"Oh, I'll look like a fright, Hiram! I've always been proud of my hair."
"It'll grow out again," he said soothingly. "Besides, what I cut off didn't cover a spot an inch and a half in diameter. With hair like yours, it can't be noticed. If I'd thought it would disfigure your hair, girl, I'd have said, 'Let the old gold go!' What an idea!"
"I positively never heard of such a weird thing. And to think it's on me! And—— Oo-oo-oo-oo! You cut me, Hiram! It's bleeding!"
"No, no, no! Only more lather. Don't wiggle, Jo!"
"There! It's all over," Hiram said after a minute of silence.
Four days later Lucy Dalles and Al Drummond stood behind the counter of the shooting gallery at Ragtown, and with a certain amount of nervous expectancy watched the freight outfit of Jerkline Jo grow larger and larger as it neared the journey's end.
Soon they heard the merry jingling of hundreds of bells, and next the big horses were planting their heavy fetlocked feet in the street, their glossy necks arched proudly as Ragtown turned out to greet them.
Lucy stood on tiptoe and craned her neck along the line of heavily loaded wagons. "Don't see Jo's whites at the tail end," she remarked.
And presently her companion supplemented: "Nor Hooker's blacks. Say, that's funny. There's only four teams, Hooker and the girl didn't come!"
"Oh, dear, dear! What can that mean? Al, Hooker must have memorized the directions! And——"