“Yes, sir.”
“Can you count change?”
“When I’ve got any.”
The man laughed, his large shoulders shaking up and down.
“Well, I’ll try you a week—I’ve got nobody else. What’s your friend going to do?”
“I brought a tent of my own,” Tom explained, “and I thought I could pitch it just into the woods somewhere, out of sight, and we’d live in that, and Joe’s going to get our meals, so’s I can give all my time to looking after the tepees—couldn’t we do that?”
The man turned to Joe. “Are you a good cook?” he asked.
“I can cook camp stuff all right, and make bread, and things like that,” said Joe.
“Can you throw a diamond hitch?”
“I don’t know—I never tried,” Joe replied.