CHAPTER XIX
WHAT MADE THE WILD CAT
Jerkline Jo's wagon train snailed on over the desert toward the tentsof Demarest's big camp. The tires of Mr. Tweet's shiny new car plunkeddown into the road, and that gentleman continued on toward the trucksand the machine of Ragtown's first merchant, Mr. Huber.
Hiram Hooker was riding with Jerkline Jo, and the two had been deep intheir studies when the appearance of the various automobiles haddistracted their attention. Hiram now climbed to the top of Jo'simmense load of baled alfalfa, and, looking back, made reports to her.
"They're all together now," he said, "and having quite an argument.Tweet's swinging his arms about as if he wanted to fight.
"Now he's getting into his car. He and the storekeeper are turning inahead of the trucks. Here they all come, Tweet in the lead!"
A little later Tweet shouted to Hiram to stop, and Hiram relayed thecommand to Jo, who called to her ten whites and brought them to astandstill. A little later five angry men hurried on foot alongsidethe wagon.
"Here's your hundred and twelve dollars, Jo," Tweet said exultantly,passing the girl a sheaf of bills, "And that settles that. Now, Mr.Drummond, step over here and be introduced to Jerkline Jo Modock and myfriend Hiram Hooker, from Wild-cat Hill. We'll see if you folks can'tget together and conduct your affairs amicably."
Al Drummond, Hiram Hooker's one-time rival, was indeed there, dressedafter the fashion of Mr. Tweet, and looking big and important andbusiness-like. There was a dark scowl on his brow though as he cameforward and nodded to Jo, but did not offer his hand.
"Well, I've been held up," he muttered, "and I'm going to see about it,but----"
"See about it all you want to, my friend," put in Tweet smoothly. "Ihave complete control of this land, and have the sole right to say whoshall cross it and who shall not, and under what conditions. The ranchis posted, and everything is in order. This road is a new one, and youcan't make the claim that it has been used so long that it must beconsidered in the nature of a public highway. You've not a leg tostand on; so every time you turn a wheel on this property it's goin' tocost you just what the last trip through the pass cost Jerkline Jo.You started something, my friend, and you can't finish it--that's all.Take your medicine like a sport."
"I'm going to keep up that mountain road, and I'm going to charge tomove vehicles and teams over it," replied Drummond angrily. "Myoperations are legitimate. Yours are a holdup."
"Suit yourself." Tweet shrugged indifferently. "But, as I pointedout, you'll pay back every cent you collect from Jo. And, besides,you'll be out the expenses of your toll master."
"Others besides this lady will be crossing--lots of them later on,"said Drummond. "I'm not going to keep that road in condition for thegeneral public free of charge."
"Then the best thing you can do is make a dicker with Jo to share herpart of the maintenance expenses, and you two divide the spoils thatyou collect from others."
"I can't agree to that," Jo put in hastily. "The road will serve verywell as it is for our purposes, with a few repairs now and then whichmy boys can attend to themselves. We don't have to have a road in asgood condition as the trucks will demand. We are entirely satisfied asmatters stand."
Tweet slapped his thigh. "Spoken like a man!" he cried. "Now it'syour move, Mr. Drummond. Fix your road all you want to and gougetravelers for the last cent you can, but this outfit travels throughthe mountains free, any way you can figure it out. Better write out apermanent permit for Jo, and do away with this collectin' back andforth and only breakin' even."
The truck man was so angry he scarcely could contain himself.
"It's a dirty, rotten deal!" he said between gritted teeth. "And thisis only part of it. This bunch of roughnecks rolled a big boulder inthe road after they'd passed yesterday, or some time, and it took usthree hours to get it out. Had to hook on the trucks, and unload, andcut poles--and I don't know what all we didn't have to do to get thething out so we could pass it. That's dirty, low-down business, andanybody who would do such a thing is a dirty piker--I don't care if sheis a woman! If I've got to come out here and buck a wild woman with noprinciple I'll----"
Al Drummond paused abruptly. A mountain of bone and muscle had swoopeddown from the top of the load of baled hay and loomed large before him.
"Mr. Drummond," said a caressing voice with what seemed a totallydisinterested drawl, "you're a liar!"
