Red Hoss forgot temporarily the more-or-less indefinite purpose which had brought him hither. He joined a cluster of watchful persons who hopefully had collected before the scrolled and ornamented wooden entrance of a tarpaulin structure larger than any of the rest. From beneath the red-and-gold portico of this edifice there issued a blocky man in a checkered suit, with a hard hat draped precariously over one ear and with a magnificent jewel gleaming out of the bosom of a collarless shirt. All things about this man stamped him as one having authority over the housed mysteries roundabout. Visibly he rayed that aura of proprietorship common to some monarchs and to practically all owners of traveling caravansaries. Seeing him, Red Hoss promptly detached himself from the group he had just joined, and advanced, having it in mind to seek speech with this superior-appearing personage. The white man beat him to it. "Say, boy, that's right, keep a-coming," he called. His experienced eye appraised Red Hoss' muscular proportions. "Do you want a job?" "Whut kinder job, boss?" "Best job you ever had in your life," declared the white man. "You get fourteen a week and cakes. Get me? Fourteen dollars just as regular as Saturday night comes, and your scoffing free--all the chow you can eat thrown in. Then you hear the band play absolutely free of charge, and you see the big show six times a day without having to pay for it, and you travel round and see the country. Don't that sound good to you? Oh, yes, there's one thing else!" He dangled a yet more alluring temptation. "And you wear a red coat with brass buttons on it and a cap with a plume in it." "Sho' does sound good," said Red Hoss, warming. "Whut else I got to do, cunnel?" "Oh, just odd jobs round this pitch here--this animal show." "Hole on, please, boss! I don't have no truck wid elephints, does I?" "Nope. The elephants are down the line in a separate outfit of their own. You work with this show--clean out the cages and little things like that. Don't get worried," he added quickly, interpreting aright a look of sudden concern upon Red Hoss' face. "You don't have to go inside the cages to clean 'em out. You stay outside and do it with a long-handled tool. I had a good man on this job, but he quit on me unexpectedly night before last." The speaker failed to explain that the recent incumbent had quit thus abruptly as a result of having a forearm clawed by a lady leopard named Violet. "'Bout how long is dis yere job liable to last?" inquired Red Hoss. "You see, cunnel, Ise 'spectin' to have some right important private business in dis town 'fore so very long." "Then this is the very job you want. After we leave here to-morrow night we strike down across the state line and play three more stands, and then we wind up with a week in Memphis. We close up the season there and go into winter quarters, and you come on back home. What's your name?"