CHAPTER XXXII
LUCY PLANS A COUNTER-ATTACK
One who has never lived in a frontier camp such as Ragtown may find itdifficult to analyze the characters of Lucy Dalles and Albert Drummond.
Less than a year before Ragtown had sprung up overnight, both had beenordinarily respectable American citizens. Lucy's crowning fault hadbeen the lust for wealth. Added to this now was the fiercedetermination to realize her ambition, coupled with the completebreakdown of the moral fabric of her soul. She had been flirtatiousand pleasure-loving in San Francisco, but perhaps not really bad atheart.
Drummond had been as decent as millions of other young men who pass forthat in good society. A bit wild, but a man who dealt squarely withothers sportsmanlike, and perhaps considered perfectly honest byhimself and all who knew him.
But all this the frontier town had changed. That little semidormantspark of wickedness and criminality which is perhaps in every mother'sson and daughter of us had been fanned to a flame by the lawlessness ofRagtown. The feverish night life, the chink of gold on gambling tablesthat were seldom unoccupied, the continual drinking of intoxicants, thedoping and robbing of stiffs, which was practiced with studied,businesslike regularity, the brawls and shooting scrapes--all these hadworked their insidious spell upon mentalities not forfeited by carefulearly training and bed-rock character.
Drummond and Lucy Dalles were dangerous conspirators now, and took acertain pride in the knowledge of it. They not only schemed for greatrewards, but for the love of it. Lust for wealth and for revenge, thethrill of the dangerous and underhanded game they played, contempt forthose whose moral fabric was too strongly woven to break under thestrain of Ragtown, a certain vague satisfaction in their newlydiscovered rascality--all these spurred them on to make the most oftheir opportunities. One step in the direction they had taken leads soeasily to another, that now they had reached a point in their morallapse where they would stop at nothing--not even the taking of life--towin that on which they had set their hearts.
From a night spent at poker, Al Drummond, weary and half dead forsleep, reeled from the Dugout early on the morning when Hiram Hookerset out to find the crazy prospector, Basil Filer. As he slouchedalong the street in the cold he heard the jingling of bells and therumbling of heavy wagons; and presently the freight outfit of JerklineJo rolled past, the girl and her skinners, bundled to the ears andslapping their hands against their ribs for warmth.
Drummond gave them a contemptuous glance for their honest and difficultendeavor, then took note that his old enemy, the man from Wild-catHill, was missing. He wondered about this, but gave it little thoughtuntil it dawned upon him that Jo's beautiful black saddle mare, whichusually followed behind the wagon train with doglike loyalty, wasabsent too. He stopped short then and found that he was thinking ofthe old prospector, whom he had seen for the second time the day before.
He was worried. Could it be possible that Jo and Hiram had got wind ofthe mystery? For all he knew, they might have met the old mansomewhere on the desert and learned his secret. It was such a usualthing to see Hiram behind his ten black freighters on every trip in orout that the conspirator could not down suspicion.
All that day he worried over it, but did not mention it to Lucy.Coming from another night of poker the following morning, having seennothing of Hiram Hooker in the meantime, he decided to look into thematter as best he could.
He would get his car and drive up the line a way, toward the camp wherehe had seen Filer two days before. He could readily learn atintervening camps whether or not Hiram had ridden that way on Jo'sblack mare.
He had no appetite for breakfast, so he got out his touring car anddrove away toward the north while Ragtown slept.
Men were at work in the third camp that he reached, and here a littleinquiry brought forth the information that Hooker had gone the wayDrummond had feared. Now he drove fast along the road that followedthe right of way, passing rapidly through camp after camp, until he wasfar from Ragtown.
It was not yet eight o'clock when, far ahead, he saw a black horsegalloping toward him. He had just run the car out upon the smooth,dark surface of one of the desert's famous dry lakes, where almostnothing grew. The ground was level and hard as a dance floor, so heturned from the road and drove at right angles to it across the crustedsoil. He drove fast, and by the time the rider reached the point inthe road where Drummond first had seen him Drummond was so far awaythat Hiram could not recognize him or his car.
