CHAPTER XI
THE RETURN OF JERKLINE JO
When the long overland train contemptuously groaned to a reluctant stopin Palada the infrequent occurrence told the town that Jerkline Jo hadreturned for her foster father's funeral and the readjustment of hisbadly involved affairs. Old friends, old pals, old lovers crowdedabout her on the depot platform, wringing her strong hand in sympathyand offering help. The village hack was running no more now, sofriends carried her baggage for her to the house on the hill, where laythe body of Pickhandle Modock.
Friends stayed with her that night. The funeral was solemnized nextday. In all the world, now, Jerkline Jo had not the semblance of arelative, so far as she knew. She even did not know her name, and ofPickhandle Modock's family she had met not a single soul. But she hadyouth, courage, and ambition, and she went bravely at the many tasksbefore her.
With the old justice of the peace she took up her father's affairs, andit soon became evident that to attempt to continue the store underexisting conditions would be the part of folly. The business wasdeeply in debt to jobbers in the cities on the coast side of themountains, and such stock as they would accept must go back to them tocancel their claims. The store building was mortgaged; the residenceproperty was mortgaged. The teams and wagons and the blacksmith shopseemed to be all that she could save from the wreckage, and theseappeared to be more of an encumbrance than otherwise.
Still, she decided, against the advice of all well-meaning friends, totry to hold on to them and to be able to own them, clear of any claimsagainst them. She knew the freighting business and constructionteaming, and virtually nothing else; so with the idea that all ofPickhandle Modock's proud building must not have been for naught, shefought for final control of the freight outfit, and would not listen tothose who claimed that the days of freighting with teams were overforever.
In a month everything was settled--all creditors satisfied. She hadarranged to pay the store's debts with the acceptable stock on hand,having made great concessions. She had promised the store building andthe residence property to the mortgagees, effective after the will hadbeen probated. To her delight, she found that the teams, blacksmith'sand wagoner's equipment, and the wagons would be hers intact. True,the teams were a great expense, and there was almost nothing left withwhich to buy hay and grain for them. But she was making inquiry hereand there in an effort to put them to work again. Eventually she wassuccessful in getting them on mountain pasture at a dollar and a half ahead per month. There were sixty-one animals in all, and the pasturagefees amounted to quite a monthly sum, but it was far inferior to themonthly feed bills she had been paying.
For several months she hung on desperately, hoping against hope, witheverything going out and nothing coming in, then one bright andlong-to-be-remembered day came news of the new railroad which was tocross 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 constructionfeats. By train she rode to the nearest railroad point, met theengineers of the preliminary survey, found an old friend in the party,and with him rode horseback on an old mining road over the range thatstood between the railroad and that part of the desert which the newroute would cross.
Close study of the engineers' maps and her general knowledge ofconstruction conditions told her much. She decided on the logicalplace where the inevitable "rag town" would spring up. This, shereasoned, would be as close as possible to the biggest camp of the maincontractors, Demarest, Spruce & Tillou.
There was water to be had at several widely separated places along thenew right of way, but she knew that the water supply closest to the bigcamp would draw the tent city about it.
She knew, too, where the big camp would be, for the simple reason thatthe 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 wouldcome, thousands of tons of freight must be hauled. The railroad pointnearest to the spot where the main contractor would camp was the townof Julia, from which the two had ridden horseback, and the mountainrange lay between Julia and the right of way of the proposed, route. Aforty-five mile trip through heavy desert sands, over the steep gradesof an abandoned mountain road, and through heavy sands again wouldinevitable, and until the new steel rails had crept to a point oppositeJulia, teams or automobile truck must supply the laborers and teamswith 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 summermonths but a study of the mountain soil convinced her that in winterthere would be another story to tell. Anyway, she and her beautifulfreight animals must take their chance against these modern machines.It would be a race between the tortoise and the hare; and every oneknows that the hare has gained no little reputation from the outcome ofthat legendary contest.
From Julia, Jerkline Jo hurried by train to San Francisco, to theWestern office of the big contracting firm of Demarest, Spruce &Tillou, whose headquarters were in Minneapolis. She knew Mr. Demarestpersonally, and was fortunate in finding him in San Francisco upon herarrival there.
"Well, well, well!" the big man cried jovially, as the girl was usheredinto his private office. "Gypo Jo! Heavens to Betsy! Girl, I haven'tseen 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 waseminently proud of his successful climb.
For thirty minutes he refused positively to talk business. Hepreferred to sit and dwell on bygone days with the one-time queen ofPickhandle Modock's gypo camp, to listen to the account of her father'srise and fall and his subsequent untimely death, and of the girl'sambitions and life in the Middle Western school. They told many astory, these old-timers of the nomadic camps, and had many a laugh overquaint remembrances. Then they got down to business.
Demarest listened carefully to Jo's ideas, and as she concluded hedrummed thoughtfully on his desk.
"I think myself, Jo," he said presently, "that in winter you can graboff the money from any old automobile concern. But through the summermonths they're gonta give you a nice little run for your money. And ifthey get freight there with less delay than you fail to avoid, and cando 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--fellanamed Albert Drummond. Shrewd customer, too. He was tryin' to make adicker with us. But we'll make no deals. We're not goin' to freightany ourselves if we can get out of it. But we'll sign no contracts insuch a matter. Lowest bidder gets our business so long as he don'tfail to keep us supplied with all we need. If you can underbid thesetruck men, you'll get the business; and from what I know about you, Ihave 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; andthose big horses certainly can eat the stuff. But tell me--what do youfigure you can lay freight down for at the spot where you say we'rebound 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 theprice of a sack o' flour--with flour at the unheard-of price it'salready reached. And hay and grain! Jo, it's simply staggering."
; "I admit that," she said. "But I suppose you took all that intoaccount when you made your bid on the job."
"You bet your sweet life we did, girl! And I'll tell you what--wefigured 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'llfreight for that only if forced to by the trucks. I doubt if I canmake money at that figure. Only a trial over an extended period oftime will tell. It all depends on the nature of the soil--on thecondition that the roads develop after a period of heavy traffic overthem, and the devastation of the winter rains. There'll be snow inthose mountains, too. It's a gamble--a big gamble--but all that I cansee against me is the fact that trucks don't eat hay when they're notat work."
"And how d'ye know where our Camp One is going to be located, girl?" heasked kindly. "I don't know myself yet."
"Of course you don't know positively," she replied. "But I'll bet youten to one that you'll never sublet that piece of heavy-rock workthrough the buttes. I don't know a subcontractor--and I've not beenout of touch with the grade so very long--who could tackle thatstupendous task. So, if you can't sublet it--and I'm betting youcan't--it will be up to you folks to do it yourselves. So that tellsme where your largest camp will be, and at the nearest water to yourlargest camp the rag town will spring up. Isn't that all logical?"
"Sound as a dollar," he told her. "You weren't raised by PickhandleModock for nothing, were you?"
She rose from her chair. "Tell your subs to send me a wire at Juliawhen they're ready for any freight, at two and a half cents for astarter," she said. "I'll get it to 'em. But if no one meets myprice, 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. ThenI'll see what can be done. Your camp, of course, won't be in tilllast, I suppose. I'll go back to Palada now, take the stock offpasture, and begin hardening them up. Then I'll start for Julia, andwill be there before your outfit moves in."
The She Boss: A Western Story Page 11