LUCY SEES A PROSPECT
There was so much freighting that summer that the combined outfits of
Jerkline Jo Modock and Al Drummond were taxed to capacity. The new
settlers made constant demands upon them, and, though their wants were
puny in comparison with those of the camps, Jo accommodated them
whenever she could. Water had been struck at the surprisingly shallow
depth of forty-five feet in some places, and many pumping plants were
transported over the mountains. Things looked as if Twitter-or-Tweet
was about due to make his fortune, and Jo kept investing more and more
of her surplus earnings, and he was meeting his payments promptly.
There was talk of Ragtown eventually being made a division point. If
this transpired, the railroad shops would be erected there, and the
permanent success of the town would be assured. Already a few
venturesome souls were building permanent structures whenever they were
fortunate enough to get building materials hauled in.
Drummond's five-ton trucks seemed to be meeting all requirements, and
he had added to his fleet. Jo, however, remained conservative. She
had seen rag towns spring up on railroad grades before--many of
them--only to disappear forever with the laying of the steel. Still,
she had confidence in the farming possibilities of Paloma Rancho--but
she bought no more equipment, principally, perhaps, because she could
not get desirable jerkline skinners, and because extra equipment would
mean more work for her, more time taken from her studies. She was
content with a good thing so far as financial success was
concerned--her great ambition was for an education.
Drummond, of course, was also making money; but he fell a prey to the
lure of the free-and-easy life of the frontier town, and gambled and
drank perpetually. There were stories of big losses at faro, under
which Drummond did not always bear up as a good sport should.
As for Lucy Dalles, that ambitious young woman entered with gusto into
the feverish life of Ragtown. Drummond had leased a shooting-gallery
concession from the accommodating Tweet, and had ensconced the girl
behind the rifles--or in front of them--to run the gallery.
So she confided to Hiram Hooker, when he passed along Ragtown's main
thoroughfare one night, and for the first time saw her on exhibition in
the gallery. She had partitioned off one corner of the gallery and set
up a manicure and hairdressing parlor. Of mornings, when business in
the gallery was dull, she made many an extra dollar by beautifying the
women of Ragtown.
"Yes, there's money in it," she said. "Al had the gallery stunt in
mind when he brought me down, so I quit the beauty parlor where I was
working in Frisco and got a job in a shooting gallery and learned how
to run one and to keep my noodle from getting in front of a gun. My
face is my fortune, after all, Hiram boy. One look at my smile, and
the hicks come right in and pick up a rifle. I'm coinin' money, and
I'm having the time of my young life. Last night a miner bet me five
dollars against a kiss he could knock over ten ducks in ten shots. He
did it, and I paid up like a sport. It got the gang started at the
game, and in the end I grabbed off thirty bucks, and only kissed twice.
Pretty soft--what? I guess you're horrified, Hiram?" She glanced at
him with coquettish defiance.
"Disgusted," Hiram could truthfully have said, but he only grinned and
thanked his stars for his escape.
Lucy's dark eyes flashed daggers at the broad back of Hiram Hooker as
he left her and swung along indifferently up the street. With a
woman's intuition she had known in San Francisco that the big, handsome
countryman with the soft, drawling voice had fallen a victim to her
charms. Now, because of Jerkline Jo, he was utterly indifferent to
her. Lucy was piqued, angry at him, angrier at Jerkline Jo. She did
not love Hiram, but she wanted him to love her, and though she did not
want him she wanted no other woman to own him.
"I'll fix you one o' these days, you big hick!" she threatened between
clenched teeth.
Summer passed all too quickly for those who labored incessantly, and
the winter rains set in. They at once grew harder and more frequent,
and then it poured as it does only in the West. Snow fell in the
mountains. Then the activities of Al Drummond ceased abruptly.
No wonder, for often as high as twenty teams were hooked on to the
enormous wagons of Jerkline Jo, and every animal was obliged to pull to
the limit of his strength to move the terrific weight, hub-deep in the
clinging mud. This did not tend to improve the road, of course, and
all of Drummond's efforts to corduroy it and otherwise preserve a firm
path for his machines were unavailing. The tortoise had won the race!
Drummond had gambled away his profits, and now it was whispered about
that he still owed money on his trucks. Before the last of November he
gave up in despair, allowed his trucks to be taken by the mortgagees,
and settled down to a life of gambling on the proceeds of his
shooting-gallery concession.
One day there trudged into Ragtown a strange figure, marked by the
desert, bent and old, in the wake of six lamenting burros laden with
mining supplies and tools. He gave the name of Basil Filer, and said
that he was seeking gold. Ragtown promptly wrote him down as a crazy
prospector. His eye caught the eye of Lucy Dalles, leaning over her
carpeted counter between her rifles, and when he had made camp he
limped along and accosted her.
