You want to forget about it. You only
saved the Committee the trouble of hanging 'em, according to Bill. Say,
Valencia was telling me yesterday--"
"Well, what the dickens did ail you, then?"
Dade threw out both hands helplessly and gave a rueful laugh. "You're
harder to dodge than an old cow when you've got her calf on the saddle,"
he complained.
"The trouble was," he explained gravely, "that these last boots of mine
pinched like the devil, and I've been mad for a month because my feet
are half a size bigger than yours. I wanted to stump you for a trade,
only I knew yours would cripple me up worse than these did. But I've got
'em broke in now, so I can walk without tying my face into a hard knot.
There's nothing on earth," he declared earnestly, "will put me on the
fight as quick as a pair of boots that don't fit."
Jack paid tribute to Dade's mendaciousness by looking at him doubtfully,
not quite sure whether to believe him; and Dade chuckled again, well
pleased with himself. Even when Jack finally told him quite frankly that
he was a liar, he only laughed and went over to where Surry stood
rolling the wheel in his bit. He would not answer Jack's chagrined
vilifications, except with an occasional amused invitation to go to the
devil.
So the wall of constraint crumbled to the nothingness out of which it
was built, and the two came close together again in that perfect
companionship that may choose whatever medium the mood of man may
direct, and still hold taut the bond of their friendship.
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