"She blows, Hiram, old boy!" cried Mr. Tweet. "Fame and fortune await
us just ahead. She slows! She creeps! Palada opens her arms to us!
Perk up, Hiram! The girl wasn't your kind, my boy. You'd have stepped
all over her little feet, and she'd got a divorce and alimony on the
grounds o' cruelty."

Hiram Hooker sighed and stretched his columnar arms. For a moment or
two the new prospects that loomed kept his mind busy, then his thoughts
reverted to Lucy Dalles, and gloom claimed him once more.

"Don't talk like that, Playmate," he said. "You don't understand. I
loved the girl."

"Prune juice! She'd 'a' made a regular sucker outa you. Good thing I
got you away. A big mountain o' blood and bone like you fallin' for a
dash o' cake frosting like that little hasher. Hiram, you've got a
man's body and a man's brains, and I like you better the more I see of
you. If you're goin' to weep over a woman, weep over a regular woman,
boy--a man's woman. There! Look out the window. See that straight,
strong, black-headed desert girl in chaps and a Stetson? Look at the
brown of her! Look at her stride! Queen o' the earth, hey? That's
the kind of a woman for a man with the body of an elephant and the
imagination of a poet, like you've got. There's a girl worth sighin'
for, only she wears leather chaps! Well, out we go. Palada for a
toehold on the ladder o' fame and fortune!"

The train had squeaked to a stop, and the effervescent Mr. Tweet and
his huge companion descended the steps to the sunny platform. The
businesslike Mr. Tweet buttonholed the first villager he met, and
informed him:

"We're lookin' for a party called Jerkline Jo--a lady with a far-flung
reputation. Can you steer us to her rendezvous, my friend?"

The man stared at him a moment, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"There's Jo over there," he said. "She's lookin' for ye, I reckon.
That pretty girl in the chaps."

"Her!" gasped Mr. Tweet. "Lordy! And I was just eulogizin' her
through the window o' the coach. I saw her first--Hiram--I saw her
first!"

Next second Mr. Tweet was before Jerkline Jo, lifting his hat and
bowing politely. Behind him, Hiram Hooker stood awkwardly looking at
the girl he had traveled six hundred miles to work for.

"Madam," said his companion, "if you are Jerkline Jo, permit me to
introduce myself and my friend. I am Mr. Tweet--Playmate
Tweet--Twitter-or-Tweet Orr Tweet. My friend and companion