he pen in another half-hour."

"That's the point to the whole matter. You just can't keep 'em penned
in, and you can't keep 'em barred out. They have reached the pest
stage and are incorrigible. Now I didn't expect to get much out of
them anyhow," continued Welborn. "If I could find a home for them,
where they would earn their keep, I would be willing to give them to
such a party. Oh, I know it sounds sort of mushy," he hastened to
explain as he noted the questioning look on David's countenance, "but
I killed their mother for raiding our truckpatch and hogpen and I
found these little fellows up near the den, starving and unable to
fend for themselves. I took them home, fed them milk and bread and
sugar and brought them up to where they are. But they have reached the
stage where something must be done. As you see, they are hard to pen
up and it's worse to turn them loose. Life to them is one continuous
round of wrestling, scrapping, knocking over anything that's loose,
and tearing up anything in reach. Whipping them does no good. They cry
and beg until you are sorry and then it's to do all over again. I just
couldn't kill them; it would be like killing a pet dog. So I just
thought that if I could find someone to take them and care for them,
it would be good riddance and give me time to go back to my work."

"Well, that solves the problem," said the midget, gleefully. "I've got
your party. He's old Fisheye Gleason right here with the show. We can
deal with that old buzzard as freely and as profitably as if we were
in a cutthroat pawnshop. Hey, you fellows," he called to some passing
laborers, "have any of you seen old Fisheye in the last hour?"

"Fisheye is linin' up the wagons in the menag," said one of the men.

"Er he may be up at the marquee tellin' the boss where to route the
show," said another. "Maybe he's got Beatty cornered, tellin' him a
new plan fer workin' the cats this afternoon," leered another. The
leader pointed to the far end of the big animal tent.

"I've got him located," said David. "Now you fix that slat so the
bears won't leave for the next hour and we'll work on Fisheye. He has
been with this plant ever since Uncle Ben took it out as a wagon show.
Hear him tell it, he set Barnum up in business and loaned the Ringling
boys their first money. Fisheye is a romancer, unhampered by facts.
But he's a wise old man at that.

"Fisheye Gleason still has his first dollar. He wears the same
corduroy pants