The She Boss Part 15

"It is built to go," the girl a.s.sured him.

"Stutterin' Demosthenes! I didn't think there were enough horses in the world to move the thing! Madam, I have swiftly reached the conclusion that I am not a jerkline skinner. Are you, Hooker?"

Hiram smiled and spoke to Jerkline Jo.

"That's a fine wagon, ma'am," he said. "I never saw any as good as that."

"We've six more just like it," she told him, "and some lighter trailers. The man who made them is dead. I doubt if the world will ever again see such wagons when these are gone. Now, I want you to hook up, Mr. Hooker, and show me what you can do."

"Hook up, Hooker!" laughed Tweet, always ready to embrace the slightest opportunity for a joke.

The girl led the way into the stable, and Heine Schultz, temporary wrangler, showed Hiram ten immense black horses, not one of them under sixteen hundred pounds.

"Get 'em out," ordered Jo.

Hiram went to work immediately, with a briskness that caused Heine to wink at Jo, he threw on the heavy harness and led forth the big-footed teams. He did not ask which were the leaders or the wheelers, for this was indicated by the nature of their respective harness and bridles.

Heine noted this and winked again. Hiram was told, when he asked, the names of the ten, and pointers and swing teams were indicated. In a period of time utterly bewildering to Mr. Tweet the man from Wild-cat Hill had his ten black beauties strung out in twos before one of the wagons, and was speaking to Jerkline Jo.

"I see you ride in the wagons," he observed. "I always rode the nigh wheeler hoss, ma'am."

"You may do so if you choose. We've saddles."

"Your way suits me," Hiram returned. "It's easier work, I reckon."

The girl climbed into the wagon with Hiram. Heine Schultz did likewise. Mr. Tweet, being a gregarious person, did not like to be left alone, so followed the others' example.

"Which way, ma'am?" asked the new skinner.

Jo pointed. "Up that street, and turn the corner to your left," she directed.

The wagon was about half loaded with the blacksmith's outfit. To add to this the horse wrangler set the heavy brakes.

Hiram grasped the jerkline, but allowed it to hang slack in his hands.

Now came his soft, caressing drawl, low and musical:

"Pete! Abe! Feel of it! Molly! Steve! Ben! Prince! Up ahead, there--Jane! Buck!"

As a team the great animals started the heavy wagon, and moved off with a jingle of chains and bells and the creak of harness.

Heine released the brake and looked at Jo, and this time he merely nodded.

A block up the street Hiram gave a single pull on his jerkline, and called: "Haw, Jane!" An instant later--"Gee, Steve! Gee, Molly!

_Gee_, Molly! Steady! Good enough!"

With the leaders and the swings pulling to the left and turning into the cross street, and the pointers heaving slightly to the right, the long string made the turn, and the wagon rolled around the corner in the middle of the street.

This street that they had entered was one of the oldest in Palada--built by Mexicans in the old Spanish style. There were no sidewalks--there was not room for them.

"Turn to your right at the next corner," commanded Jerkline Jo.

Hiram Hooker nodded.

As the leaders neared the corner Hiram cried: "Haw, Jane! Haw, Buck!"

and tugged once on his jerkline. Obeying the command, the leaders, followed by the eight, brought the wagon close to the left-hand side of the street. Two quick jerks on the line, and the sharp cries, "Gee, Buck! Gee, Jane!" turned the well-trained leaders to the right and headed them toward the entrance to the cross street. "Haw, Steve!

Haw, Molly! Over the chain, Molly! Haw, boys, haw!"

At Hiram's command, the off pointer, Molly, had stepped daintily over the heavy chain that ran between her and her mate, and now both of them were pulling the heavy tongue at right angles to the left, the wheelers helping. As neatly as most men might have made the corner with a single buggy, the string of ten and the heavy wagon swung into the intersecting street, as narrow as the other, and not a hub touched.

Jerkline Jo's dark eyes were sparkling. "You've got a job, Hiram," she said. "A jerkline driver who can make that corner without sc.r.a.ping a hub is a real jerkline driver."

