“He’s what you call an eddicated bucker.  He don’t fool around with no pauses.  He jest starts in and figgers out a situation and then he gets busy slidin’ the gent that’s on him off’n the saddle.  An’ he always used to win out.  In fact, he was known for it all around these parts.  He begun nice and easy, but he worked up like a fiddler playin’ a favourite piece, and the end was the rider lyin’ on the ground.

“Whenever the boys around here wanted any excitement they used to come over and try their hands with Jo.  We used to keep a pile of arnica and stuff like that around to rub them up with and tame down the bruises after Jo laid ’em cold on the ground.  There wasn’t never anybody could ride that hoss when he was started out alone.

“Well, this tenderfoot, he looks over the hoss in the corral and says:  ‘That’s a pretty fine mount, it seems to me.  What do you want to boot?’

“‘Aw, twenty-five dollars is enough,’ says pa.

“‘All right,’ says the tenderfoot, ‘here’s the money.’

“And he counts it out in pa’s hand.

“He says:  ’What a little beauty!  It would be a treat to see him work on a polo field.’

“Pa says:  ‘It’d’be a treat to see this hoss work anywhere.’

“Then he steps on my foot to make me wipe the grin off’n my face.

“Down goes the tenderfoot and takes his saddle and flops it on the piebald pinto, and the piebald was jest as nice as milk.  Then he leads him out’n the corral and gets on.

“First the pinto takes a look over his shoulder like he was waiting for one of his pals among the hosses to come along, but he didn’t see none.  Then the circus started.  An’ b’lieve me, it was some circus.  Jo hadn’t had much action for some time, an’ he must have used the wait thinkin’ up new ways of raisin’ hell.

“There ain’t enough words in the Bible to describe what he done.  Which maybe you sort of gather that he had to keep on performin’, because the tenderfoot was still in the saddle.  He was.  An’ he never pulled leather.  No, sir, he never touched the buckin’ strap, but jest sat there with his teeth set and his lips twistin’ back—­the same smile he had when he got into the saddle.  But pretty soon I s’pose Jo had a chance to figure out that it didn’t do him no particular harm to be alone.

“The minute he seen that he stopped fightin’ and started off at a gallop the way the tenderfoot wanted him to go, which was over there.

“‘Damn my eyes!’ says pa, an’ couldn’t do nuthin’ but just stand there repeatin’ that with variations because with Jo gone there wouldn’t be no drawin’ card to get the boys around the house no more.  But you’re lookin’ sort of sleepy, stranger?”

“I am,” answered Nash.

“Well, if you’d seen that show you wouldn’t be thinkin’ of sleep.  Not for some time.”

“Maybe not, but the point is I didn’t see it.  D’you mind if I turn in on that bunk over there?”