Arthur Preston Hankins

“ Knew nothing but mules and horses until I was eighteen or over—cared for nothing else. And I love them still; but I've grown ambitious to get all that I can from life. I like you, Hiram Hooker. You're a big, clean-minded, simple-souled man. I'll help you all I can."
Hiram's experience with Lucy Dalles, and now with this splendid girl called Jerkline Jo, might have turned the head of a more sophisticated male. But the big woods of the North teach a man his insignificance in the scheme of life, teach him honesty and simplicity of heart and sincerity. So now Hiram Hooker's ego was not inflamed. ”

“ Few women could help admiring such a handsome young giant as was Hiram, strong as a bull, symmetrical as some sturdy plant; and his drawling, soft voice was a caress that bespoke the kindly heart of a child and the tenderness of a woman. Withal he had a poet's soul, and all women love poetry in a man.
"Tell me about Twitter-or-Tweet, and so forth," she begged finally. "I can't understand that man. Is he a pure fake?" ”

“ So Joshepha Modock grew to young womanhood, admired, loved, and spoiled by the thousands of nomad laborers who knew her. At eighteen she could truthfully boast of a hundred proposals of marriage, and some of them had been worth an ambitious girl's consideration. Gypo Jo they called her, and she was known all over the West, where her foster father's operations were confined, and stories of her beauty and horsewomanship had gone East and North and South, for railroad-construction laborers are a nomadic brood and repeat their tales and traditions from coast to coast. ”

“ Jerkline Jo and Hiram stood laughing at the gurgling imps of the desert, and Jo went up to Filer.
"What does this mean?" she asked. "You're all packed up for a trip."
The weird old eyes looked up at her queerly. "We're goin'—out there," croaked Filer, a trembling finger pointing toward the fragrant desert. "It's spring, Baby Jean—and now's the time to hunt for gold, when there's lots o' feed for the little fellas."
"Gold!" cried Jo. "Why, man, you've so much money coming to you that you can't spend it in the rest of your natural life." ”

“ With the city smells still in his nostrils, the buzz of city life still in his ears, and the countless lights twinkling in a frame about the white face of a brown-haired, red-lipped girl, he fell asleep from sheer fatigue. But with unaccountable perversity his dreaming mind dwelt not upon the beautiful vision he had come to love in fifteen seconds, but on the whispering firs and twinkling streams of Mendocino, and on a plodding ten-horse jerkline team hauling tanbark over the mountains to the coast. ”

“ Never had Hiram seen Jo in anything but a flannel shirt, Stetson hat, and chaps or divided riding skirt. Despite the fact that she was making money fast and that he was working for her at ninety dollars a month, Hiram had not before looked upon her as entirely out of his reach. He was learning fast, and had lost much of his backwoods uncouthness. He loved Jerkline Jo as only a big-hearted, simple-souled man can love a woman. Some day, he had told himself, he would do something to make himself worthy of her, for he never would ask her to marry him while he was in her employ. ”

“ The wagons and teams of Jerkline Jo's freight outfit were covered with flags, and Jo's proud skinners paraded the streets, the wagons loaded with cheering townspeople. Carried on the shoulders of men, the bride and groom were escorted to the Palace Dance Hall, where a banquet had been prepared, over which presided Twitter-or-Tweet Orr Tweet.
Far into the night they celebrated, and in all of Ragtown there was only one who did not attend. This was poor little Lucy Dalles, sobbing her heart out in her little cabin, her dream of wealth and marriage with Al Drummond gone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They're prevalent this time of year on the desert, and are sometimes fearfully annoying—especially so if it's been dry for a few days and the top of the sand isn't moist."
"What do they do to you, Jo?" asked Huber interestedly.
"Drive you crazy sometimes," she laughed. "They're just like little cyclones, you know. You'll be moving along serenely, when one of them will steal up behind you, and before you know it you're the center of a maelstrom of sand and dust, unable to see, your hat gone, your mouth and nose filled with—well, about everything that the desert boasts of. ”

“ As the magnificent whites plodded steadily on, there was added to the music of the nickeled bells the rapid clicking of Jo at the portable typewriter, or the slower, hesitating peck of Hiram Hooker. They were a silent pair, for they were deep in their studies. ”

