Sinclair shrugged away this rejoinder.  He trod heavily to the bookshelves, took up two or three random volumes, and tossed them heedlessly back into place.

“Well, kid, you’re going to be yanked out of this little imitation world of yours pretty pronto.”

“Ah, but perhaps not!”

“Eh?”

“Something may happen.”

“What can happen?”

“Just something like you, my friend.”

The insistence on that word irritated Riley Sandersen.

“Don’t call me that,” he replied in his most brutal manner.  “Jig, d’you know what a friend means?” he asked.  “How d’you figure that word out?”

Jig considered.  “A friend is somebody you know and like and are glad to have around.”

Contempt spread on the face of Sinclair.  “That’s just about what I knew you’d say.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Son, they ain’t anything right about you, as far as I can make out.  Wrong?  You’re as wrong as a yearling in a blizzard.  Wrong?  I should tell a man you’re wrong!  Lemme tell you what a friend is.  He’s the bunkie that guards your back in a fight; he’s the man that can ask for your hoss or your gun or your life, no matter how bad you want ’em; he’s the gent that trusts you when the world calls you a liar; he’s the one that don’t grin when you’re in trouble, who gives a cheer when you’re going good.  With a friend you let down the bars and turn your mind loose like wild hosses.  I take out my soul like a gun and show it to my friend in the palm of my hand.  It’s sure full of holes and stains, this life of mine, but my friend checks off the good agin’ the bad, and when you’re through he says:  ’Partner, now I like you better because I know you better.’

“Son, I don’t know what God means very well, and I ain’t any bunkie of the law, but I’m tolerable well acquainted with what the word ‘friend’ means.  When you use it, you want to look sharp.”

“I really believe,” Jig said, “that you would be a friend like that.  I think I understand.”

“You don’t, though.  To a friend you give yourself away, and you get yourself back bigger and stronger.”

“I didn’t know,” said Jig softly, “that friendship could mean all that.  How many friends have you had?”

The big cowpuncher paused.  Then he said gently at length, “One friend.”

“In all your life?”

“Sure!  I was lucky and had one friend.”

Cold Feet leaned forward, eagerness in his eyes.  “Tell me about him!”

“I don’t know you well enough, son.”

That jarring speech thrust Jig back into his chair, as if with a physical hand.  There, as though in covert, he continued to study Sinclair.  Presently he began to nod.

“I knew it from the first, in spite of appearances.”

“Knew what?”

“Knew that we’d get along.”

“And are we getting along, Jig?”

“I think so.”

“Glad of that,” muttered the cowpuncher dryly.