Truth to tell, he did not handle a rope. He could not tell the noose
end of a lariat from the straight end, hardly. Neither did Ronicky
Doone know the slightest thing about barbed wire, except how to cut
it when he wished to ride through. Let us look closely at the hands
themselves, as Ronicky stands in the door of the hotel and stares at
the people walking by. For he has taken off his gloves and he now
rolls a cigarette.

They are very long hands. The fingers are extremely slender and
tapering. The wrists are round and almost as innocent of sinews as the
wrists of a woman, save when he grips something, and then how they
stand out. But, most remarkable of all, the skin of the palms of those
hands is amazingly soft. It is truly as soft as the skin of the hand
of a girl.

There were some who shook their heads when they saw those hands. There
were some who inferred that Ronicky Doone was little better than a
scapegrace, and that, in reality, he had never done a better or more
useful thing than handle cards and swing a revolver. In both of which
arts it was admitted that he was incredibly dexterous. As a matter
of fact, since there was no estate from which he drew an income, and
since he had never been known in the entire history of his young life
to do a single stroke of productive work of any kind, the bitter
truth was that Ronicky Doone was no better and no worse than a common
gambler.

Indeed, if to play a game of chance is to commit a sin, Ronicky Doone
was a very great sinner. Yet it should be remarked that he lacked the
fine art of taking the money of other less clever fellows when they
were intoxicated, and he also lacked the fine hardness of mind which