n desert to learn the worst, and meet it as
hard-fighting old Pickhandle Modock would have wished her to meet
it--as a girl called Jerkline Jo should meet life's threatening defeats.

CHAPTER XI

THE RETURN OF JERKLINE JO

When the long overland train contemptuously groaned to a reluctant stop
in Palada the infrequent occurrence told the town that Jerkline Jo had
returned for her foster father's funeral and the readjustment of his
badly involved affairs. Old friends, old pals, old lovers crowded
about her on the depot platform, wringing her strong hand in sympathy
and offering help. The village hack was running no more now, so
friends carried her baggage for her to the house on the hill, where lay
the body of Pickhandle Modock.

Friends stayed with her that night. The funeral was solemnized next
day. In all the world, now, Jerkline Jo had not the semblance of a
relative, so far as she knew. She even did not know her name, and of
Pickhandle Modock's family she had met not a single soul. But she had
youth, courage, and ambition, and she went bravely at the many tasks
before her.

With the old justice of the peace she took up her father's affairs, and
it soon became evident that to attempt to continue the store under
existing conditions would be the part of folly. The business was
deeply in debt to jobbers in the cities on the coast side of the
mountains, and such stock as they would accept must go back to them to
cancel their claims. The store building was mortgaged; the residence
property was mortgaged. The teams and wagons and the blacksmith shop
seemed to be all that she could save from the wreckage, and these
appeared to be more of an encumbrance than otherwise.

Still, she decided, against the advice of all well-meaning friends, to
try to hold on to them and to be able to own them, clear of any claims
against them. She knew the freighting business and construction
teaming, and virtually nothing else; so with the idea that all of
Pickhandle Modock's proud building must not have been for naught, she
fought for final control of the freight outfit, and would not listen to
those who claimed that the days of freighting with teams were over
forever.

In a month everything was settled--all creditors satisfied. She had
arranged to pay the store's debts with the acceptable stock on hand,
having made great concessions. She had promised the store building and
the residence property to the mortgagees, e