The She Boss Part 43

"You must bathe your eyes now, dear," said Jo, "for Mr. Tweet is coming to see you pretty soon. He told me so. Now look your best for Tweet has something serious to say to you."

She left her then, and an hour later Tweet interrupted Jo and Hiram in Jo's little cabin on the edge of town. He came in and sat down.

"Well, Jo," he said, "it's a go. We'll go to work and get married to-morrow mornin', if the old bus will take us to a preacher. I guess I've loved her some time," Tweet added bashfully. "Lucy and me'll make nice little playmates."

Hiram rose and gripped his old friend's hand. "I'm mighty glad, Tweet," he told him. "Just too much Ragtown--that's all that was the matter with Lucy. She was kind to me up there in Frisco when I'd just come out of the woods. Her heart's warm, and that's what counts."

Tweet's steel-blue eyes twinkled. "Course n.o.body could blame her for makin' you spend four dollars an hour for an automobile," he said. "It was a crime not to roll you for your jack in those days, Hooker. I forgave her for that a long time ago."

Next morning Basil Filer drifted into town, driving his recaptured burros ahead of him. Silently he worked at packing the bags and throwing diamond hitches.

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."

"Money?" he said absently. "Yes--you've done me han'some, Baby Jean.

But I ain't got much use for money. Money's only a grubstake, so's you c'n buy things and go out and hunt for gold. Good-by, folks! Next fall you'll see me and the little fellas ag'in. Hi, Muta! Lead out!"

And, gripping his staff, he limped off in the wake of his long-eared companions, swinging their packs from side to side as a mother rocks the cradle.

"They're all like that," said a man. "It's the hunt for it that keeps 'em goin'. They don't know what to do with it when they get it."

The dark eyes of Jerkline Jo were full of dreams.

"Yes, we're all like that, I imagine," she said.

"And how bout _you_, Jo?" some one asked. "Now that you're rich and married and all?"

Jo looked down the street at the nearly completed roundhouse and the track-laying engine working on below the town.

"I?" she said dreamily. "Why--why--I don't just know. The steel has come, and now freight will reach here by train. We're going to New York--Hiram and I--and maybe across the Atlantic. But we'll come back soon, and--and---- Oh, there'll be a new road building somewhere--another Ragtown. We couldn't quit, I guess. What's city life and all that money will buy compared with the thrill of driving a ten-horse jerkline team over the desert and the mountains? 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."

THE END.