ny sort of an education in a region so wild and so
inhospitable would have seemed impossible. Yet devoted
Sisters--refined and aristocratic American women--were already in this
mountain country devoting their lives to the Indian Missions. Under
such women little Jim learned his Catechism and his reading and from
them and their example a few of the amenities of life--so far removed
from him in every other direction. Under their care he grew up, after
he had lost his mother, among the Indian boys. With these he learned
to fish and hunt, to trap for pocket money, to use a bow and arrow and
a knife, to trail and stalk patiently, to lie uncomplainingly in cold
and wet, to ride without saddle or bridle or spur, to face a grizzly
without excitement, to use a rifle where the price of every cartridge
was reckoned and a poor aim sometimes cost life itself.

And every summer at home his father added extension courses in the
saddle and bridle, spur, hackamore and lariat to his education. He
taught him to rope, throw and mark, to use a coffee pot and frying pan,
and at last on the great day--the Commencement day, so to say of the
boy's frontier education--he presented him with his degree--a Colt's
revolver and a box of cartridges--and died. As he lay on his deathbed,
Texas Laramie left a parting advice to his young son: "You've learned
to shoot, Jim--you don't shoot bad for a youngster. A man's got to
shoot. But the less shooting you do, after you've learned--without
you're forced to it, mind you--the more comfortable you'll feel when
you get where I am now. All I can say is: I never killed an honest man
that I knowed of. In fact," his breath came very slowly, "I never yet
seen an honest man in the Falling Wall to kill."

And Jim began life with the ranch, youth, a little bunch of cattle, no
money and much health in the Falling Wall. His first year alone he
never forgot, for in the spring he drove all his steers--not a great
many--into the new railroad town, south--Sleepy Cat--and sold them for
more money than he had ever seen at one time in his life. He wandered
from the bank into Harry Tenison's gambling rooms--Harry having sold
out his livery stable to Joe Kitchen shortly before that--just to look
on for a little while before starting home. When Laramie did start
home, Tenison had all his steer money and Laramie owed the sober-faced
gambler, besides, one hundred dollars. Laramie then went to work on
the range for t