doesn't get to Jo with what he's
learned."

"What can we do? He probably made a copy of what's written on Filer's
paper, so, even if we were to hold him up and get it away from him, old
Filer still would have the dope."

"Of course. That means that we've got to fix that old dub, too."

"What d'ye mean fix him?"

The girl shrugged. "Stop the leak some way," she replied. "If we can
destroy Filer's paper and the copy Hooker's got, then we'll be the only
ones who know the dope. We'll have the only copy in existence, in
other words; and even if we fail to get at Jerkline Jo and learn the
rest of it, we can hold her to our terms. She won't be able to do a
thing without knowing what her father wrote on the paper that Filer
has."

"Lucy, it's a crazy business," said Drummond. "Sometimes I think it's
all a pipedream of that nutty old prospector. They're all
bughouse--these old desert rats."

"It's not a pipedream," Lucy stoutly maintained. "I tell you I saw the
blue tattoo marks on that woman's scalp when I was beautifying her up
for the ball that night. I wondered what they were. Of course, with
her heavy hair covering them--growing right out of them, in fact--I
couldn't make out anything but blue dots."

"And you didn't ask her about 'em?"

"Why, of course not, Al! Do you suppose a hair dresser would last very
long in the business if she showed curiosity about a thing like that?
You don't know much about women. If I'd found a knob on her nut as big
as a baseball she'd never have been told that I'd seen it."

"But how in thunder has she reached her present age without knowing
it's there?"

"She inadvertantly explained that; and so, when later in the day, old
Filer spilled what he knew I was sure Jo had never dreamed of what she
is carrying about under her hair.

"You see, she was raised like an Indian. She told me that, even when
she was a little kid, she'd always been made to wash her own hair. She
naively confided to me that when she came into my place it was her
first time in any sort of a beauty parlor. A woman can't very well see
the back of her head, can she? And she'd never be able to see the
tattoo marks, even with two mirrors, with all that beautiful hair she's
got. Do you know what your scalp looks like, at the back of your head,
just above your ears? I guess not! You bet it's straight! And here
you sit arguing about a trifle, when a rich gold claim is slipping from
our fingers. C