Drummond circled now and regained the road, continuing on into thenorth in search of what he dreaded to discover. But not many miles hadbeen covered before he was gritting his teeth and swearing over theknowledge of his scheme's defeat. He saw rolling toward him, swingingtheir packs from side to side as gently as a mother rocks a cradle, sixshaggy, long-eared "desert canaries" with an old desert-colored manbehind them who limped along with the aid of a cane.
Drummond drove no farther in that direction. There was no need for it.The sight of the old man drifting toward Ragtown and Hiram galloping onahead of him showed him plainly that the cat was out of the bag, thatthe two had held a conference on the desert during the night just past.
Bitter with rage, Drummond turned about and drove fiercely back inHiram's wake. He slowed down when he began to draw near to the horseand rider, and for an hour kept his distance while he waited for Hiramto reach another dry lake that was nearer to Ragtown than the first.
When the rider ahead had reached it and was galloping across if,Drummond speeded up, reached the lake in turn, and at last was able tomake a wide half circle over land where no greasewood grew to impedethe course of the car.
The lake was a large one, and by driving at close to sixty miles anhour and skirting its edge, he reached the road again a mile ahead ofHiram, and sped on toward home to break the news of defeat to LucyDalles.
At ten o'clock he reached Ragtown, having driven recklessly.
"Somebody's spilled the beans!" was his stormy beginning. "We'regypped. Got any jackass? Gi'me the bottle. I'm a wreck!"
He dropped wearily into a chair and told of what he had discovered.
"How on earth did they get wind of it?" she asked.
Drummond threw out his hands in a gesture proclaiming ignorance anddespair.
"There's one thing sure," she said thoughtfully. "He saw the paperonly yesterday or last night for the first time. Else why did he rideway up there to see Filer? Jerkline Jo, then, has not yet seen it.They've heard about it, though, and Hooker was sent out to hunt forFiler. So the first thing the big rube will do when he reaches Ragtownwill be to travel over toward Julia to overtake Jo and report. He'llget another horse, maybe, or hire a machine. Tweet would be in on it,no doubt, and would take him in his car. So what we've got to do, mydear boy, is to see that Hooker doesn't get to Jo with what he'slearned."
"What can we do? He probably made a copy of what's written on Filer'spaper, so, even if we were to hold him up and get it away from him, oldFiler still would have the dope."
"Of course. That means that we've got to fix that old dub, too."
"What d'ye mean fix him?"
The girl shrugged. "Stop the leak some way," she replied. "If we candestroy Filer's paper and the copy Hooker's got, then we'll be the onlyones who know the dope. We'll have the only copy in existence, inother words; and even if we fail to get at Jerkline Jo and learn therest of it, we can hold her to our terms. She won't be able to do athing without knowing what her father wrote on the paper that Filerhas."
"Lucy, it's a crazy business," said Drummond. "Sometimes I think it'sall a pipedream of that nutty old prospector. They're allbughouse--these old desert rats."
"It's not a pipedream," Lucy stoutly maintained. "I tell you I saw theblue tattoo marks on that woman's scalp when I was beautifying her upfor the ball that night. I wondered what they were. Of course, withher heavy hair covering them--growing right out of them, in fact--Icouldn't make out anything but blue dots."
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"And you didn't ask her about 'em?"
"Why, of course not, Al! Do you suppose a hair dresser would last verylong in the business if she showed curiosity about a thing like that?You don't know much about women. If I'd found a knob on her nut as bigas a baseball she'd never have been told that I'd seen it."
"But how in thunder has she reached her present age without knowingit's there?"
"She inadvertantly explained that; and so, when later in the day, oldFiler spilled what he knew I was sure Jo had never dreamed of what sheis carrying about under her hair.
"You see, she was raised like an Indian. She told me that, even whenshe was a little kid, she'd always been made to wash her own hair. Shenaively confided to me that when she came into my place it was herfirst time in any sort of a beauty parlor. A woman can't very well seethe back of her head, can she? And she'd never be able to see thetattoo marks, even with two mirrors, with all that beautiful hair she'sgot. Do you know what your scalp looks like, at the back of your head,just above your ears? I guess not! You bet it's straight! And hereyou sit arguing about a trifle, when a rich gold claim is slipping fromour fingers. Can't you--put your brain to work?"