“ As Jerkline Jo, the situation will be much the same. I am obliged to be a mixer. Men whose friendship I could not afford to dispense with even if I wished to—which, I assure you, I do not—won't stand for a high-and-mighty attitude in me. I am of the railroad grade, and proud of it, and I must continue to be a part of the rough-and-ready frontier life. Hiram, I suppose your ideas of womanhood are very hallowed. Will you be greatly shocked when you see me go into a tent saloon and drink a glass of beer with the rabble of the big camps? ”

“ She told about the whirlwind, and Lucy smiled thinly, and indicated the chair.
Jo climbed into it, and was bundled with clean, perfumed towels that caused her to grow reminiscent of school days and dainty dresses and all the things that as Jerkline Jo she had been obliged to put aside.
"Do you know," she said as Lucy began her delicate ministrations, "I've never before in my life been in a beauty parlor."
"You are one of the few women who do not need one," said Lucy, forced to a sincere compliment by the undeniable, fresh beauty of her patron. ”

“ Once more in all this vast, dread waste moves nothing save the vultures indolently circling in the hot dome above.
Days later a dust-covered automobile worms its way through the traffic in Los Angeles and comes to rest before a tall office building. Two as dusty as the car descend from the tonneau, and one leaves the seat beside the driver. Pedestrians stare curiously at the trio as, talking and laughing in high spirits, they cross the pavement to the building's entrance.
"Desert rats—mining folks," observes a wiseacre to his friend. "Look at the girl and the chaps! ”

“ The proprietor came out and asked that the load be discharged in the rear, as he had just completed a new freight platform at the back entrance.
"Right!" called Jo. Then, "Annie! Ned! Feel of it, white folks! Bert! Snip! All together. Let's go!"
Like a well-trained company of infantry, the ten whites leaned to the collars, and the eight tons behind them moved off as easily as a baby buggy. The hub of all eyes, the attractive girl with cries of "Gee" and "Haw" and picturesque manipulation of the jerkline, swung her team around the corner and into the alley. ”

“ I wish Drummond had beaten us out!"
"What foolish talk!" she said scornfully. "What is money? I care so little for money, Hiram. It was only to try and preserve from total collapse all my hard-working, indomitable, old foster father had built up so patiently that I undertook the freighting job. I've made money—lots of it—and if you think you and the rest of the boys haven't had a big share in my success you're all wrong. We'll keep on skinning them to Ragtown till the steel is laid; then I mean to do something handsome by the men who have been so loyal to me, and sell the outfit. ”

“ But the fortune was not there, and old age crept on. Old age told them that the world outside had passed beyond them, and they were afraid.
After all, had they given Hiram nothing? In his bitter moments he had thought so, but to-day his thoughts were mellowed. He was on the eve of leaving everything that held memories of them. Had they not given him of themselves a love for the grandeur of these woods which touched no other soul, save Uncle Sebastian's, perhaps, in all the valley? Hiram saw more in a redwood tree than the natives did ”

“ The arrival of Jerkline Jo and her proud huskies always was an event of importance at Ragtown. They made a picture as the heavy eight and ten-horse teams with the hundreds of bells a-jingle rolled the immense wagons down the street, while Jo's skinners, quite aware of the furor they were creating, called "Gee" and "Haw" and manipulated their jerklines unnecessarily, for the sole purpose of awing the spectators. One wagon was stopped at Huber's store; the rest continued on through to Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number One, a half mile beyond the town. ”

“ Life was good—life was glorious. Life was love! The poetic heart of the man from Wild-cat Hill sang ceaselessly. He was away on his romantic quest to serve the most splendid girl a man had ever loved!
As the morning progressed and the sun climbed higher and higher, Babe bore him through many camps, both large and small. At each he drew rein and made inquiry after an old prospector called Basil Filer, who drove six burros. No one had seen such a man, however, and Hiram continued on toward the north until noon. ”

“ I guess, after we've looked about the Gentle Wild Cat and I will just keep on driving jerkline to Ragtown—somewhere."
She pointed over the desert to where a bent old man and six drifting burros were blending gradually into the landscape.
"He's not crazy," she said softly. "He has just voiced a great fundamental truth for all humanity. Money is only a grubstake. The world needs gold and—and freight. Jerkline to Ragtown—that's life! Some Ragtown will need freight—some Ragtown—somewhere." ”