"Thank you," replied Hiram, with a merry grin, thrilling at her use of his given name. "And I'll say that the man that trained this team was a jerkline driver, too."

"A man didn't train them," Jerkline Jo informed him proudly. "I trained them."

"Just the same," returned Hiram, "I stick by what I said."

"Now you take the line, Mr. Tweet," instructed Jerkline Jo.

"I don't care for it," said Tweet. "I'm a promoter and capitalist.

I'll go to work and get a job here in this burg, Miss Jo, and pay you for my transportation down when I've earned the price. But I have a sneaking feeling that Molly wouldn't care for the cadence of my voice; and Pete he eyed me kinda suspiciously when Hiram led 'im out.

No--there's a limit. I've reached it."

"Drive back to the stable, Hiram," Jo ordered. "We'll start for Julia at once."

She turned to Tweet. "I'm sorry," she said. "Why did you ship down here as a jerkline skinner, Mr. Tweet? You came over a rival railroad, of course, and your transportation will cost me full fare."

"Madam," he replied guiltily, "I was broke, and just had to get outa Frisco. And I couldn't leave Hiram. Why, that boy would 'a' been a suicide, if it hadn't been for me. He was in love, and wouldn't work, and in another day he'd been broke--a hick from Wild-cat Hill alone and friendless and in love in big, cruel San Francisco. If it wasn't for me, you'd never got 'im."

"That's right," spoke up Hiram. "He made me come."

"Madam," added Tweet, "I hope you'll forgive me. I'll pay you all I owe you with interest. I'm the original go-getter from Gogettersburg, on the Grabemoff River. I'm down and out right now, but any day I'm liable to turn into a skyrocket. Madam, you trust me. I've promised Hooker to lead him to fame and fortune, and to do that I gotta stick with 'im, ain't I? Well, then, can't you find somethin' for me to do for you, so's I c'n ride with you to this new railroad? That country sounds good to me. I'll maybe go to work and get a toehold over there.

You'll never regret befriendin' me, Miss Jo."

The girl stood, thoughtful, her feet planted against the jolting of the wagon.

"Could you help about the cooking?" she asked.

"Madam, I could--and would."

"I like to be accommodating," she told him. "I know how it is. I was raised in the camps, and know all about being broke and knocking about the country. I'll take you along, and I'll take a chance on your paying me for the transportation."

"You'll never regret it, Miss Jo. Pile whatever you want done on me.

I'm a good roustabout, willin' and cheerful, and always a kind, happy little playmate. Thank you."

An hour later ten heavy wagons, some of them trailing because of the lack of skinners, rumbled through Palada, with an eight or ten-horse team pulling, the remainder of the horses and mules and Jerkline Jo's black saddle mare following like devoted dogs. Palada was out in a body to wave good-by and good luck to Jerkline Jo. She drove the last team, ten magnificent whites, spotless as circus horses, with thirty tiny bells jingling over their proud necks. Ahead of her in the train Hiram Hooker drove his blacks. As long as she could see anybody at Palada, Jerkline Jo stood in the front of her wagon, facing rearward, and waved her hat. There were tears in her dark eyes as she turned to her team at last, and the desert opened its arms to their coming.

Slowly the teams forged ahead into the infinite sandy waste, where whispering yuccas and th.o.r.n.y cactus grew, and jack rabbits went looping away among bronze greasewood bushes. A cloud of dust hung over the wagon trail. Ahead stretched seeming nothingness for mile after weary mile.

Jerkline Jo hoped to make twenty miles a day, loaded as the wagons were with only the blacksmith outfit. She might have made perhaps twenty-four miles under such conditions, had it not been for the counteracting softness of the teams. Loaded, they would make from ten to twelve miles daily, which seems intolerably slow in these days of speed and nerve-wracking restlessness. But with six of the teams working steadily the outfit would transport upward of thirty tons twelve miles a day, which represents an enormous amount of provisions for man and beast.