"Come in and try a string, Uncle," she begged with the little pout she
had found so effective in coercing male humanity into her lair. "An
old desert rat like you oughta hit the bull's-eye every shot."
Filer grinned and stepped up to the counter, eying the girl from under
heavy, fierce eyebrows that looked as if the dust of a thousand trails
had settled in them. Lucy lowered her dark lashes and looked demure.
"B'long on the desert, girlie?" rumbled the deep voice of the old
prospector.
"Sure, Uncle."
"Uh-huh. And how old might ye be, now?"
"Nearly twenty-two."
"Uh-huh--pretty near twenty-two. That's nice. Where's yer paw and
maw?"
"They're both dead," Lucy told him, trying to appear innocent and
unsophisticated as she lifted her glance to his face.
"Maybe now yer paw was a desert prospector," he suggested.
"Uh-huh." Lucy nodded her fluffy head vigorously up and down. This
was another childlike action which she had found pleasing to
men--especially the older men. Of course she was lying like a little
sailor; but "Uncle" seemed interested in her, and business was dull
just then. She would pretend to be all that he seemed to wish her to
be as long as she could successfully follow his conversational leads.
"What do they call you, girlie?" he asked next.
"Lucy."
"Lucy, eh? Lucy what, now?"
"Lucy Dalles."
"Dalles, huh? Dalles!" His weird old eyes, peculiarly tinted from
years of looking into the mirage-draped distances of the desert, were
strangely reminiscent.
"Maybe that ain't your right name, though," he kept on feelingly.
"Maybe not," replied Lucy quite truthfully. After all, she had only
her father's and her mother's word for it. For all she knew she might
be the reincarnation of the Queen of Sheba. "Let's try a shot, Uncle,"
she added, sensing deep water ahead.
Indolently he picked up a .22 rifle, and rang the bell of her most
difficult bull's-eye target eight shots out of ten. He paid her and
seemed in nowise elated over her fulsome praise, designed to keep him
shooting.
He took up his long cane again. "I'll drift up the drag a ways," he
said, "and see what's goin' on. Nothin' but desert owls lived here
when I traveled through last--two years ago. I'll be back. Maybe I'll
want to ast ye a few p'inted questions. Will ye answer, eh?"
"Sure," she told him lightly, whacking her gum for emphasis. "Come and
pour your heart out to me, Uncle--I'll listen."
Lucy had taken more of the well-filled buckskin poke that the old man
had pulled from the neck of his greasy shirt to pay her for the pastime.
She leaned out and craned her neck to watch him moving up the street,
glancing through doors and openly investigating on every side.
Her intuition told her that the gray old rat had something on his mind.
Lonely old soul that he was, she reasoned, he was bashful and at a loss
how to conduct himself in the unfamiliar presence of a woman. "When
he's all gowed up he'll talk my head off," she decided. "He's going to
fortify himself now. Guess I'll have to look into this."
When the bent, plodding figure had disappeared through the entrance to
Ghost Falcott's Palace Dance Hall, Lucy called across the street to a
boy sitting on the edge of the new board sidewalk. The boy crossed to
her and she handed him a dime.
"Find Al Drummond and tell him I want to see him at once," she directed.
A little later Al Drummond presented himself. His face showed the
effects of a sleepless night, but he was already refortified with
jackass brandy for the ordeals of the day, and was in nowise stupid.
They leaned on the carpeted counter, heads close together, and talked
in lowered voices.
"What this old bird has got on his chest I can't tell," Lucy explained.
"But I played up to him, and if he gets all gowed up he'll spill it.
He's crazy as they make 'em, Al. It may not amount to anything at all,
but I'm for always lookin' into such little things. You never can
tell, Al. Maybe this'll be good. Anyway, he's got a leather bag
that's heavy with jack, and he won't need that when he hits the trail
again. Warm up to him and get 'im started, then steer him to me."
"Wise little kid," Al Drummond commented. "Leave it to me."
The male plotter experienced no difficulty in finding the grizzled
desert rat. He was evidently a self-starter, having brought his own,
and, all alone at Ghost Falcott's bar, he was pouring raw jackass
brandy down a throat that seemed urgently in need of it. Seeing that
he was satisfactorily working out his own destruction, Drummond shot
craps to divert himself until the prospector should become mellowed to
a point where it was safe to approach him.
It seemed though that the old man had an enormous capacity. An hour
passed, and, though he drank repeatedly on his high-lonesome, he seemed
little the worse for it. Drummond patiently watched and waited. He
knew that with some newly distilled brandy does not take immediate
effect, but that drunkenness comes on suddenly when the victim least
expects it.