ed in sand. The kid was gone, and the c'yotes
hadn't got her. They was a piece o' paper in the camp; but it had
rained and rained since it was stuck up there, and all the writin' was
gone. In Len's things I finds the paper that I'm carryin', and I kep'
it to myself. I've got it now--right here"--he thumped his
breast--"and for twenty years I've hunted for Baby Jean and never found
her.

"They's gold up there--up where Len Prince found it. The paper tells
only half o' how to relocate Len's claims. At the beginnin' it says
the paper's for Baby Jean, and no one else is to have it. Len knew he
was soon goin' to croak--and he fixed it for Baby Jean when he was
gone. He done his best. Any one who's got the paper knows only half.
Whoever's got the paper can't do nothin' without Baby Jean.

"The chink he done it. It was crazy--loco, you'll say. But what c'n
you expect from a man who's suffered as he did? Lissen, pardner--the
chink he done it. The paper tells about it. The chink he doped the
kid--with opium, some way, I guess--so's it wouldn't hurt her, and then
he tattooed the rest o' the directions for findin' the gold on the head
o' Baby Jean. Cut off some hair in back, and shaved a spot on her
little head, and tattooed it there. The chink he did. And then the
hair grew out ag'in, and nobody ever knew!

"Even Baby Jean don't know--a woman grown up now. And years and years
I've hunted for her, but couldn't find her. Cause I couldn't stick, I
guess. Somethin' always kep' callin' me back into the hills, and I'd
forgot. Just me and the little fellas, we understand. And we're
driftin' about ag'in huntin' for Baby Jean.

"I had a funny dream. I dreamed I'd found her--a young woman grown.
And in that dream she told me she was Baby Jean, and I told her all
about the paper and the tattoo marks. And then it looked like I
drifted into deeper sleep and I woke up in camp way out in nowhere.
I'd forgot again, you see, and drifted for the hills just when I'd
found Baby Jean. Or so I dreamed. But sometimes I think I wasn't
dreamin', pardner. It wasn't just like other dreams I've had. I got
it that I was in a place called Ragtown, and I know they's such a
place, cause everybody tells me so. And I was sick after the dream.
Funny! I'm drifting that a way now. I want to see that Ragtown. Was
it a dream? Or was the yuccas laughin' at ole Filer ag'in? I dunno.
But how come it I dreamed about a place called Rag