Never had Hiram seen Jo in anything but a flannel shirt, Stetson hat, and chaps or divided riding skirt. Despite the fact that she was making money fast and that he was working for her at ninety dollars a month, Hiram had not before looked upon her as entirely out of his reach. He was learning fast, and had lost much of his backwoods uncouthness. He loved Jerkline Jo as only a big-hearted, simple-souled man can love a woman. Some day, he had told himself, he would do something to make himself worthy of her, for he never would ask her to marry him while he was in her employ. He was too proud to ask an independent girl to marry him when he had nothing to offer.
That rare feminine creature gliding so gracefully over the floor with the dapper, well-dressed banker, however, plunged Hiram into the depths of despair. Financially, mentally, and now socially, he felt her altogether out of his world. He had forgotten until now her days at school and in polite society.
It did not make him think the worse of her to see her dancing in a saloon, with rough men from the cities standing about and looking on admirably. Ragtown was Ragtown, and people did things here which would have ostracized them from decent society elsewhere. It was not this that hurt; he knew that the girl was pure-minded and that her morals were flawless, despite what prudish persons—of which there were none in Ragtown—might have thought of her choice of the place which she chose to satisfy her whim of the evening. Jo was one of those rare souls who can pass among evil men and women and not only not be contaminated, but preserve an unsullied reputation, too. It was the dress and the glittering tones and the wonderful coiffure, and her gentlemanly, well-groomed partner of the dance, that caused him to turn away, bitter and broken in spirit.
"Well, how do you like her to-night?" came a taunting voice.
Lucy Dalles had stepped beside him and peering in at the revel.
"Some class, eh? Some lady, I'll say! Oh, sure!"
Hiram could have choked her, but without a remark he sped away from her into the night.
It was then that Lucy Dallas clenched her teeth and hurled invective at the radiant girl within.
She left the scene and hurried back to her little cabin, where the crazy prospector, Basil Filer, lay in a heap on the floor, snoring loudly.
A moment after her entry Al Drummond came in again with another man following him.