ground, and
behind her and over her stood Hiram with an old-fashioned razor in his
hand. Beside them on a chair lay a strand of almost black hair three
feet in length, which Hiram swore that he would preserve until his
dying breath. On the back of Jo's head appeared a round spot, covered
with hairs half an inch in length, and these the brutal man was trying
to shave off with the razor. Never had barber a more provoking
customer.

"Oh, I'll look like a fright, Hiram! I've always been proud of my
hair."

"It'll grow out again," he said soothingly. "Besides, what I cut off
didn't cover a spot an inch and a half in diameter. With hair like
yours, it can't be noticed. If I'd thought it would disfigure your
hair, girl, I'd have said, 'Let the old gold go!' What an idea!"

"I positively never heard of such a weird thing. And to think it's on
me! And---- Oo-oo-oo-oo! You cut me, Hiram! It's bleeding!"

"No, no, no! Only more lather. Don't wiggle, Jo!"

"There! It's all over," Hiram said after a minute of silence.

Four days later Lucy Dalles and Al Drummond stood behind the counter of
the shooting gallery at Ragtown, and with a certain amount of nervous
expectancy watched the freight outfit of Jerkline Jo grow larger and
larger as it neared the journey's end.

Soon they heard the merry jingling of hundreds of bells, and next the
big horses were planting their heavy fetlocked feet in the street,
their glossy necks arched proudly as Ragtown turned out to greet them.

Lucy stood on tiptoe and craned her neck along the line of heavily
loaded wagons. "Don't see Jo's whites at the tail end," she remarked.

And presently her companion supplemented: "Nor Hooker's blacks. Say,
that's funny. There's only four teams, Hooker and the girl didn't
come!"

"Oh, dear, dear! What can that mean? Al, Hooker must have memorized
the directions! And----"

"Nonsense!" he exclaimed. "If he'd memorized them, why did he sit down
on the desert to copy em?"

"Oh, that's right, of course! But I'm worried, Al. Something must be
wrong."

Just then two men passed along the street, and a fragment of their
conversation floated to the anxious pair: "Says Jo's sick at Julia-----"

"Oh that's it!" Lucy murmured in relief. "And the hick stayed to nurse
her. There's not so much freight to be hauled right now. See,
Al--Heine and Keddie each are driving sixteen, with trailers. The
extra horses are white and black--Jo's