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Then when they reached the beginning of the mountain pass they found a shock in store for them. The head skinner, Blink Keddie, had no more than entered the pass with his eight bay mules when a man stepped into the road and held up a hand for him to stop. He was a Western-looking individual, a seamed-faced son of the deserts, and an immense Colt revolver dragged at his hips.
All talked at once now. Not one was there that was not sure Hiram had hit upon a clew. "And Tehachapi Hank's a bad man," said Heine. "Admitted it himself. And he's a side-kick of that cholo-faced Drummond!" Study of the razor, now red with rust, showed the amateur detectives nothing. "And ye saw only the face of one of 'em, Hiram?" Blink Keddie asked it. "Only one.
He signaled Keddie to stop, and the outfit came to a halt. "Hello, Jo, and fellas!" cried the beaming Mr. Tweet, descending from his car. "The man who just passed you in the touring car is Mr. Richard Huber, one of our first citizens. He's Ragtown's first merchant. He's gone to direct the trucks to come to Greater Ragtown with their loads.
Now you know what're you goin' to do about it?" "Shall I have Wild Cat take you out, one at a time," Jo asked mischievously, after a thoughtful pause. Keddie shrugged. "I ain't achin' for my portion o' that," he confessed, "but ol' Timberline will know he's been in a fight." "It was despicable of you boys," Jo said sternly. "We'll not fight that way." "But the empty water tank, Jo!" cried Heine.
Then they came together with a thud of big bodies and a shower of hooflike fists. "Hi-yi!" yelled Blink Keddie. "What made our Gentle Wild Cat wild? Come on, boys! Back up ol' Wild Cat! Eat 'im, Hi-ram! Eat 'im alive! Le's send this outfit to the cleaners!" "Blink!" called Jerkline Jo shrilly as the pugnacious skinner charged threateningly at Drummond's truck drivers. He came to a stop.
Jerkline Jo's face was radiant with color, but she said softly: "And I want my man to be a fighter. It's in my blood, it seems." They said nothing more about it then, but each knew that love had spoken, and the unfriendly desert seemed a delectable land. In camp that night Blink Keddie made a confession.
Something must be wrong." Just then two men passed along the street, and a fragment of their conversation floated to the anxious pair: "Says Jo's sick at Julia " "Oh that's it!" Lucy murmured in relief. "And the hick stayed to nurse her. There's not so much freight to be hauled right now. See, Al Heine and Keddie each are driving sixteen, with trailers.
The fare was only seven or eight dollars, and since the season had opened one could get reduced rates for the round trip. That was the way the friend of the peanut butcher had gone in only he had stopped off at Keddie and had gone up to the dam with a fellow he knew that worked there. And he had brought back a trout that weighed practically eight pounds, dressed.
"No way at all," Jack replied shortly. "You can't go home." "Why, forevermore! I'll have to go somewhere else, then to some farm house where I can phone. Kate would be simply wild if " "Forget the farm house stuff. There aren't any such trimmings to these mountains. The next farm house is down around Keddie, somewhere. Through the woods, and mountain all the way."
He had come from a tiny tent set back from the road a way, half hidden by junipers and close to a trickling spring. Keddie clamped his brake and stopped his eight, eying the stranger curiously. Keddie, like Heine Schultz and Tom Gulick, had been on the railroad grade with Pickhandle Modock when Jo was a little girl.
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