“I’ve never seen Johnny Grant draw a gun. I’ve found that it isn’t all in the speed. Too much speed wastes the first shot. Never reach for a gun, unless you mean to use it, and when you do reach, draw and shoot deliberately. Split-second gunmen don’t hit anythin’. And another thing, Jimmy—don’t shoot, unless yo’re in the right. Bein’ right to start with will win nine times out of ten. You know it and the other man knows it.”
“I think I know what you mean, Mr. Hartley.”
“I’m glad yuh do—and my name’s Hashknife—to them that belong.”
Jimmy grinned widely. It was the first time that any one had even intimated that he might “belong,” and his heart filled with gratitude toward this tall, serious-faced cowboy, who had admitted him to the brotherhood of cowpunchers.
“But you’ll never make a cowpuncher out of yourself, by gettin’ pitched off every bronc yuh see,” declared Sleepy. “Bein’ a cow-hand don’t necessarily mean that yuh can ride anythin’ that wears hair. Nobody’s goin’ to blame yuh, if yuh don’t ride bad ones. That’s only a small part of the business—the fool part, Jimmy.”
“I suppose you’re right,” admitted Jimmy. “I wasn’t born to ride buckers. I was just wondering how you two men happened to be cowboys.”
“Circumstance, I reckon,” said Hashknife. “I was born on the Milk River, in Montana. My dad was a preacher, Jimmy. Not the kind of a preacher you’ve known. He wore overalls and boots, and when he wasn’t ridin’ from place to place, packin’ his gospel, he was workin’ like —— at somethin’ else to make a livin’ for the family, because preachin’ didn’t pay dividends.
“There was six of us kids, and I was the oldest; which meant that I was shiftin’ for myself when I was twelve. I naturally didn’t get over-educated. But I competed against men, and they taught me things. There wasn’t anythin’ to do in that country, except punchin’ cows; so I naturally learned the business.
“In fact, I was about eighteen years old before I knew there was anythin’ else in the world. Then I started driftin’, learnin’, and fightin’ my way. I got whipped a lot of times, but I learned a lot of things; some of it from books, but a lot more from humanity. It’s been a hard school, Jimmy—and it still is; a school where yuh never graduate.”
“I never thought of the world in that way, Hashknife.”