Jim might have played the _beau role_
had he carried a pistol. Admittedly he would have been licked in a
fight with either cowboy singly. Thorpe, so I was told, entreated Jim
to keep the story from his wife. Angela had it, with slight
exaggeration, from the hero-worshipper's lips within an hour. "It
brought her heart into her mouth, I tell you," the simple fellow told
Ajax, and later Ajax murmured to me: "I wonder whether it struck
Angela that Jim would have tackled both of 'em, if Thorpe had not
interfered."
A dozen trifles hardly worth recording emphasised the difference
between Jim and his greatest pal. Thorpe mastered the colt which had
thrown Jim; Thorpe, when fresh meat was wanted, killed handsomely the
fat buck missed by the over-eager James; Thorpe made a pretty profit
over a hog deal at the psychological moment when poor Misterton
allowed three Poland-China sows to escape through an improperly
constructed fence!
Thorpe was a man. Did Angela think of Jim as a mouse?
* * * * *
After the fall round-up, Ajax and I spent a month fishing in British
Columbia.
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