POCKETED
Hiram Hooker, knowing well the story of Jerkline Jo's having been found
as a baby girl in a deserted camp on the desert, had easily been able
to convince old Basil Filer that she was the young woman he had been
searching for so long.
They had spent half the night in planning in their desert camp.
Hiram's frank, open nature tended to breed confidence in the most
pessimistic of men; and when he told Filer of the wonderful character
of Jerkline Jo and assured him that, despite his past rascality, he
would be handsomely rewarded by her, the helpless old man agreed to all
that he proposed.
Knowing that the prospector would not reach Ragtown for a long time
with his sauntering burros, Hiram was for making a copy of what the
precious paper contained and hurrying on ahead, to overtake Jo as soon
as possible, and suggest that she make arrangements for a strip to the
lost claims before starting back from Julia. To this the desert rat
agreed; but when they were ready for Hiram to make a copy it was
discovered that neither man had a scrap of paper, or even a pencil.
There was nothing to be done then, if the original plan was to be
carried out, but for Basil Filer to surrender into Hiram's keeping the
document. This, with many misgivings, Filer consented to do.
So they broke camp early next morning, and Hiram hurried on ahead with
the original in his pocket. The old man was to traipse along after
him, and in all probability would reach Ragtown before Hiram had
overtaken Jo.
Al Drummond passed Hiram in his car as he was nearing his journey's end
late that afternoon; but of course Hiram thought nothing of this, as
Drummond and his car made a familiar sight about the country. Hiram
had decided to ask Tweet to carry him in his machine until Jerkline Jo
had been overtaken, which would probably occur between the foot of the
mountains and Artesian Ranch on the other side. Then Tweet would
return, and Hiram would ride on with the outfit and reveal to the girl
what he had heard of the strange thing she had worn concealed under her
lustrous hair since she was two years old.
Hiram knew about how Drummond and Lucy had stumbled onto the truth,
which Jerkline Jo herself had not even dreamed of.
What the old prospector had told him of his "dream" convinced Hiram
that Lucy had got wind of the secret and had cleverly posed as the lost
child grown up, and had been able to draw Filer's story out of him. He
had said that in his dream he had been shown something on the girl's
scalp, under her hair, that looked like tattooing. Hiram reasoned that
Drummond could have dotted Lucy's scalp with a pen and ink sufficient
to convince the old desert rat that she was the girl he was seeking.
Then he had told his story, but had been in some way rendered
unconscious and disposed of before he could demand the clipping of
Lucy's hair and the shaving of her scalp. No doubt, while he was
unconscious, Drummond and Lucy had made a copy of what was on the paper.
To Hiram's great disappointment he found on reaching Ragtown late that
afternoon that Twitter-or-Tweet had driven to Los Angeles on business.
He hunted about for another machine, but there seemed to be none in
town that he could hire. There was Drummond's, of course, but to deal
with him was out of the question.
"Hello, Hiram boy!" Lucy called sweetly as he walked past the shooting
gallery. "You look worried. Whassa malla? Jo fired you?"
"Not yet," said Hiram briefly. "I was looking for a machine so that I
could catch up with the outfit, but can't seem to locate one."
"Not many about town this time of year," she commented. "Did you get
so cuckooed Jo had to leave you behind to sober up, Wild Cat? And now
you've got to chase her, eh? 'Fraid Heine or some of 'em'll get her
away from you if you don't stick around--that it?"
To this Hiram smiled with cold politeness, but, made no reply, passing
on down the street.
He would be forced to wait until morning. Then, provided Tweet had not
returned, he would have to ride Babe over the mountains and reach
Jerkline Jo at least before she had started back. After all, there was
no great hurry. The gold had lain where it did for countless
centuries. It would continue to lie so for a few days more, perhaps.
Tweet did not return that night, and at dawn Hiram was away toward the
mountains on the black mare, the precious paper secreted in his shirt.
He was ten miles from Ragtown before it occurred to him what a fool he
had been in not making a copy of it. Any one of a hundred things might
happen to it. Still, the crazy prospector had carried it through all
the years and had lost it.
He wondered if it would not be a practical idea to commit it to memory.
Why, certainly--that was the thing to do.
He was nearing such foothills as the abrupt mountain range boasted when
he decided not only to memorize it, but to make a copy on an envelope
which was in his pocket. It had covered a letter from Uncle Sebastian
Burris, Hiram's benefactor, up there in Mendocino County. He had found
it awaiting him the night before at Ragtown. He and Uncle Sebastian
had kept up a correspondence ever since Hiram had come south.
