ubcontractor,
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.

She had been sole mistress of a tiny camp tucked away in a
half-sheltered little arroyo, over which spiked yucca palms stood guard
and helped to break the wind and check the drifting sands. There were
provisioned pack bags there, and the blowing sand had not entirely
covered the small hoof prints of several burros. A corral of corky
yucca trunks held the child a prisoner, and more trunks had been laid
on the walls to form a roof, which kept off coyotes. In here they
found her sobbing, suffering for water, abandoned by her elders, while
slowly but surely the sand was sifting in to bury her alive.

All trails leading to or from the spot had been wiped out. The child
was cautiously given water and food, and the suffering contractor's
party camped there, hoping for the return of the man or men who had
left the baby to such dangers in the merciless desert. But no one came
to claim her that day nor during the ensuing night; so next morning
Pickhandle's outfit set out to search desperately to better their own
alarming conditions, and took the child along. Modock left behind a
note explaining their action and informing whoever was responsible how
he might eventually be connected with, whereupon the child would be
returned.

That day the sandstorm subsided, and the outfit stumbled upon the road
to their destination. They found water before noon, and camped there
to recuperate. Here also, when they took their leave, they le