For a few seconds there was not a sound as Hiram Hooker stood beforeDrummond and eyed him placidly. The truck man's face had gonechalk-white. They were big men, both of them, and for all thatDrummond's life had not been a rugged one, he was physically prettymuch a man. Jo's skinners had come running back, and, with Tweet andHuber, looked on expectantly, sensing that a crisis between the two bighuskies was imminent. Then came the voice of Jerkline Jo.
"Hiram," she said, "don't be hasty." Jerkline Jo had seen many a fightbetween big men of the outdoor life. It was no new experience, andthere was not a quaver in her tones. She had been brought up where mensettled matters with fists or guns or pick handles. "Listen, Hiram,"she continued, "Mr. Drummond is telling the truth, I think, up to acertain point. When you boys were way ahead of me yesterday I heard arumble behind me. Evidently a big boulder rolled down in the roadafter we had passed. Just the same I'll thank you, Hiram, to ask Mr.Drummond to apologize for accusing me of being responsible."
"Yes, ma'am," drawled Hiram, reverting to his old speech of the redwoodforests. "Ye heard, Mr. Drummond. We didn't roll down any stone. I'dapologize now if I was you. That's best."
"Listen to the Gentle Wild Cat pur," said Heine Schultz, lookingabstractedly up at the clouds.
"Well, you ain't me, you gangling hick!" said Drummond. "I sawfootprints up above the rock wall that the stone fell from. It waspushed down. There are six of you. You could roll down a rock that wethree couldn't budge. You even could hook on teams and drag it in theroad behind you. Then when you came back, if it was still there, youcould easily snake it out of your own way with these big horses."
"I reckon you're right," admitted Hiram. "But we didn't do that, soyou oughta apologize to Jo." There was a deceptively soothing note inHiram's tones. He seemed to be patiently pointing out the bettercourse for Mr. Drummond to pursue, with no suggestion of what might bethe penalty for guessing wrong.
"Well, I'll not apologize! I'm not a fool! That rock was rolled down.It----"
"You're a liar, Mr. Drummond," repeated Hiram.
Then they came together with a thud of big bodies and a shower ofhooflike 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 'imalive! Le's send this outfit to the cleaners!"
"Blink!" called Jerkline Jo shrilly as the pugnacious skinner chargedthreateningly at Drummond's truck drivers. He came to a stop. "Don'tmake it general unless it becomes necessary," Jo added smoothly.
Meantime the two huge belligerents were hammering stunning blows ateach other. About them now stood silent men in a circle, with thevast, hot desert stretching away on every side.
It developed shortly that Drummond was an athlete. He was quicker onhis feet than Hiram and knew more tricks of offense and defense.Hiram, on the other hand, was a bull for strength and endurance, and inthe big-woods country had maintained a reputation as a rough-and-tumblefighter and wrestler, though most of his encounters had been friendlybouts. Furthermore, he was cool as one of his Mendocino trout streams,and he fought in a businesslike way and never allowed himself to losehis temper.
He was therefore the more deadly, for his endurance was unbounded, andthe punishment that Drummond was able to inflict seemed to have noeffect whatever. And when one of his big fists found its mark a groanwent up from Huber and Tweet. But Jerkline Jo and her rough-and-readyskinners, the latter all old fighters of the camps and used to unseemlysights, and the sickening sound of a big fist landing on givi
ng bone,only watched and waited for the result.
In no time at all, it seemed, the face of the truck man was raw, whileHiram's showed only bruises. They clinched repeatedly, and soon itbecame apparent that Drummond was forcing these clinches.
"You've got 'im goin', Gentle Wild Cat!" yelled Tom Gulick. "Keepafter his mush, ol'-timer! Pretty soon he won't be able to see you;then clean house with 'im!"
Drummond played for Hiram's wind now, but there was not an ounce of fatover the stomach that he hammered so repeatedly, and it seemed as if hewere battering hard rubber. He was fast losing his own wind, for hislife had not been so healthy as had that of the man from the Northernforests. Hiram's punishing fists were finding their target morefrequently now, for the truck man's defense was failing him. He wasslowing up--breathing hard--gulping.
"Guess it's time to stop it, Gentle Wild Cat," complacently observedJim McAllen.
Then Hiram finished it. He crowded his big antagonist and beat him tohis knees with blows that seemed to be skull crushing. Drummond's noseand mouth were badly damaged. Both eyes were mere slits, blazingbetween coloring puffs. One crushing, blow straight into his face ashe came up defiantly sent him reeling about, head down, groping blindly.
