discovered that the alliterative Mr. Potter was roosting on the fence,
watching me with those needle-pointed eyes of his. I wondered if he was
about to prepare another report for dad.

"Do yuh 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.