"Now, don't you chaps think it silly to wear such high heels to
your boots?" he would ask. "It seems to me a very useless sort
of vanity."
"No vanity about it, Tim," I explained. "In the first place, it
keeps your foot from slipping through the stirrup. In the second
place, it is good to grip on the ground when you're roping
afoot."
"By Jove, that's true!" he cried.
So he'd get him a pair of boots. For a while it was enough to
wear and own all these things. He seemed to delight in his
six-shooter and his rope just as ornaments to himself and horse.
But he soon got over that. Then he had to learn to use them.
For the time being, pistol practice, for instance, would absorb
all his thoughts. He'd bang away at intervals all day, and
figure out new theories all night.
"That bally scheme won't work," he would complain. "I believe if
I extended my thumb along the cylinder it would help that side
jump."
He was always easing the trigger-pull, or filing the sights. In
time he got to be a fairly accurate and very quick shot.
The same way with roping and hog-tying and all the rest.
"What's the use?" I used to ask him. "If you were going to be a
buckeroo, you couldn't go into harder training.
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