He asked the question impulsively without realizing how it might sound, coming from a total stranger. The girl's slim figure stiffened and her chin went up. Then--perhaps something in his expression told her he had not meant to be impertinent--her face cleared. "The principal one is lack of help," she explained readily enough, and yet Stratton got a curious impression, somehow, that this wasn't really the worst of her troubles. "We're awfully short-handed." She hesitated an instant and then went on frankly, "To tell the truth, when you first came in I was hoping you might be looking for a job." For an instant Buck had all he could do to conceal his amazement at this extraordinary turn of events. "You mean I'd stand a chance of being taken on?" he countered, sparring for time. "Of course! That is--You are a cow-puncher, aren't you?" Stratton's lips twitched slightly. "I've worked around cattle all my life." "Then naturally it would be all right. I should be very glad to hire you. Tex Lynch usually looks after all that, but he's away this afternoon and there's no reason why I shouldn't--" Her quaint air of dignity was marred by a sudden, amused twitch of the lips. "I'm really awfully pleased you did come to me," she smiled. "He's been telling me for over two weeks that he couldn't hire a man for love or money; it'll be amusing to show him what I've done, sitting quietly here at home." "That's all settled, then?" Stratton had been doing some rapid thinking. "You'd like me to start in right away, I suppose? That'll suit me fine. My name's Bob Green. If you'll just explain to Lynch that I'm hired, I'll go down to the bunk-house and he can put me to work when he comes back." 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." 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." Her voice broke a little, and to Buck's astonishment she turned quite white as her eyes sought the book again. A sudden fear smote him that she had guessed his real identity, but he dismissed the notion quickly. Such a thing was next to impossible when she had never set eyes upon him before to-day.