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 plain to that team who was boss. Accordingly they went after more bones.

Waco bent his long back to the work as readily as if he already had a large share or stock in the concern. While he worked he sang, not continually, but by unexpected bursts, and this was his unvarying song:

Certainly, Simpson could not tell him, although he soon wished fervently for somebody to come along who could, and put a rest to Waco's doleful melody. But Waco was a genial cuss, for all his limited repertory, radiating a feeling of cheerfulness and honest fellowship that was a pleasure to share. Tom felt as if he had known him for years instead of hours, for he was transparent as a clean windowpane, a typical cowboy whose home was, indeed, wherever che hung up his hat.

Waco was not particularly young, although of that tenuous dry type that never grows old. About forty, Tom judged, with what history of roving and adventuring in the rough life of herdsman nobody but himself could tell. If he was for a man, he was all for him; if against him, he'd stay that way until one or the other of them lay on his cooling-board.

Tom took up Waco's proposal with Eudora and her mother after the noonday meal, Waco modestly retiring to the barn to look over the material for the further exercise of his art. Mrs. Ellison, who did not see any great future to the bone business, said it was only fair to divide such proceeds as might arise out of it in three, a