. She knew the freighting business and construction
teaming, and virtually nothing else; so with the idea that all of
Pickhandle Modock's proud building must not have been for naught, she
fought for final control of the freight outfit, and would not listen to
those who claimed that the days of freighting with teams were over
forever.
In a month everything was settled--all creditors satisfied. She had
arranged to pay the store's debts with the acceptable stock on hand,
having made great concessions. She had promised the store building and
the residence property to the mortgagees, effective after the will had
been probated. To her delight, she found that the teams, blacksmith's
and wagoner's equipment, and the wagons would be hers intact. True,
the teams were a great expense, and there was almost nothing left with
which to buy hay and grain for them. But she was making inquiry here
and there in an effort to put them to work again. Eventually she was
successful in getting them on mountain pasture at a dollar and a half a
head per month. There were sixty-one animals in all, and the pasturage
fees amounted to quite a monthly sum, but it was far inferior to the
monthly feed bills she had been paying.
For several months she hung on desperately, hoping against hope, with
everything going out and nothing coming in, then one bright and
long-to-be-remembered day came news of the new railroad which was to
cross the desert a hundred miles from Palada.
Jerkline Jo made inquiry and found out the work was to begin at once,
and that the project was a large one, involving difficult construction
feats. By train she rode to the nearest railroad point, met the
engineers of the preliminary survey, found an old friend in the party,
and with him rode horseback on an old mining road over the range that
stood between the railroad and that part of the desert which the new
route would cross.
Close study of the engineers' maps and her general knowledge of
construction conditions told her much. She decided on the logical
place where the inevitable "rag town" would spring up. This, she
reasoned, would be as close as possible to the biggest camp of the main
contractors, Demarest, Spruce & Tillou.
There was water to be had at several widely separated places along the
new right of way, but she knew that the water supply closest to the big
camp would draw the tent city about it.
She knew, too, where the big camp would be, for the simple reason that
the heaviest piece of work is eventually left to the main contractors;
so she was able to figure to a dot just where Demarest, Spruce &
Tillou's Camp Number One would locate. She had not the remotest idea,
then, however, how this knowledge was to benefit her later.
To the tent town and to the camps of the many subcontractors who would
come, thousands of tons of freight must be hauled. The railroad point
nearest to the spot where the main contractor would camp was the town
of Julia, from which the two had ridden horseback, and the mountain
range lay between Julia and the right of way of the proposed, route. A
forty-five mile trip through heavy desert sands, over the steep grades
of an abandoned mountain road, and through heavy sands again would
inevitable, and until the new steel rails had crept to a point opposite
Julia, teams or automobile truck must supply the laborers and teams
with the necessities of life.
Jo knew little about automobile trucks, but she did not fear them.
They would give her keen competition, no doubt, at least during summer
months but a study of the mountain soil convinced her that in winter
there would be another story to tell. Anyway, she and her beautiful
freight animals must take their chance against these modern machines.
It would be a race between the tortoise and the hare; and every one
knows that the hare has gained no little reputation from the outcome of
that legendary contest.
From Julia, Jerkline Jo hurried by train to San Francisco, to the
Western office of the big contracting firm of Demarest, Spruce &
Tillou, whose headquarters were in Minneapolis. She knew Mr. Demarest
personally, and was fortunate in finding him in San Francisco upon her
arrival there.
"Well, well, well!" the big man cried jovially, as the girl was ushered
into his private office. "Gypo Jo! Heavens to Betsy! Girl, I haven't
seen you in five years. Put 'er there for old times' sake!"
"It's Jerkline Jo nowadays, Mr. Demarest," and she laughed.
Philip Demarest was a large, portly man, with a ruddy, red face,
blue-veined and kindly. He had come up from the grade, and was
eminently proud of his successful climb.
For thirty minutes he refused positively to talk business. He
preferred to sit and dwell on bygone days with the one-time queen of
Pickhandle Modock's gypo camp, to listen to the account of her father's
rise and fall and his subsequent untimely death, and of the girl's
ambitions and life in the Middle Western school. They told many a
story, these old-timers of the nomadic camps, and had many a laugh over
quaint remembrances. Then they got down to business.
Demarest listened carefully to Jo's ideas, and as she concluded he
drummed thoughtfully on his desk.
"I think myself, Jo," he said presently, "that in winter you can grab
off the money from any old automobile concern. But through the summer
months they're gonta give you a nice little run for your money. And if
they get freight there with less delay than you fail to avoid, and can
do it for the same figure, they're gonta rampse you--that's all.
"Certain parties are lookin' into the matter already," he went on.
"There's one fella here in Frisco that's got a fleet o' trucks--fella
named Albert Drummond. Shrewd customer, too. He was tryin' to make a
dicker with us. But we'll make no deals. We're not goin' to freight
any ourselves if we can get out of it. But we'll sign no contracts in
such a matter. Lowest bidder gets our business so long as he don't
fail to keep us supplied with all we need. If you can underbid these
truck men, you'll get the business; and from what I know about you, I
have no doubt but that you'll deliver the goods."
"Gasoline is terribly high right now," Jo pointed out.
"So's hay, for that matter," said Demarest bluntly.
"I've heard, too, of a possible scarcity of gas," Jo told him.
"Yes, but the scarcity of hay is almost as threatenin', my girl; and
those big horses certainly can eat the stuff. But tell me--what do you
figure you can lay freight down for at the spot where you say we're
bound to locate our biggest camp?"
"Two and a half cents a pound," was her prompt reply.
"It's an awful price, when you think it over," he said reflectively.
"Just imagine, Jo; two and a half cents a pound bein' added onto the
price of a sack o' flour--with flour at the unheard-of price it's
already reached. And hay and grain! Jo, it's simply staggering."
"I admit that," she said. "But I suppose you took all that into
account when you made your bid on the job."
"You bet your sweet life we did, girl! And I'll tell you what--we
figured freight at three and a half cents a pound."
"You're fortunate. I'll get that, too, if I beat the trucks."
"Figurin' on gougin' us out of our profits already, eh?"
"Not at all, Mr. Demarest. Two and a half cents is my minimum. I'll
freight for that only if forced to by the trucks. I doubt if I can
make money at that figure. Only a trial over an extended period of
time will tell. It all depends on the nature of the soil--on the
condition that the roads develop after a period of heavy traffic over
them, and the devastation of the winter rains. There'll be snow in
those mountains, too. It's a gamble--a big gamble--but all that I can
see against me is the fact that trucks don't eat hay when they're not
at work."
"And how d'ye know where our Camp One is going to be located, girl?" he
asked kindly. "I don't know myself yet."
"Of course you don't know positively," she replied. "But I'll bet you
ten to one that you'll never sublet that piece of heavy-rock work
through the buttes. I don't know a subcontractor--and I've not been
out of touch with the grade so very long--who could tackle that
stupendous task. So, if you can't sublet it--and I'm betting you
can't--it will be up to you folks to do it yourselves. So that tells
me where your largest camp will be, and at the nearest water to your
largest camp the rag town will spring up. Isn't that all logical?"
"Sound as a dollar," he told her. "You weren't raised by Pickhandle
Modock for nothing, were you?"
She rose from her chair. "Tell your subs to send me a wire at Julia
when they're ready for any freight, at two and a half cents for a
starter," she said. "I'll get it to 'em. But if no one meets my
price, look for a raise to three cents for the second trip. Of course,
if I don't hear from them, I'll know some one has beaten me out. Then
I'll see what can be done. Your camp, of course, won't be in till
last, I suppose. I'll go back to Palada now, take the stock off
pasture, and begin hardening them up. Then I'll start for Julia, and
will be there before your outfit moves in."