and now I suppose I have about eight hundred."

"Not bad, not bad," said the other. "Too bad you didn't stop half an hour
before. Just passing through these parts?"

"I'm looking for a job," said Terry. "Can you tell me where to start
hunting? Cows are my game."

The other paused a moment and surveyed his companion. There seemed just a
shade of doubt in his eyes. They were remarkably large and yellowish
gray, those eyes of Joe Pollard, and now and again when he grew
thoughtful they became like clouded agate. They had that color now as he
gazed at Terry. Eventually his glance cleared.

"I got a little work of my own," he declared. "My range is all clogged up
with varmints. Any hand with a gun and traps?"

"Pretty fair hand," said Terry modestly.

And he was employed on the spot.

He felt one reassuring thing about his employer--that no echo out of his
past or the past of his father would make the man discharge him. Indeed,
taking him all in all, there was under the kindliness of Joe Pollard an
indescribable basic firmness. His eyes, for example, in their habit of
looking straight at one, reminded him of the eyes of Denver. His voice
was steady and deep and mellow, and one felt that it might be expanded to
an enormous volume. Such a man would not fly off into snap judgments and
become alarmed because an employee had a past or a strange name.