Morning showed them the desert, sweeping away again on the other side of the range. There still remained twenty-five miles to be traveled, eight of them comprising the descent through the pass.
Once down on the level again, Hiram turned his team over to the care of Tweet, and boarded Jo's wagon for the continuation of his education.
So they crawled on persistently, and eventually, ahead of them over the desert, white tents glowed pink in the sunlight like toadstools in a great timberless pasture, and their first trip was nearing its end.
When they reached the first cluster of tents Jerkline Jo discovered that they represented the largest of the subcontractors to whom her freight had been consigned. The next one was situated five miles farther up the line, and the third six miles beyond that. None of them had been there when she made her horseback trip. Close to the first camp that they reached, that of the Washburn-Stokes Construction Company's, the inevitable rag town had sprung up.
Already there were a dozen or more tents, most of them housing saloons, dance halls, and gamblers' layouts, and here and there a board or corrugated iron structure was under process of building. Only the three construction camps, as yet, had arrived on this portion of the work; the next camp beyond this group was fifty miles to the north.
Jerkline Jo knew, however, that before many days had passed camps large and small would be dotted along the right of way, and that all must be supplied by some one.
She stood talking to Mr. Washburn, the head of the firm, while his freight was being stacked before the huge commissary tent, when Mr. Tweet approached her.
"I'd like a word with you, Miss Modock, when you're at liberty," he said politely.
"Why, I'm just loafing with Mr. Washburn now," she said lightly, and turned away with him.
"Will you please tell me again what you did a few days back about the camp at Demarest, Spruce & Tillou?" he asked. "Explain it all, please—just why you think the tent town will eventually be located in a different place than it is now."