"We're all looking for men--good men--all the time. I can use a
half-dozen more cow-punchers right now. Do you want to try it?"

Conniston's one glance of the girl's eager face decided him.

"I've always had a curiosity to know what they did when they punched
the poor brutes," he grinned back. "And I can work out that dollar I
owe you too, can't I?"

"You're engaged," returned Mr. Crawford, crisply. "Thirty dollars a
month and found. I'll have one of the boys show you where the
bunk-house is. You'll begin work in the morning."




CHAPTER VI


As the significance of his change of fortunes began slowly to dawn on
him, Conniston was at first merely amused. One of the men employed by
John W. Crawford, a man whom Conniston came to know later as Rawhide
Jones, conducted him at the Old Man's orders to the bunk-house. The
man was lean, tall, sunburned, and the _tout ensemble_ of his
attire--his flapping, soiled vest, his turned-up, dingy-blue overalls,
his torn neck-handkerchief, and, above all, the two-weeks' growth upon
his spare face--gave him an unbelievable air of untidiness. He cast
one slow, measuring glance at the young fellow who Mr. Crawford had
said briefly was to go to work in the morning, and then without a
word, without a further look or waiting to see if he was followed,