“ A woman moved frequently across the picture—a bent, tired, work-warped woman—his mother. The pitiable leanness of the life of Hiram's mother had been appalling. One word stood for the tenor of her days from sun to sun—nothing. She had never seen a piano or a typewriter, or even a washing machine. ”

“ Two hours later Hiram Hooker, apparently wandering aimlessly about the dimly lighted street, saw Al Drummond lift a hinged portion of the shooting-gallery counter and pass within. A man was in charge, and there was nobody shooting. Drummond nodded briefly to him, traversed the length of the target range, and disappeared through a door in the rear.
Three minutes after this Hiram slunk stealthily along the alley and up to Lucy's little cabin. Softly his fingers plucked at a knot in a knothole, which he had loosened that evening while Lucy was on watch in the gallery. ”

“ Ever since I was knee-high to you, until a very few years ago, I lived with one or more tent saloons within a stone's throw of our camp. Morals are, after all, a local conception, Hiram. What is thought to be wrong in one country will be the accepted practice just over the border line. It's all in the viewpoint. I not only go into saloons with men friends of mine, but sometimes I play poker or roulette or faro just to please them. And listen: Never in all my rough-and-ready life in railroad camps have I been insulted by regular stiffs, as the laborers are called. ”

“ No big animal hunt ever had been considered complete without Hiram Hooker to go along.
He remembered the incident of the man in the pines by the lake shore and groaned: "Fools!" he muttered. "They thought the rain would help cover their trail, where it only makes it plainer. Men can't travel through wet bushes without leaving a trail that looks like it had been made with whitewash and a broom. What has happened? Oh, Jo! Jo!" ”

“ The girl shrugged. "Stop the leak some way," she replied. "If we can destroy Filer's paper and the copy Hooker's got, then we'll be the only ones who know the dope. We'll have the only copy in existence, in other words; and even if we fail to get at Jerkline Jo and learn the rest of it, we can hold her to our terms. She won't be able to do a thing without knowing what her father wrote on the paper that Filer has."
"Lucy, it's a crazy business," said Drummond. "Sometimes I think it's all a pipedream of that nutty old prospector. They're all bughouse—these old desert rats." ”

“ When they were in camp, and the teams had been fed and watered from the great tank wagon, and Jerkline Jo, with the able help of Twitter-or-Tweet, had made ready the steaming meal, there arose loud praise of the girl's idea concerning the fireless cooker.
"By golly, Jo, this here's grub!" applauded Jim McAllen. "Some scheme, ol'-timer!"
"I thought it was a kind of a nutty idea when you sprung it, Jo," confessed Tom Gulick, "but I'm strong for the cooker now. Long may she wave! Pass the gravy, Blink." ”

“ Got blankets behind yer saddle, I see. All right, my friend. Ole Filer's always ready to share his grub with a passer-by on the desert. There's water in my little tank. Burros don't drink much, you know. A taste's enough till we get to a camp to-morrow. Handy, those camps, for prospectors needin' a grubstake. Let's camp over there by that lonesome yucca palm. He looks as if he wanted company. Maybe he'll whisper where they's gold to-night—if we keep on ear awake. He-he! Oh, they whisper lots—lots—lots! But they always lie like sin! ”

“ Tweet gallantly asked to accompany Jo to her cabin, and both were laughing at the absurdity of a girl like Jerkline Jo needing an escort, when Hiram Hooker hurried up to them.
"Well, I c'n see who's cut out," said Tweet, assuming a mournful expression. "So, if you don't mind, Jo, I'll get over to the hotel and keep after those two suckers. Take care of her, Wild Cat, and do whatever she tells you to do, or answer to me with your life. There's only one Jerkline Jo, you know, and the world needs her all the time. ”

“ I had to get out o' Frisco and get a toehold somewhere. But after seein' you, I can't try to put one over on you. Couldn't if I wanted to try, I guess. I am not a jerkline skinner, but I love animals. I am one of those confident persons who will try anything once—even twice. The things I have done, and was told I could not do, are legion. If you will give me a trial for my inseparable friend's sake, I have no doubt at all but that in the course of a short time your mules will refuse to lift a foot unless I am behind 'em with my persuasive voice. In other words, Miss Jo, I am yours to command. ”