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While as yet the road into the mountains was not in the best shape for trucks, at least during winter months, still the noisy transporters of freight, of the lower tonnage capacity, were taking a great deal of business from him. Then the road on the other side of the mountains, connecting with the big coast-side cities, was paved; and this ended Pickhandle Modock's career as a jerkline freighter.
He preferred to sit and dwell on bygone days with the one-time queen of Pickhandle Modock's gypo camp, to listen to the account of her father's rise and fall and his subsequent untimely death, and of the girl's ambitions and life in the Middle Western school. They told many a story, these old-timers of the nomadic camps, and had many a laugh over quaint remembrances.
She knew the freighting business and construction teaming, and virtually nothing else; so with the idea that all of Pickhandle Modock's proud building must not have been for naught, she fought for final control of the freight outfit, and would not listen to those who claimed that the days of freighting with teams were over forever. In a month everything was settled all creditors satisfied.
The pack bags with the supplies, and the few miners' tools that lay about, were all but buried in the sands. Modock's note was still there.
She even did not know her name, and of Pickhandle Modock's family she had met not a single soul. But she had youth, courage, and ambition, and she went bravely at the many tasks before her. With the old justice of the peace she took up her father's affairs, and it soon became evident that to attempt to continue the store under existing conditions would be the part of folly.
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