Jimmy,
so I don't know but it was a good form of introduction after all.
Jimmy was looking for work, a subject of research not general to the
Injun, but by no means so rare as his detractors would make out. He
got it. The job was to clean out Billy Buck's corral. Steve found
employment for the hands close to home for the day, that no one should
miss the result. It is always business first on the ranch, and a
practical joke takes precedence over other labours. Steve hung around
the corral, where he could peek through the chinks. Hoarse whispers
inquiring "Anything up yet?" were for so long answered in the negative,
that it seemed the day had been in vain. At last the welcome shout
rang out, "Injun and deer fight! Everybody run!" We flew, breathless
with anticipatory chuckles. We landed on top of the shed, to witness
an inspiring scene--one long-legged, six-foot-and-a-half Injun,
suitably attired in a plug hat, cutaway coat, breech-clout, and
mocassins, grappling in mortal combat a large and very angry deer. The
arena and the surrounding prairie were dreaming in a flood of mellow
autumn light. It was a day on which the sun scarce cast a shadow, yet
everything sent back his rays clearly, softened and sweetened, like the
answer of an echo. It was a day for great deeds, such as were enacted
before us; steel-strung frame pitted against steel-strung frame;
bottomless endurance against its equal. And never were such jumpings,
such prancings, such wild wavings of legs beheld by human eyes before.
You cannot beat it into people's heads that the horned critters are the
lords of brute creation; yet it is the fact. A bull chased a lion all
around the ring in the arena in Mexico, finally killing him with one
blow. In Italy they shut a buck deer and a tiger in a cage. There was
a brief skirmish, and the tiger slunk to the corner of the cage,
howling.

Splendid was the exhibition of strength and agility we looked upon,
but, alas! its poetry was ripped up the back by the cutaway coat, the
plug hat, and the unrelated effect of those long, bare red legs
twinkling beneath.

Indirectly it was the plug hat that ended the battle. At first, if
Jimmy-hit-the-bottle felt any emotion, whether joy, resentment, terror,
or anything man can feel, his face did not show it. One of the
strangest features of the show was that immaculately calm face suddenly
appearing through the dust-clouds, unconscious of storm and stress. At
las