ather 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 up
and heaped in bushel baskets! All we can do, perhaps, is make claim
filings, and get to Los Angeles and record them. Then, to realize
anything, we've got to take mining engineers out there to make tests.
Then the companies they represent will make us an offer--and probably
skin us alive. In the meantime we'll be having all kinds of trouble
with Jerkline Jo and her bunch of roustabouts."

"Well, then, we'll settle all that later," Lucy retorted. "Your first
move is to go for Hank and get a toehold, as Tweet says. Don't borrow
trouble! It's time to figure out our future steps when we know we hold
all the trumps. And the sooner you start the better. Thank Heaven
you've not gambled away your last automobile, Al! Their horses beat
you 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 the
mountain pass. By three o'clock he was back and following the line of
camps again, with Tehachapi Hank huddled on the floor of the tonneau
and covered with robes. Drummond had the good fortune to pass through
Demarest, Spruce & Tillou's Camp Number Two when Hiram had stopped
there for a late "hand-out," furnished by the obliging cooks. Drummond
saw the black mare standing near the cook tent door, and hurried on
through, elated over the knowledge that Hiram had not seen him. He at
last dumped his passenger on the desert between camps, having estimated
that the slow-moving burro train could not be many miles ahead.

Promising to return for Hank as soon as possible, Drummond raced back
toward Ragtown, passed Hiram again--at close quarters this time--and
reached the tent village ahead of him early in the evening.

Now he and Lucy settled down to wait for Hiram's coming and to watch
his future movements.

CHAPTER XXXIII

POCKETED

Hiram Hooker, knowing well the story of Jerkline Jo's having been found
as a baby girl in a deserted camp on the desert, had easily been able
to convince old Basil Filer that she was the young woman he had been
searching for so long.

They had spent half the night in planning in their desert camp.
Hiram's frank, open nature tended to breed confidence in the most
pessimistic of men; and when