With a slight bow, he was moving away when Miss Thorne stopped him.
“Wait!” she cried. “Why, you haven’t said a word about wages.” 34
Buck turned back, biting his lip and inwardly cursing himself for his carelessness.
“I s’posed it would be the usual forty dollars,” he explained.
“We pay that for new hands,” the girl informed him in some surprise. She sat down beside the table and opened her book. “I can put you down for forty, I suppose, and then Tex will tell me what it ought to be after he’s seen you work. Green, did you say?”
“Robert Green.”
“And the address?”
Buck scratched his head.
“I don’t guess I’ve got any,” he returned. “I used to punch cows in Texas, but I’ve been away two years and a half, and the last outfit I was with has sold out to farmers.”
“Oh!” She looked up swiftly and her gaze leaped unerringly to the scar which showed below his tumbled hair. “Oh! I see. You—you’ve been through the war.”