Part 12 (1/2)
”I want skinners, muckers, hard-rock men for Was.h.i.+ngton. I want lumberjacks for Was.h.i.+ngton--long job--good pay! I want hard-rock men for Alaska--the harder the better. And I want----”
Here Orr Tweet grasped the enthusiast's sleeve. ”How about those jerkline skinners for southern California?” he asked. ”Saw it in the paper.”
”I'll see, old-timer--I'll look that up for you right away. Just step inside, please--you and your pal. Let you know all about it in two minutes. Line up for a good job, boys! Get out and make a stake!
Just a minute, boss man. Step right inside.”
Inside a railing, where many clerks were at work, the applicants were turned over to a sallow young man, who, being informed of what they wanted, consulted certain memoranda. Then he swiveled toward the two and gave them the particulars.
”Gold Belt Cut-off,” he said. ”Buildin' across the desert in southern California. Good camps--good pay--good grub--good water----”
”Cut all that,” dryly interrupted Orr Tweet.
”All right, sir,” replied the clerk cheerfully. ”Main contractors, Demarest, Spruce & Tillou. Want fifty muckers and fifty skinners--two jerkline skinners--must be A-1. Fifty-five a month and found. Fee two dollars. s.h.i.+p you out one o'clock to-morrow. On?”
Tweet nudged Hiram and nodded, and Hiram tendered four silver dollars.
”Just a minute,” said the clerk--though accepting the money. ”This office can't afford to get in bad with big contractors like Demarest, Spruce & Tillou. They've specified A-1 jerkline skinners, to skin eight, ten, and twelve over the desert and mountains. Are you there?”
”We are there,” replied Orr Tweet.
The clerk looked doubtful. ”Well, guess we'll have to take your word for it. Chances are you'll break away when you get to where you're makin' it, anyway. This is kind of a special job, though. Demarest himself wrote a personal letter about the two jerkline skinners.
They're not for him, it seems--just to be s.h.i.+pped down with the other skinners and muckers and hard-rock men we're sendin' him. The jerkline skinners are for 'Jerkline Jo.' Ever heard that name? If you're jerkline skinners that have followed railroad work you ought to've heard o' Jerkline Jo. Usta be monakered 'Gypo Jo.'”
”We're not railroaders,” said Mr. Tweet glibly. ”We're from Mendocino County--the big woods you know. But we can skin 'em for Jerkline Jo or any other man.”
”I'll take a chance,” said the clerk briskly. ”If you'd just wanted to get your railroad trip out o' Frisco you'd not thought to pick out the jerkline job, when only two were wanted. Jerkline Jo is a woman, though.”
”Yeah?” returned Mr. Tweet, then said to the heartbroken Hiram: ”You can't escape 'em, it seems, Hooker--you big mountain of a lady killer!
This is gonta be good. Send us to Jerkline Jo, old hoss! She'll bless you with her last breath. Chances are you'll meet a regular woman, now, Hiram--not a doll with three years' wages on her back! A big outdoor picture like you fallin' for a bunch o' female French pastry like that!”
The employment agency clerk shrugged and took their names.
CHAPTER X
JERKLINE JO
About six months previous to Hiram Hooker's momentous debut into the world outside of the big trees of Mendocino County, a girl stood in her dormitory room at Kendrick Hall and read a telegram with tear-dimmed eyes.
This girl was Miss Josepha Modock. She was twenty-two, and Providence had been kind to her--nay, lavish. She was straight and st.u.r.dy and strong. Her hair was of a dark chestnut hue, and its beauty and luxuriant growth made it at once the envy and admiration of her fellow students of the Wisconsin boarding school. Her eyes were large and dark and luminous, her nose just far enough short of perfect, her lips full and distracting.
Josepha Modock had been two years at Kendrick Hall. She was older than most of the girls who were her cla.s.smates, for the desire and opportunity to acquire an education had come to her at a late day in her teens. She was ambitious, however, and was making fast progress with her college preparatory course. Then came the telegram which she now held, and over which she wept tears of grief.
Her name was not really Josepha Modock. Modock was the name of her foster father, and he and her foster mother, the latter dead now for ten years, had given the girl the name of Josepha, because, when they had found her a mere baby weeping and lost on the great desert of California, they had discovered a ”J” embroidered on her underwear.
At that time Peter Modock--”Pickhandle” Modock--had been what is known in railroad-construction circles as a gypo man, or shanty man. A gypo man is an impecunious construction contractor whose light, haphazard outfit of teams and tools makes it necessary for him to subcontract in the lightest dirt work from a slightly better equipped subcontractor, who in turn has taken a subcontract from the main contractors in a big piece of railroad building. In the vernacular of the grade, a gypo man's daughter, if she follows the outfit, is known as a gypo queen.
Josepha Modock, then, had grown up in the camp of Pickhandle Modock, and in time had been known as a gypo queen, or shanty queen, and the prettiest one in the business at that.
It was when the Salt Lake Road was being built across the Mohave Desert that the baby girl had been found. Pickhandle Modock had taken a little piece of work from Grace Brothers, and was on his way across the sandy wastes to pitch camp and begin operations. His outfit was to be one of the first to arrive, and as yet no definite line of travel had been established to the work. A terrific sandstorm came up, and the outfit became lost on the desert, where men and teams wandered about without water for many perilous hours, some time in the midst of which the human atom afterward called Josepha was found.