"Well, what's to be done?"
"If that big boog starts to overtake Jerkline Jo, he's got to bestopped, and the copy taken away from him. While this is going on,Filer must be held up and the original taken from him and destroyed.
"Then when we get the copy away from Hooker and destroy Filer'soriginal, we can throw our cards on the table and laugh at 'em. Comeright out and say, 'Yes, we schemed to beat you, and we've done it.What're you going to do about it? You've got the tattooed part, we'vegot the only copy of the other part. Make us an offer! Otherwise,throw us in jail, if you think you've got it on us; but before we gothe paper will go up in smoke!' That'll hold 'em; and we'll demandthat we are not to be prosecuted, and we'll shake down half of the haul.
"But listen, Al--we'll do that only if they beat us out up to a pointwhere negotiations become necessary. If only we can destroy theoriginal and Hooker's copy, we can hold Hooker a prisoner till we getat Jerkline Jo and find out what's on her head. Then we can hog it alland beat it."
"Well--well, how'll we begin? You got me beat, Lucy. You're a betterschemer than I am. What's to be done first?"
"Beat it in your car to the mountains and get Tehachapi and the otherroughnecks. Send Tehachapi Hank up the line to waylay Filer betweencamps somewhere, with instructions to get the original from him by hookor crook. Leave it to Hank.
"Meantime, Hooker gets in here and starts after Jerkline Jo. It'sdoubtful if the thickhead will think to memorize what's on his copy, asI have done. Even if he does think to, he won't have time to do itbefore you nab him. He's dense--he wouldn't learn it in a week, I'llsay!"
"You and Hank's friend will waylay him, then, and get his copy, destroyit, and take Hooker into the mountains as a prisoner, with Hank'sfriend to guard him. Then it will be up to you and me to get JerklineJo as she's coming back through the mountains. Yes, I'll go along! Itseems the rest of you can do nothing. Leave that Jane to me! I'll gether by a method unknown to you men!
"We'll dope her, cut off her hair, shave her scalp, and get the part ofthe directions for finding the gold that we lack. Then, Al, why can'tyou and I get the stuff, beat it, and give Hank and the other jasperthe ha-ha?"
"Lucy, you're getting to be a regular little devil!"
Lucy shrugged and seemed rather pleased than otherwise.
"And your ideas about that gold are of the vaguest," he continued."You seem to think it's lying about in chunks, begging to be picked upand heaped in bushel baskets! All we can do, perhaps, is make claimfilings, and get to Los Angeles and record them. Then, to realizeanything, we've got to take mining engineers out there to make tests.Then the companies they represent will make us an offer--and probablyskin us alive. In the meantime we'll be having all kinds of troublewith Jerkline Jo and her bunch of roustabouts."
"Well, then, we'll settle all that later," Lucy retorted. "Your firstmove is to go for Hank and get a toehold, as Tweet says. Don't borrowtrouble! It's time to figure out our future steps when we know we holdall the trumps. And the sooner you start the better. Thank Heavenyou've not gambled away your last automobile, Al! Their horses beatyou before, but your last little old boat will win out now. Get after'em, boy! It's a great game if you don't weaken!"
Five minutes later Drummond was driving rapidly toward the mouth of themountain pass. By three o'clock he was back and following the line ofcamps again, with Tehachapi Hank huddled on the floor of the tonneauand covered with robes. Drummond had the good fortune to pass throughDemarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number Two when Hiram had stoppedthere for a late "hand-out," furnished by the obliging cooks. Drummondsaw the black mare standing near the cook tent door, and hurried onthrough, elated over the knowledge that Hiram had not seen him. He atlast dumped his passenger on the desert between camps, having estimatedthat the slow-moving burro train could not be many miles ahead.
Promising to return for Hank as soon as possible, Drummond raced backtoward Ragtown, passed Hiram again--at close quarters this time--andreached the tent village ahead of him early in the evening.
Now he and Lucy settled down to wait for Hiram's coming and to watchhis future movements.