Although he had no pencil, it occurred to him that he could write with
the lead bullet of one of his revolver cartridges, which simple feat he
had often performed in idle moments in the woods up home.
Dismounting, he lowered the bridle rein over Babe's head, and sat down
on the ground. He took out Uncle Sebastian's letter, and with his
pocket-knife slit the envelope till it provided him with a square of
paper. He laid the worn original--a yellow piece of tough sheepskin
paper--on a flat rock beside him. He took a cartridge from his belt
and began to copy the reddish writing.
He had just completed the task when there came a sudden terrific roar
in his ears, and before he knew what was happening a desert twister had
swept down upon him in all its fury.
It passed swiftly, and through half-blinded eyes Hiram saw that the
original had been whisked from the rock on which it had lain as if by
magic.
Fortunately he had held to his copy instinctively; but he had not
compared it with the original. He might have made some small but vital
mistake. Away over the desert twisted the miniature cyclone, and he
knew that, spinning around with it, was the sheepskin. Rather
foolishly in his excitement he grabbed his six-shooter from its holster
and slapped it down upon his copy to protect it from another such
catastrophe, and, still half-blinded, vaulted to the saddle and set the
mare at a dead run in the wake of the whirlwind.
Then it was that Al Drummond, who had been slowly creeping through the
greasewood bushes toward Hiram, arose with a yelp of triumph and ran to
the weighted-down copy of the precious directions.
Out there in the whirlwind the original was fleeing rapidly away from
the frantic rider, with the chances many to one that it would not be
recovered. Here in Drummond's hand was the only copy in existence,
except the one already in his and Lucy's possession. It was plain that
Hiram had not previously made another copy, else why would he have
stopped here on the desert to draft this one? Also, by the same token,
it was plain that Hiram had not memorized the contents. Basil Filer
might have done so, it was true; but, then, Tehachapi Hank would attend
to Basil Filer.
Quickly Drummond stooped and touched the blaze of a match to the
envelope, and in a few minutes only a crinkled bit of black, charred
paper lay on the ground.
"Pete!" he called, and from the greasewood another man arose and
hurried toward him.
"Look!" Drummond cried exultantly, pointing to the burned paper.
"There's what's left of the copy he was making. And here's his gun--he
used it to weigh down the copy when he raced away after the whirlwind.
Run for the horses. We'll get after him and get the original away from
him, if he gets it. Then, if Hank gets Filer--which he certainly
will--we'll have the only copies in existence!"
Pete, the bosom friend of Tehachapi Hank, turned about and ran up
toward the fringe of junipers that concealed their horses, brought down
the day before from the mountains. Drummond, while he waited, gazed
after the strange chase, and noted that the fleet black mare was
steadily overtaking the moving funnel of dust which represented the
whirlwind.
"By golly, if he can ride into the thing and break it, or keep up with
it till it breaks itself, he'll get the sheepskin!" Drummond muttered.
"But he won't keep it. He's left his gun. He's our meat now!"
Then Pete rode up rapidly, leading Drummond's mount, and next moment
they were on the dead run in pursuit of Hiram.
Time and again, as they drew nearer, they saw Hiram deliberately riding
the mare through the whirlwind, trying to break it. The thing seemed a
devil, alive and diabolically bent on eluding him. It changed course
from right to left, but the cow pony was as quick as it was; and it
seemed to the racing spectators that she enjoyed the game. Hiram was
so intent on his task, so frequently blinded by the whirlwind, while
his ears were filled with its roar, that to ride almost upon him
without his knowledge of it was an easy task for Pete and Drummond.
They were very close to him, then, when at last the mare's lunges broke
the whirlwind, and a scattered cloud of dust hid horse and rider.
Whether or not Hiram had rescued the paper they could not tell, but
they spurred their horses on.
The dust settled, and close at hand they saw Hiram, dismounted. At the
same instant he seemed to hear the thunder of hoofs, and glanced their
way. He took a couple of steps and grasped his mare's bridle, and was
standing unconcernedly at her head When they raced up, both training
sixshooters on him.
"Stick 'em up, Hooker!" ordered Drummond. "This means business at
last."
Totally unarmed, Hiram grinned and slowly elevated his hands.
Watching him closely, Drummond and Pete dismounted, and, still keeping
their sixes trained on Hiram's stomach, approached him.
"Well, Hooker," Drummond said sneeringly, "we meet again, don't we?
