ring
tread and left men gaping after her. Still, she could not afford to
show her dislike.

"Oh, yes--I remember you perfectly well," she said. "Who wouldn't
remember the famous Jerkline Jo! Is there something I can do for you?"

"Mercy, yes!" laughed Jo. "One look at me ought to show you that."
She told about the whirlwind, and Lucy smiled thinly, and indicated the
chair.

Jo climbed into it, and was bundled with clean, perfumed towels that
caused her to grow reminiscent of school days and dainty dresses and
all the things that as Jerkline Jo she had been obliged to put aside.

"Do you know," she said as Lucy began her delicate ministrations, "I've
never before in my life been in a beauty parlor."

"You are one of the few women who do not need one," said Lucy, forced
to a sincere compliment by the undeniable, fresh beauty of her patron.

"Oh, thank you!" said Jo with a laugh. "It's not just that, though. I
expect, if the truth were told, I've needed the services of a beauty
artist for years. But I was raised in a construction camp, you know,
until I was pretty much of a young lady, and such things were entirely
out of my ken. Then at Palada, where my foster father eventually
settled and went into the freighting business and running a store, we
were not so progressive as Ragtown even. So when I went to boarding
school in the Middle West I was virtually immune from many of the new
fads. You, then, are the first person that ever washed my hair--except
myself, of course. I remember even that my dear old foster mother
always made me wash it when I was a kid--once a year perhaps," she
ended with a laugh. "Poor ma! She had little enough time to fuss with
a child's hair, cooking for big, hungry men all the time as she was,
and driving a slip team while she was resting."

Jo was merely trying to make conversation, for she could think of
little to say that she thought might touch a responsive cord in the
fluffy girl from the city. Jerkline Jo was a man's woman. She could
talk about almost anything that other women could not bring into their
conversation.

"You've had an interesting life, haven't you?" observed Lucy,
manipulating Jo's scalp till the skin tingled pleasantly. "I wish I
could have met you when I was writing moving-picture scenarios. What a
character you would have made for the heroine of a Western thriller!"

"Oh, you've written scenarios! How interesting! And--and--if this
isn't trespa