SINGING BIRD'S SECRET.
The boys laughed at the story, for Woofer, as they began to call him immediately, told it in a most comical manner. They all took to him immensely, and regarded him as quite an acquisition to the camp.
Dinner was announced by McCall, the cook, and Woofer certainly did justice to it, being, as Bud remarked in an aside to Hallie, "holler all the way down to his toes." He confessed that he had had nothing to eat but a little mud, which he had absorbed when he got a drink at a water hole, since the noon of the day before.
Ted had been thinking about the man. It would do no harm to have another puncher in the outfit, and would relieve the night guard, which at times was a little overworked.
"Say, Woofer, you won't take a reward for bringing in our strays, how would you like a job with this outfit?" he said.
"I don't want you to think I'm workin' ther grub line," said the cow-puncher quickly.
When a cow-puncher is said to be working the grub line, he is known as a thriftless cowman who cannot hold a job long anywhere, and who travels from ranch to ranch, staying only long enough at each to get fed up, then passing on with a few dollars in his pocket, to repeat the operation elsewhere.
"Certainly not," answered Ted. "If I believed that I wouldn't offer you the job."
"All right," said Woofer. "This outfit looks good to me, an' I'll jine, an' go ter work instanter."
"You're on the pay roll, then."