Shortly afterward he heard from her—just a little note saying she was a hello girl on a switchboard. “Knew she’d land on her feet,” Herman grinned, and having a bottle handy he gurgled a toast to Helen. He had to tell the news of course and with each telling he produced the bottle. So he was in a pleasant mood when somebody suggested a spot of poker. To mention poker in Shoshone is to have a game and in a little while Dad Fairbanks, Dan Modine, deputy sheriff, Herman, and two or three others were shuffling chips over in the Mesquite Club. Herman had the luck and quit with $700. “Fellows,” he said as he folded his money, “take a last look at this roll. You won’t see it again.” “Oh, you’ll be back,” Fairbanks said. But Herman didn’t come back. Instead he went to Los Angeles, found Helen at the switchboard. She confided excitedly that she had a chance to get into the movies as soon as she could get some nice clothes. “Fine,” Herman said. “When can I see you?” He made a date for dinner, had a few more drinks and when he met her he had a comfortable binge and a grand idea. “... Listen Helen. You wouldn’t get mad at a fool like me if I meant well, would you?” “Why Herman—you know I wouldn’t,” she laughed. “I’m a little likkered and it’s kinda personal....” “But you’re a gentleman, Herman—drunk or sober....” “I’ve been thinking of this picture business. I nicked Dad Fairbanks in a poker game. You know how I am. Lose it all one way or another. You take it and buy what you need and it’ll do us both some good.” The refusal was quick. “It’s sweet of you Herman, but not that. I just couldn’t.” “You can borrow it, can’t you ... so I won’t drink it up?” The argument won and soon theater goers all over the world were clutching their palms as they watched the hair-raising escapes from death that pictured “The Perils of Pauline”—the serial that made Helen Holmes one of the immortals of the silent films. She died at 58, on July 8, 1950. When Charlie Brown became Supervisor in charge of Death Valley roads, he wanted a foreman who knew the country. Herman Jones had hunted game, treasure, fossils, artifacts of ancient Indians all over Death Valley and knew the water courses, the location of subterranean ooze, the dry washes which when filled by cloudbursts were a menace. Brown made him foreman of the road crew. At Shoshone, Herman Jones, grey now, was tinkering with a battered Ford when a big Rolls-Royce stopped. He looked around at the slam of the door, stared a moment at the man approaching, dropped his tools, wiped his hands on a greasy rag. “Well, I’ll be—” he laughed. “Harry Oakes—where’ve you been all these years?” “Oh, knocking around,” grinned Oakes. “Wanted to see this country again.” They sat in the shade of a mesquite, talked over Greenwater days and the homely memories that leap out of nowhere at such a time.