"Whatever brings this yere Slim Jim into the cow country is too boggy a crossin' for me. Thar ain't a thing he can do or learn to. We-alls has him on one round-up, an' it's cl'ar from the jump he ain't meant by Providence for the cattle business. The meekest bronco in the bunch bucks him off; an' actooally he's that timid he's plumb afraid of ponies an' cattle both.
"We-alls fixes Slim Jim's saddle with buckin'-straps; an' even fastens a roll of blankets across the saddle-horn; but it ain't enough. Nothin' bar tyin' Slim Jim into the saddle, like the hoss- back Injuns does to papooses, could save him.
"An' aside from nacheral awk'ardness an' a light an' fitful seat in a saddle, it looks like this Slim Jim has baleful effects on a bronco. To show you: One mornin' we ropes up for him a pony which has renown for its low sperits. It acts, this yere pony does, like it's suffered some disapp'intment which blights it an' breaks its heart; an' no amount of tightenin' of the back cinch; not even spurrin' of it in the shoulder an' neck like playful people who's out for a circus does, is ever known to evolve a buck-jump outen him, he's that sad. Which this is so well known, the pony's name is 'Remorse.'
"As I says, merely to show the malignant spell this yere Slim Jim casts over a bronco, we-alls throws him onto this Remorse pony one mornin'.
"'Which if you can't get along with that cayouse,' remarks Jack Moore at the time, 'I reckons it's foreordained you-all has to go afoot.'
"An' that's how it turns out. No sooner is Slim Jim in the saddle than that Remorse pony arches his back like a hoop, sticks his nose between his knees, an' gives way to sech a fit of real old worm- fence buckin' as lands Slim Jim on his sombrero, an' makes expert ponies simply stand an' admire.
"That's the last round-up Slim Jim attempts; workin' cattle he says himse'f is too deep a game for him, an' he never does try no more. So he hangs about Wolfville an' Red Dog alternate, turnin' little jim-crow tricks for the express company, or he'pin' over to the stage company's corrals, an' sorter manages to live.
"Now an' then some party who's busy drinkin', an' tharfore hasn't time for faro, an' yet is desirous the same be played, stakes Slim Jim ag'inst the game; an' it happens at times he makes a small pick- up that a-way. But his means of livelihood is shorely what you-alls would call precar'ous.
"An' yet, as I sends my mind back over the trail, I never knows of nothin' bad this yere Slim Jim does. You needn't go inferrin' none, from his havin' a terror of steers an' broncos that a-way, that he's timid plumb through. Thar's reason to deem him game when he's up ag'inst mere man.
"Once, so they tells the story, Curly Bill rounds up this Slim Jim in a Red Dog hurdy-gurdy an' concloods to have some entertainment with him.