Clare. He wanted to attempt everything. With him
it was no sooner see than try, and he had such an abundance of
enthusiasm that he generally succeeded. The balloon pants soon went.
In a month his outfit was irreproachable. He used to study us by the
hour, taking in every detail of our equipment, from the smallest to the
most important. Then he asked questions. For all his desire to be one
of the country, he was never ashamed to acknowledge his ignorance.

"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."

"I like it," was always his answer.

He had only one real vice, that I could see. He would gamble. Stud
poker was his favourite; and I never saw a Britisher yet who could play
poker. I used to head him off, when I could, and he was always
grateful, but the passion was strong.

After we got back from founding Tombstone I was busted and had to go to
work.

"I've got plenty," said Tim, "and it's all yours."

"I know, old fellow," I told him, "but your money wouldn't do for me."

Buck Johnson was just seeing his chance then, and was preparing to take
some breeding cattle over into the Soda Springs Valley. Everybody
laughed at him--said it was right in the line of the Chiricahua raids,
which was true. But Buck had been in there with Agency steers, a