You see, we've showed our hand at last--and it's a pretty good one,
too. You're onto us, anyway, I guess, so from now on we'll fight in
the open. Did you get the sheepskin?"
Hiram reverted to his provincial drawl, as was his habit in moments of
great stress.
"No, she got plumb away from me," he said. "She got outa the whirlwind
back there somewheres, or else she's gone on with what's left o' the
twister."
"I was afraid you wasn't going to say that, Hooker," Drummond said.
"Well, let me show you something. Do you recognize this gat?"
Hiram looked uneasily at a third big six-shooter, which Drummond had
produced as he spoke.
"I reckon she was mine a while back," he said with a gulp.
"Exactly. And what you left it to hold down, Hooker, has gone up in
smoke."
"You got---- You burned----"
"Got and burned is right, Hooker. But I don't just like your tone. If
you were on the stage, Brother Hiram, I think you'd get the hook.
'Hook Hooker!' the audience might yell. Don't you think I'm funny at
times, Gentle Wild Cat? It's just my pleasant little way of informing
you that I consider you a poor actor. 'You got--you burned' was pretty
fair, Hi-ram, but not quite good enough. So we're going to search you
and make sure you didn't get the sheepskin out of the whirlwind."
"I didn't get it," Hiram said sulkily. "She's gone forever."
"She is in any event, Hooker. But we have a copy at Ragtown--don't
forget that. Now let go these reins and step over here. And be mighty
careful, Hi-ram--mighty careful. My friend here is a nervous man with
a six-gun."
Obediently Hiram dropped the mare's reins and stepped away from her
head. Drummond laid the two revolvers at some distance away from them
on the ground, so that, while he was searching Hiram, the latter would
have no opportunity to grab one from him and turn the tables.
"Keep 'em up," he ordered; and, while Pete trained his gun on Hiram,
Drummond searched his prisoner from head to foot.
"Guess you told the truth," he said. "Still, a fellow never can tell.
You're a pretty foxy guy at times. Strip, Hooker.
"I guess you did tell the truth," Drummond said a few minutes later
after a thorough search had been made. "Still I'm not through yet.
You saw us coming and had time to hide it, if you found it."
He stepped to the mare and went over her saddle, even turning the cheek
straps of the bridle inside out, and pawing through her heavy mane and
tail. He looked and felt in her ears. He held her nostrils with his
fingers until she jerked up her head and snorted out a blast of held-in
air.
"Guess that would have shot out any paper in her nostrils," he remarked.
"They say this Jo's a hoss trainer," suggested Pete. "Maybe the mare's
a trick hoss. Look in her mouth Drummond."
Drummond did this, but found it empty. He studied a minute, his eyes
closed thoughtfully, then threw off the saddle and examined the
sheepskin lining, _tapaderos_, jockeys, skirts.
Now for fifteen minutes he walked about over the ground. It was hard
and firm here--almost as smooth as the surface of a dry lake, with no
loose sand in which the paper might be concealed and little desert
growth.
Returning he lifted the mare's feet one by one, then faced Hiram again.
"Open your mouth," he commanded; and Hiram obeyed, displaying an empty
cavity.
"Well, ole hoss, I guess the game's up for you folks," Drummond said
chuckling. "I never thought we'd be lucky enough to get rid of the
original. So now we'll leave you to put on your clothes and go your
way. You may see Jerkline Jo and tell her your little story; and you
two can discuss what's best to do. When you've decided, come to me and
we'll dicker with you."
"How 'bout takin' 'im into the mountains?" asked Pete in a low voice.
"No, that won't be necessary now. We need him to put the case before
Jerkline Jo. I'm against violence, anyway, in the main. And I'm not a
hog, like a certain person I might mention if it weren't for Hooker's
overhearing it. We'll let him go, and dicker later. Half suits me."
Drummond climbed into the saddle, and the two wheeled their horses and
rode away.
Hiram began to dress.
"Look, Hooker!" called Drummond from a distance. "I'll drop your gun
right here."
Hiram nodded and continued putting on his clothes, then resaddled the
mare.
Then when the departing riders were mere specks in the distance he
stepped to Babe's head, reached his fingers up one of her nostrils, and
pulled out the wadded sheepskin document.
"A heap o' fellas call themselves hossmen that don't know about that
little pocket in a hoss' nose," came his whimsical Mendocino drawl.
"She could snort all day, but the pocket ain't connected with her
nostrils." He patted Babe's glossy neck. "Li'l' black mare," he
crooned into her furry ear, "le's go find Jo!"