"There's nothing to learn up there," he explained.
It is fair to add that he helped us on the range, and exhibited
aptitude in the handling of cattle and horses.
Meanwhile, his advent had made an enormous difference to the
Mistertons. Jim fetched a hired girl from town, and Angela was
relieved, during a scorching summer, of a housewife's most intolerable
duties. Also, when Jim was hard at work clearing his brush-hills,
wrestling with refractory roots of chaparral and manzanita, his
greatest pal was kind enough to undertake the entertainment of Angela.
The pair rode about together, and Jim told us that it did his heart
good to see how the little woman had brightened up. Thorpe, for his
part, admitted with becoming modesty that he was most awfully sorry
for his friend's wife.
"My heart bleeds for her," he told Ajax.
"The bounder with the bleeding heart," said Ajax to me that same
evening.
"We don't know that he is a bounder," I objected.
"He bounds, and he is as unconscious of his bounds as a kangaroo. As
for Jim, he is the apex of the world's pyramid of fools."
"Angela can take care of herself.
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