Whistling, with her leather chaps swishing, she
walked through the store, smiling right and left at the clerks.

"Well, Jo, how was the trip?" asked Huber as she leaned on the edge of
the window to the proprietor's office and handed him her bills of
lading.

"Oh, much the same as usual," she replied. "The whirlwinds gave us
some trouble. They're prevalent this time of year on the desert, and
are sometimes fearfully annoying--especially so if it's been dry for a
few days and the top of the sand isn't moist."

"What do they do to you, Jo?" asked Huber interestedly.

"Drive you crazy sometimes," she laughed. "They're just like little
cyclones, you know. You'll be moving along serenely, when one of them
will steal up behind you, and before you know it you're the center of a
maelstrom of sand and dust, unable to see, your hat gone, your mouth
and nose filled with--well, about everything that the desert boasts of.
I was feeding hay to a pair of my horses this noon, when a whirlwind
slipped up on me. I threw myself flat on the ground, as one must do or
be swept off his feet, and when it had passed there was not one scrap
of that dry alfalfa hay where I'd thrown it. I found my hat a mile
distant. My nostrils and ears and eyes and mouth were literally loaded
with dirt and fine hay chaff. And my hair! Heavens!" She put her
hands to it. "I usually wear it in braids, you know, but to-day I
thought I'd be smart and perk up a bit. Now I'll have to 'go to the
cleaners,' as Heine says."

Huber laughed. "Say, Jo," he said, "that reminds me. There's a girl
here that'll give you a shampoo. She runs a shooting gallery, and has
a little beauty parlor on the side. Oh, we're getting quite urban at
Ragtown. We'll have Turkish baths next. Go to see her--she'll fix you
up."

"I'll just do that," said Jo, and went out on the street.

Then for the first time she became aware that Lucy Dalles was the
proprietress of Ragtown's beauty parlor, and even then she did not find
it out until she was inside the parlor and Lucy entered by a side door
that connected with the gallery. It was too late to back out
gracefully, even had Jo been inclined to do so.

"Why, hello!" she said. "I didn't know you ran this place. Miss
Dalles, isn't it? We met in the Palace Dance Hall one night, didn't
we?"

Lucy smiled professionally. She did not like this strong, rugged,
beautiful girl who strode along the street with such a firm, conque