The Settling of the Sage | Page 4

not seem surprised when a young girl emerged from the open door of the shop as he neared it.
She was clad in a gray flannel skirt and black Angora chaps. The heavy brown hair was concealed beneath the broad hat that was pulled low over her eyes after the fashion of those who live much in the open. The man removed his hat and stood before her.
"Miss Warren?" he inquired. The girl nodded and waited for him to state his purpose.
"What are the chances of my riding for the Three Bar?" he asked.
"We're full-handed," said the girl. "I'm sorry."
"You'll be breaking out the remuda right soon now," he suggested. "I'm real handy round a breaking corral."
"They're all handy at that," she said. Then she noted the two horses before the bunk house and frowned. Her eyes searched the stranger's face and found no fault with it; she liked his level gaze. But she wondered what manner of man this was who had so aimlessly wandered alone for a year and avoided all other men.
"Since you've finally decided to work, how does it happen that you choose the Three Bar?" she asked, then flushed under his eyes as she remembered that so many men had wished to ride for her brand more than for another, their reasons in each case the same.
"Because the Three Bar needs a man that has prowled this country and gathered a few points about what's going on," he returned.
"And that information is for sale to any brand that hires you!" said the girl. "Is that what you mean?"
"If it was, there would be nothing wrong with a man's schooling himself to know all points of his job before he asked for it," he said. "But it happens that wasn't exactly my reason."
A shade of weariness passed over her face. During the two years that her father had been confined to the house after being caved in by a horse and in the one year that had elapsed since his death the six thousand cows that had worn the Three Bar brand on the range had decreased by almost half under her management.
"I'll put you on," she said. "But you'll probably be insulted at what I have to offer. The men start out after the horses to-morrow. I want a man to stay here and do tinkering jobs round the place till they get back."
"That'll suit me as well as any," he accepted promptly. "I'm a great little hand at tinkering round."
The clang of the sledge had ceased and a huge, fat man loomed in the door of the shop and mopped his dripping face with a bandanna.
"I'm glad you've come," he assured the new-comer. "A man that's not above doing a little fixing up! A cowhand is the most overworked and underpaid saphead that ever lost three nights' sleep hand running and worked seventy-two hours on end; sleep in the rain or not at all--to hold a job at forty per for six months in the year. The other six he's throwed loose like a range horse to rustle or starve. Hardest work in the world--but he don't know it, or money wouldn't hire him to lift his hand. He thinks it's play. Not one out of ten but what prides himself that he can't be browbeat into doing a tap of work. Ask him to cut a stick of firewood and he'll arch his back and laugh at you scornful like. Don't that beat hell?"
"It do," said the stranger.
"I'm the best wagon cook that ever sloshed dishwater over the tail-gate, and even better than that in a ranch-house kitchen," the loquacious one modestly assured him. "But I can't do justice to the meals when I lay out to do all the chores within four miles and run myself thin collecting scraps and squaw wood to keep the stove het up. Now since Billie has hired you, I trust you'll work up a pile of wood that will keep me going--and folks call me Waddles," he added as an afterthought.
"Very good, Mr. Waddles," the newcomer smiled. "You shall have your fuel."
The big man grinned.
"That title is derived from my shape and gait," he informed. "My regular name is Smith--if you're set on tacking a Mister on behind it."
The girl waved the talkative cook aside and turned to the new hand.
"You'll take it then."
He nodded.
"Could you spare me about ten minutes some time to-day?" he asked.
"Yes," she said. "I'll send for you when I have time."
The man headed back for his horses and unlashed the buckskin's top-pack, dropping it to the ground, then led the two of them back toward the corral, stripped the saddle from the pinto, the side panniers and packsaddle from the buckskin and turned them into the corral. He rambled among the outbuildings