"BUSTER FOR THE 101!" 123 



mule or an outlaw bronk can kick, he pitched and came 

 down on stiff legs with a force which would have unseated 

 nine out of ten of all the boys in the outfit. Jim never 

 budofed from the saddle. He seemed lashed to it. The 

 boys stared with eyes like saucers. " Hollo !" and a long 

 '' Whew I" was all you heard. The fun went on. Jim ap- 

 peared to care for the piebald's pitching no more than for 

 the rocking of a chair. Finally, after some minutes of the 

 hottest kind of work, he seemed to wake up to it, as 

 the piebald began to find he had caught a Tartar. It 

 was a "o-ame" Jim ''did not understand." He chuckled 

 audibly, grabbed off his hat, slapped the bronk over the 

 head, kicked him between hoists, rolled all over him as he 

 plunged around, laughed outright, and screamed to the 

 blue-looking crowd, "Cotched a tenderfoot, boys, didn't 

 yer ? Be gad, ye didn't know I'd been four years buster 

 for the 101 ! Go it, ye divil," he yelled, as he slapped the 

 bronk again and again with his storm-bleached hat, snap- 

 ped up the reins, dug his heavy spurs into the outlaw's 

 fianks, and drove the half -frightened, half-astonished brute 

 hither and yon at will. " Guess I'll go bustin' agin ! Feels 

 like old times ! Ha'n't had so much fun for a twelve- 

 month I Hooray !'' 



A sorrier crowd or a poorer you never saw, but no one 

 opened his mouth to Jim. Every man paid up without a 

 question. It was the event of the spring in all that sec- 

 tion. 



