h want to be put on the pay-roll?" he asked, without any preamble,
when he caught my glance.

"Yes, if I'm _earning_ wages. 'The laborer is worthy of his hire,' I
believe," I retorted loftily. The fact was, I was strapped again--and,
though one did not need money on the Bay State Ranch, it's a good thing to
have around.

He grinned into his collar. "Well," he said, "you've been pretty busy the
last three weeks, but I ain't had any orders to hire a boxing-master for
the boys. I don't know as that'd rightly come under the head of legitimate
expenses; boxing-masters come high, I've heard. Are yuh going on
round-up?"

"Sure!" I answered, in an exact copy--as near as I could make it--of
Frosty Miller's intonation. I was making Frosty my model those days.

He said: "All right--your pay starts on the fifteenth of next
month"--which was April. Then he got down from the fence and went off, and
I mounted Shylock and rode away to Laurel, after the mail. Not that I
expected any, for no one but dad knew where I was, and I hadn't heard a
word from him, though I knew he wrote to Perry Potter--or his secretary
did--every week or so. Really, I don't think a father ought to be so
chesty with the only son he's got, even if the son is a no-account young
cub.

I was standing in the post-office, which was a store and saloon as well,
when an old fellow with stubby whiskers and a jaw that looked as though it
had been trimmed square with a rule, and a limp that made me know at once
who he was, came in. He was standing at the little square window, talking
to the postmaster and waving his pipe to emphasize what he said, when
a horse went past the door on the dead run, with bridle-reins flying.
A fellow rushed out past us--it was his horse--and hit old King's elbow
a clip as he went by. The pipe went about ten feet and landed in a
pickle-keg. I went after it and fished it out for the old fellow--not so
much because I'm filled with a natural courtesy, as because I was curious
to know the man that had got the best of dad.

He thanked me, and asked me across to the saloon side of the room to drink
with him. "I don't know as I've met you before, young man," he said, eying
me puzzled. "Your face is familiar, though; been in this country long?"

"No," I said; "a little over a month is all."

"Well, if you ever happen around my way--King's Highway, they call my
place--stop and see me. Going to stay long out here?"

"I think so," I replied, moti