quiet boy about twenty-five, not saying much, chunky and
slow-moving but sure, with a round Scotch head and a snub nose, and one
heavy eyebrow that run clean across his face--not cut in two like most
are.

"He landed on the ranch and slowly looked things over and let on after a
few days that he mebbe would be a cowboy on account of it taking him
outdoors more than kalsomining would. Lysander John was pretty busy, but
he said all right, and gave him a saddle and bridle and a pair of bull
pants and warned him about a couple of cinch-binders that he mustn't try
to ride or they would murder him. And so one morning Angus asked a
little bronch-squeezer we had, named Everett Sloan, to pick him out
something safe to ride, and Everett done so. Brought him up a nice old
rope horse that would have been as safe as a supreme-court judge, but
the canny Angus says: 'No, none of your tricks now! That beast has the
very devil in his eye, and you wish to sit by and laugh your fool head
off when he displaces me.' 'Is that so?' says Everett. 'I suspect you,'
says Angus. 'I've read plentifully about the tricks of you cowlads.'
'Pick your own horse, then,' says Everett. 'I'd better,' says Angus, and
picks one over by the corral gate that was asleep standing up, with a
wisp of hay hanging out of his mouth like he'd been too tired to finish
eating it. 'This steed is more to my eye,' says Angus. 'He's old and
withered and he has no evil ambitions. But maybe I can wake him up.'
'Maybe you can,' says Everett, 'but are you dead sure you want to?'
Angus was dead sure. 'I shall thwart your murderous design,' says he. So
Everett with a stung look helped him saddle this one. He had his alibi
all right, and besides, nothing ever did worry that buckaroo as long as
his fingers wasn't too cold to roll a cigarette.

"The beast was still asleep when Angus forked him. Without seeming to
wake up much he at once traded ends, poured Angus out of the saddle, and
stacked him up in some mud that was providentially there--mud soft
enough to mire your shadow. Angus got promptly up, landed a strong kick
in the ribs of the outlaw which had gone to sleep again before he lit,
shook hands warmly with Everett and says: 'What does a man need with two
trades anyway? Good-bye!'

"But when Lysander John hears about it he says Angus has just the right
stuff in him for a cowman. He says he has never known one yet that you
could tell anything to before he found it out for him