CHAPTER XXIII
DRUMMOND WEAVES A DREAM
Shortly after Jerkline Jo left the beauty parlor of Lucy Dalles,mischievously bent on giving Ragtown a harmless little shock, AlDrummond sidled up to the old prospector at the bar in the Palace DanceHall.
"Hello, old-timer," he said with a cheerful smile. "How's prospectingthese days?"
The old desert rat fixed a filmy eye on him. "Have a shot," he invitedwith the suggestion of a thickening tongue.
"Thanks, old hoss. Don't care if I do. That is, if you'll have onewith me."
They drank, and Drummond promptly ordered another. A lowering of hisleft eyelid gave the bartender his instructions, and a sprinkling ofpowder found its way into the glass that was thumped before Basil Filer.
Not long after this he became agreeable to anything that Al Drummondmight suggest. Al took him from place to place, always standing hisshare of the exorbitant prices demanded in Ragtown, and finallysuggested that they try their marksmanship as a diversion.
"Good!" agreed Filer gutturally. "Little girl, eh? Pretty!" Hewinked knowingly at Drummond. "I wanta have talk with her. I know whoshe is. B'en trailin' her fer years. Le's go, pardner. You're goo'scout. So'm I--hey?"
"You bet your sweet life you're a good scout! Come on--we'll have atime to-night."
Drummond had previously sent a boy to Lucy with a note informing herthat the come-on was about ripe for plucking, and telling her to putsome one else in charge of the gallery and be in readiness. Lucy hadsent out and found the man who at times relieved her, and when Drummondand the old gold-seeker lurched up she was free to act as thecircumstances might demand.
The two men fired at the targets for a little, Filer failing to displaythe same wonderful marksmanship which he had done earlier in theevening. Eventually Lucy invited the two to go back into the littlecabin in the rear of the gallery where she carried on her triflingdomestic activities. Filer readily agreed to this, and presently thethree were seated around a table in Lucy's cabin, with a coal-oil lampon it, a deck of cards suggestively in evidence, and a bottle ofprecious brandy and glasses. Lucy had brought from San Francisco herleopard-skin rug, the overstuffed chairs, and her other extravagancesin house furnishings. Their contrast with the new pine walls of thecabin produced an effect quite startling and bizarre. Basil Filer sawnone of it, however. He became very drowsy when he was seated. AlDrummond winked at Lucy.
The girl shook her head, and presently, seeing that the prospector wasalmost asleep, leaned toward her fellow conspirator and whispered:
"Don't hurry about getting his roll. Try to liven him up and get himto talking. I'm curious. He's got something on his mind that may makethat buckskin bag look like thirty cents."
"Get the jack," ordered Al. "To-morrow he won't even remember he eversaw us. You're letting your story-telling instinct warp your judgment,Lucy. You're looking for mysteries. I'll get that roll right now."
"No, leave it, Al, please! You can get it later, if I'm wrong. But Ijust feel that this old fella's got something locked up in his breast.Rouse him and leave him to me. I'll make him talk. I'm sorry youdoped him. You may have spoiled everything."
At this instant she looked up to see the bleary old eyes fixed on herintently.
"Feeling better, Uncle?" she asked lightly. "I've got somebromo-seltzer. I'll give you a shot; it will liven you up. Don't wantto go down and out so early in the evening, old sport!"
"Desert girl, huh?" thickly muttered Basil Filer. "Huh--I knowsomethin' 'bout you. You was found on the desert, wasn't ye--whenyou's li'l' girl--baby girl? I know. Can't fool o' Filer. B'enhuntin' you f'r years." He closed his eyes again, and his head sankforward on his breast.
Lucy shook him awake and prepared a dose of bromo-seltzer, which hereadily drank at her command.
"How did you know about me, Uncle?" she asked. "What you said is thetruth. I was found on the desert here when I was a baby girl. But howdid you know? Tell me all about it. Do you know my father's name?"
"Sure! Sure! Name was Len-Len-Len-Leonard Prince. You're JeanPrince. Len Prince was m' ol' pardner. I'm lookin'--lookin' for theclaim Len Prince and me and The Chink found--and lost ag'in. Rich!Yellow with gol'. You're Jean Prince--I know. I c'n prove it by yourhead. Tha's what I wanta see--yer head--down under the hair. That'lltell me you're Baby Jean Prince. Then I c'n find the gold."
