Pickhandle Modock since long before the old railroader had settled at
Palada. Tom Gulick came from Utah, where he had been working on a
cattle ranch. Heine Schultz and Jim McAllen came from remote regions
in the northern lumber woods. But of Ed Hopkins, the prince of mule
skinners, and Harry Powell the girl could get no trace.

With the dependable force that she had mustered, however, she took the
stock from pasture, broke even on a job to a desert town to the west in
order to put the teams in shape, and then made ready for the
hundred-and-fifty-mile trip to Julia. She had written Mr. Demarest and
asked him to advertise for two good jerkline skinners to be shipped
with the first draft of laborers he would get from San Francisco. She
had small hopes of obtaining good skinners by this method, but no other
course presented itself.

Two days before the start for Julia came a wire from the San Francisco
office of Demarest, Spruce & Tillou. It read:

Employment office notifies two jerkline skinners
applied re advertisement in paper and have been
forwarded Palada. Arrive day after to-morrow.

Jo showed the telegram to Heine Schultz when she went to the corrals
this morning.

"I'll bet you get a couple o' peaches, Jo," he laughed. "Why, any
tramp's likely to go to an employment office and say he's anything they
want him to be, just to get on the job. And maybe, even, he'll ditch
the train before he reaches the job. Just wanted the trip, you know."

Jo's broad, smooth brow puckered. "I do hope that will not prove the
case," she said. "Jerkline skinners are so hard to get, particularly
in this country. Every man who has ever driven a horse or mule seems
to imagine he can drive jerkline, but you know and I know that it takes
knack and years of practice. But I'm hoping that because these two
applied for this particular job they're all right. If they merely
wished to get free transportation out of San Francisco, it was not
necessary for them to apply as jerkies. They could as easily have
arranged to be shipped as plain skinners, or rock men, or muckers."

"I'll bet you draw a prize, all right," Heine chuckled disconcertingly.

Jerkline Jo postponed the start a day, and awaited the coming of the
applicants.

As the local passenger train from Los Angeles whistled for Palada, Mr.
Orr Tweet roused himself from his seat in the smoker and slapped the
muscle-corded thigh of the disconsolate Hiram Hooker.