at table when, in the course of human
events, I ate again, and the way I made the biscuit and ham and boiled
potatoes vanish filled him with astonishment, if one may judge a man's
feelings by the size of his eyes. I told him that the ozone of the plains
had given me an appetite, and he did not contradict me; he looked at my
plate, and then smiled at his own, and said nothing--which was polite of
him.

"Did you ever skip two meals and try to make it up on the third?" I asked
him when we went out, and he said "Sure," and rolled a cigarette. In those
first hours of our acquaintance Frosty was not what I'd call loquacious.

That night I took out the letter addressed to one Perry Potter, which dad
had given me and which I had not had time to seal in his presence, and
read it cold-bloodedly. I don't do such things as a rule, but I was
getting a suspicion that I was being queered; that I'd got to start my
exile under a handicap of the contempt of the natives. If dad had stacked
the deck on me, I wanted to know it. But I misjudged him--or, perhaps, he
knew I'd read it. All he had written wouldn't hurt the reputation of any
one. It was:

The bearer, Ellis H. Carleton, is my son. He will probably be
with you for some time, and will not try to assume any authority
or usurp your position as foreman and overseer. You will treat
him as you do the other boys, and if he wants to work, pay him
the same wages--if he earns them.

It wasn't exactly throwing flowers in the path my young feet should tread,
but it might have been worse. At least, he did not give Perry Potter his
unbiased opinion of me, and it left me with a free hand to warp their
judgment somewhat in my favor. But--"If he wants to work, pay him the same
wages--if he earns them." Whew!

I might have saved him the trouble of writing that, if I had only known
it. Dad could go too far in this thing, I told myself chestily. I had
come, seeing that he insisted upon it, but I'd be damned if I'd work for
any man with a circus-poster name, and have him lord it over me. I hadn't
been brought up to appreciate that kind of joke. I meant to earn my
living, but I did not mean to get out and slave for Perry Potter. There
must be something respectable for a man to do in this country besides
ranch work.

In the morning we started off, with my trunks in the wagon, toward the
line of purple hills in the south. Frosty Miller told me, when I asked
him, that they were f