CHAPTER XXV
JO LOSES HER SUPPORT
Eight days later Jerkline Jo leaned on the ledge of the office windowin Huber's store at Ragtown and handed him the various papers whichaccompanied a consignment of freight from Julia.
"There's no hay, Jo," he cried, looking up in perplexity and worriment.
"The Mulligan Supply Company was short of hay when we left," Joexplained. "They hoped to have a trainload in by the time I got back."
"There's the dickens to pay!" he grumbled. "They know I have to havehay right along. I've a standing order for at least half a load of hayevery trip. These settlers are buying it fast. I have only ten baleson hand. Next fellow that comes along will probably want all ten ofthem. A nice mess! What's the matter with those Ikes over there atJulia? Are they asleep?"
"It seems they've had some difficulty in getting alfalfa here lately,"the girl explained. "I'm sorry, Mr. Huber. The best I can do for youis to promise to bring every bale I can next trip."
"Rush it," ordered the merchant. "If you can make it, let somebodyelse's order ride, Jo, and bring me every pound you can."
"I'll see what can be done," was her promise as she left and went tothe little cabin that she had had built for her at the edge of town.
Here she cleansed herself of the stains of the trip, and substitutedfor chaps and flannel shirt a new tailor-made suit which had just comefrom Los Angeles. As she was about to go out again Twitter-or-TweetOrr Tweet knocked on her door.
"Jo," he said with his whimsical smile, "I'm showing a couple o' mensome property, and thought you might like to take a ride. You've neverseen much of the cultivated land, have you--except from a distance?Come 'n' see what chances your money's got in Paloma Rancho, theHomesteader's Promised Land of Milk and Honey. Won't be gone over anhour."
His car was waiting, with his two prospective land purchasers in thetonneau. Jo readily agreed, for she had nothing to occupy her, andTweet helped her in beside the driver's seat, after introducing the mento her.
Tweet drove slowly and talked a great deal, steering the car with onehand and directing his conversation at all three of his listeners. Hedwelt at length to the strangers on Jerkline Jo's great success in herfreighting enterprise, not neglecting to mention that she was investinga great portion of her profits in Paloma Rancho. The men wereimpressed.
Jo, too, was impressed with Tweet's abilities as a salesman. Heemanated confidence, and his enthusiasm seemed well-founded andsincere. In fact, the new alfalfa ranches and the orchards of youngpear trees looked promising indeed, and the projects showed evidencesof thrift and capability on the part of the ranchers and near-rancherswho had bought land on contract from the discoverer of Paloma Rancho'sdormant possibilities.
Tweet told of his idea of eventually tapping the mountain lake nearwhich Jo was wont to camp and bringing the water down to irrigate suchportions of desert land as might require it; for there were placeswhere three hundred feet of boring had not developed a drop of theprecious fluid. The promoter had an engineer's estimate of the cost ofthe entire water system, and said that his original figures had beenpretty close.
It all seemed feasible, and things looked generally prosperous. Joenjoyed her ride and the opportunity to see what had been accomplished.Returning, however, the complete enjoyment of the trip was marred bytire trouble, and, with one thing and another, it was nine o'clock atnight before the party, reached Ragtown.
They were ravenously hungry, and Tweet invited the three to dinner inthe town's closest approach to a satisfactory restaurant. It was afterten o'clock when they left the table. Tweet gallantly asked toaccompany Jo to her cabin, and both were laughing at the absurdity of agirl like Jerkline Jo needing an escort, when Hiram Hooker hurried upto them.
"Well, I c'n see who's cut out," said Tweet, assuming a mournfulexpression. "So, if you don't mind, Jo, I'll get over to the hotel andkeep after those two suckers. Take care of her, Wild Cat, and dowhatever she tells you to do, or answer to me with your life. There'sonly one Jerkline Jo, you know, and the world needs her all the time.So long, playmates!"
"Jo," said Hiram when Tweet had bustled away up the dimly lightedstreet, "there's an awful mess. Heine and Jim and Tom and Blink areall drunk as fiddlers!"
