you the boss?"

"If I was the boss," slowly returned Blink, "I wouldn't live in the
same county with you."

By this time Jerkline Jo, who had been hurrying forward along the wagon
train to find out what had occurred, arrived on the scene of their airy
persiflage.

"What's wrong here, Blink?" she wanted to know.

"This fella has been insultin' me," claimed Blink. "He insinuated I
belonged to the idle-rich class. I guess he's institutin' some sort of
a drive or other. You talk to 'im, Jo."

"Well?" The girl wheeled and faced the man, hands on hips.

The Westerner swept off his hat. "Ye see, ma'am," he said to her,
"this here's a toll road now--from here clean acrost the mountains to
the desert on t'other side. I'm toll master. I'm to collect two
dollars a loaded team for the trip through the pass. The price
includes the return trip, empty."

Jerkline Jo paled. Up behind her crowded Tom Gulick, Hiram Hooker,
Heine Schultz, and Jim McAllen, and, if looks could have killed, the
man with the gun would have been ripe for the undertaker's care.

"Two dollars! You mean----"

"A dollar a head, then, ma'am. You got fifty-six animals. That 'u'd
be fifty-six dollars, wouldn't it?" He smiled persuasively.

Jo gasped, and turned and glanced helplessly over her little army of
loyal men.

"By whose authority are you demanding this?" She spun back to the toll
master, her dark eyes now aflame.

"Mr. Al Drummond he's the boss, ma'am. He's from Friscotown. He's
gotta keep up the road, so o' course he's gonta charge other folks to
travel on it. It's jest like as if it was his private prop'ty, as I
savvy the deal, ma'am. I got papers to show ye, if ye wanta see 'em.
Course I got nothin' to do with it--nothin' atall. Mr. Drummond he
jest hired me to collect the fees and keep folks off that refused to
pay. I might add, though, ma'am, that I've always been considered a
pretty good keeper-off when I'm hired for that purpose. I'm from the
Kitchen Rancho, over toward the Tehachapi. They call me Tehachapi
Hank. At yer service, ma'am."

Jerkline Jo's red lips were straight. She was indignant. A sense of
defeat almost overwhelmed her. Such a situation had not even remotely
occurred to her. In a wave of despair the realization swept over her
that she had attempted something of which she knew nothing. There had
been no one to advise her, and in the unbounded confidence of youth she
had not sought counsel. On