"One more in the same place, Wild Cat!" called Gulick.
But Hiram desisted, though continuing to trail the groping man as hereeled through the sand, stumbling frequently.
"Lock the door, Hiram!" begged Heine Schultz. "It's all over butclosin' up."
Hiram shook his head, and then Drummond wilted and sank in the sand.
Water was quickly provided, and the pulse of Jerkline Jo leaped as shesaw that Hiram himself was taking the most prominent part in thewhipped man's revival. It was fully five minutes before Drummond wasconscious again; then Hiram helped to bear him to one of the trucks.
"Thank you, Hiram," Jo said softly as he returned.
He looked up into her eyes, which were moist round the rims. He hadfought and won for his girl of romance, and he knew now that it hadbeen she who through all the years had been beckoning him to come.
With a damp cloth she tenderly touched his bruised face here and thereas the wagon train moved on again.
"Don't think any the worse of me, Hiram," she pleaded. "Perhaps I'm aroughneck, after all, as Drummond intimated. But I can't faint andcarry on at the sight of blood and the sound of battering fists as mostwomen do. I like a fight--a fair fight--a good fight--a manly fight.Life for me has been always a fight. I've learned not to shrink. Am Ibrutal--for a woman?"
"No," said Hiram. "I think I want you that way. Nobody could lookinto your eyes, Jo, and think you weren't tender and compassionate.I'd want my woman to be a fighter, I guess, when it was the time andplace to fight."
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 hadspoken, and the unfriendly desert seemed a delectable land.
In camp that night Blink Keddie made a confession.
"Jo," he said, twisting and squirming, "me and Heine and Jim and Tomdid ease that boulder into the road. We done it to get even for theempty water tank."
"Why, Blink!" Jo cried, aghast.
"We made it up to do it, and not even let Wild Cat in on the deal,'cause he seemed to think like you did. So we rampsed our teams andgot way ahead o' you folks, then stopped 'em when they was outa youfolks' sight around the curves, and ran back through the trees withbars. We had our rock all picked out, and it didn't take the four o'us no time to ease her to the edge and let 'er plunk down in the roadbehind you. Then we run ahead through the woods and got on our wagonsbefore you caught up. Now you know--what're you goin' to do about it?"
"Shall I have Wild Cat take you out, one at a time," Jo askedmischievously, after a thoughtful pause.
Keddie shrugged. "I ain't achin' for my portion o' that," heconfessed, "but ol' Timberline will know he's been in a fight."
"It was despicable of you boys," Jo said sternly. "We'll not fightthat way."
"But the empty water tank, Jo!" cried Heine. "My goat ain't throughgettin' got about that deal yet. You gotta fight the devil with fire,as they say."
"I'm terribly sorry," Jo continued, her brow clouding. "That act isresponsible for to-day's trouble, and we haven't yet heard the last ofthat, I'm afraid. And now _I'll_ have to apologize to Mr. Drummond andexplain."
"No, no, Jo! Let Hi-_ram_ do it. He knows how to apologize. Think o'the water tank, Jo!"
"We have no proof that Drummond or his men were responsible for theempty tank, boys. I'm terribly sorry. I must think over what's bestto be done now. We mustn't stoop to such methods. Even though we aresubjected to underhand competition, we ourselves must fight fair andnot descend to our enemy's level."
"You're aimin' to go to heaven, Jo," Gulick accused. "Drummond startedthe dirty work. We can show him a dozen tricks to offset emptyin' ourtank. Better tell him not to do anythin' more. We'll stop his clockif he does."
"You'll do it fairly, then, or you'll not drive teams for me," Joemphatically told them.
Their silence disturbed her. They knew that she could not do withoutthem. Even as matters stood, she could have used one more jerklineskinner could she have found one good enough to handle her much-lovedanimals. They were loyal to her, a stanch little army, hard to defeatif their crude but forceful methods of fighting could be brought intoplay. All of them looked upon the girl as their especial charge inlife, and whenever they fought for her they would, with only herwell-being in mind, fight as they saw fit. Still, she could controlthem if forewarned of their plans. She always had controlled them--notby condemning and issuing orders and threatening, but by the exerciseof her sweet womanly personality; for there was not a man of them butloved her and fairly worshiped at her shrine.
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