"What!" Jo stopped in her tracks and held him by the arm. "Oh, dear!"she cried. "How could they do such a thing! I've watched them socarefully, and they've been so good. But the moment I'm out of theirsight for a few hours---- Oh, dear! I didn't think that they'd treatme that way!"
"I can't get it straight myself, Jo," Hiram told her. "They alwayshoist a few when we get in, and sometimes I join them. I've neverbefore seen any of them when he wasn't at least able to ramble safelyback to camp. But to-night they're all four dead to the world. Ican't even shake a word out of them. Heine just sits there in theDugout, with his head on his breast, and is like a dead man."
"Where were you?"
"In camp--studying. About half past nine I thought I'd stroll intotown and get a cigar and see what the boys were doing. I couldn't findthem in the Palace, and went from place to place till I stumbled onthem in the Dugout, every last one of them down and out. I was lookingfor Tweet, to have him take the bunch of them to camp in his car, whenI saw you folks come out of the restaurant."
"The Dugout," puzzled Jo. "Do they go there often?"
"Hardly ever. It's the worst dump in town, as you know. They're allcrooked enough, but I've heard strange whisperings about certain shadyhappenings in the Dugout."
"Was anybody with them?"
"Not when I found them."
"Hiram," said Jo, "it sounds like dope to me. They're loyal to me, Itell you. No, they're not to blame--they'd never treat me that way.They've been doped."
"But why? And by whom?"
"Those are questions. None of them have any money on them to speak of,I know. I've got the bank pass books of every one of them in my chest.Again, who'd have the nerve to dope and try to roll a skinner ofJerkline Jo's? He'd be playing with fire. These dive keepers know allabout me; they know my power. I could mobilize an army of two hundredstiffs in an hour's time, and if I asked it they'd lay every dump inRagtown flat. You bet these parasites know better than to trifle withJerkline Jo."
Her dark eyes flashed angrily in the light of a store window.
"Well, let's not stand here bewailing our fate like children lost inthe woods. We've simply got to _get_ out to-morrow. Mr. Huber is wildabout the shortness of his stock of hay, and I promised to rush him allI could. Get Tweet and dump my boys into his car and take 'em to camp.We'll see what we can do to bring them out of it and make them fit forthe trip by morning."
Far into the morning hours, in the outfit's camp on the edge of town,Jo and Hiram strove to revive the stupefied men, but nothing beyondgroans could they get from them.
"They're doped, Hiram--pitilessly doped!" Jo cried in despair at last."Go for Doctor Dennison. Carry him on your shoulders if he won't come."
The medical man came readily at Hiram's request, and after a briefexamination of the sluggish men remarked that Jo's surmise had beencorrect. He then ordered her to go to her cabin and get some badlyneeded sleep, and at once went to work on the unconscious quartet, withHiram aiding all he could.
"Whoever did this cursed thing, Wild Cat," said the physician, "was anamateur. He might have killed them. They've taken aboard terribledoses, and I can tell you right now that not one of them will start forJulia to-day. You may as well tell Jo to make other arrangements."
His prophecy proved correct. Heine Schultz had regained consciousnesswhen dawn came, but was unable to tell a coherent story of what hadoccurred, and was deathly sick. The other three still remainedunresponsive to the doctor's treatment.
"Well," said Jo, when she answered Hiram's knock on her cabin door atfive-thirty, "what must be must. Huber has to have hay. I promisedit, and Jerkline Jo never, never breaks a promise. So hook up theblacks and whites, Hiram, and le
ad six of Heine's team to be added toyours and six of Jim's for me. Hook on two trailers. You and I willmake it to Julia and drive sixteen each back here with Huber's hay.That's the very best we can do, but we'll do that the best we know how.I'll be out by the time you get 'em hooked up. We'll nibble ourbreakfast as we travel. Shoot the piece, Hiram boy, my knight fromWild-cat Hill!"
That night in a pelting hail storm Jerkline Jo and Hiram went into campbeside the mountain lake, and the stage was set for the second act inthe plot cooked up by the two who had lost all principle underRagtown's subtle influence--Al Drummond and Lucy Dalles.
The She Boss: A Western Story Page 25