Lucy clutched Al Drummond's arm. "Listen to him! Listen to him!" shebreathed.
Hiram Hooker stood aghast in the entrance of the Palace Dance Hall.All eyes within were focused on a couple waltzing in the center of thefloor to low music. The man was a Mr. Dalworth, Ragtown's new banker,in charge of the branch of a Los Angeles banking institution that hadbeen opened in the frontier camp. The girl, smiling and radiant andglistening with pale-blue silk and gems, was his adventure girl,Jerkline Jo.
Never had Hiram seen Jo in anything but a flannel shirt, Stetson hat,and chaps or divided riding skirt. Despite the fact that she wasmaking money fast and that he was working for her at ninety dollars amonth, Hiram had not before looked upon her as entirely out of hisreach. He was learning fast, and had lost much of his backwoodsuncouthness. He loved Jerkline Jo as only a big-hearted, simple-souledman can love a woman. Some day, he had told himself, he would dosomething to make himself worthy of her, for he never would ask her tomarry him while he was in her employ. He was too proud to ask anindependent girl to marry him when he had nothing to offer.
That rare feminine creature gliding so gracefully over the floor withthe dapper, well-dressed banker, however, plunged Hiram into the depthsof despair. Financially, mentally, and now socially, he felt heraltogether out of his world. He had forgotten until now her days atschool and in polite society.
It did not make him think the worse of her to see her dancing in asaloon, with rough men from the cities standing about and looking onadmirably. Ragtown was Ragtown, and people did things here which wouldhave ostracized them from decent society elsewhere. It was not thisthat hurt; he knew that the girl was pure-minded and that her moralswere flawless, despite what prudish persons--of which there were nonein Ragtown--might have thought of her choice of the place which shechose to satisfy her whim of the evening. Jo was one of those raresouls who can pass among evil men and women and not only not becontaminated, but preserve an unsullied reputation, too. It was thedress and the glittering tones and the wonderful coiffure, and hergentlemanly, well-groomed partner of the dance, that caused him to turnaway, bitter and broken in spirit.
"Well, how do you like her to-night?" came a taunting voice.
Lucy Dalles had stepped beside him and peering in at the revel.
"Some class, eh? Some lady, I'll say! Oh, sure!"
Hiram could have choked her, but without a remark he sped away from herinto the night.
It was then that Lucy Dallas clenched her teeth and hurled invective atthe radiant girl within.
She left the scene and hurried back to her little cabin, where thecrazy prospector, Basil Filer, lay in a heap on the floor, snoringloudly.
A moment after her entry Al Drummond came in again with another manfollowing him.
"How much jack did you leave him?" he whispered to the girl.
"I left it all. It's safest. What I copied from the paper will beworth a thousand times what's in that money bag."
"Just the same, I want money now--to-night," Drummond said, and,stooping, pulled the poke from the shirt front of the unconscious miner.
"Take only half of it, then," Lucy pleaded. "Then he'll think he spentthat much. Don't be a piker, Al. You've got something big to workfor, and you try to spoil it by rolling a stiff for a few dollars."
Drummond grunted, slipped a wad of bills into his trousers pocket, andreplaced the poke in the desert rat's shirt.
"All right, Stool," he said to the other man. "You take his head; I'lltake his feet."
A little later a train of pack burros moved away from Ragt
own into thedesert night.
A mile from town the man Stool halted them and waited, and presentlyheard the chug of a motor. Soon Al Drummond drove up in the last ofhis five-ton trucks, in the bottom of which, tossed about, lay thestill unconscious form of the old prospector.
The two men worked swiftly, and slanted two twelve-inch planks twoinches thick from the rear end of the truck to the ground. With ropesabout the necks of the desert rat's six burros, they hauled andhammered and coaxed them one by one aboard the truck. Then on into thenight they drove, over the vast, black desert.
Seventy-five miles from Ragtown they stopped the car, and unloaded theburros and their snoring master. They rolled the man in his blankets,then set the burros' packs about in orderly array and loosed the littleanimals to crop the bunch grass that was green and succulent in winter.From one pack bag they took cooking utensils and other articles, andranged them about on the ground as the old man himself might have doneupon making camp.
"He'll wake up to-morrow and think he dreamed about Ragtown," chuckledDrummond.
"He sure will know he's nutty then," said Stool.
They climbed once more into the truck, and before dawn were back in thecity of tents and new pine shacks.