“Are you sore over that trouble I had in town?  I know how you feel about—­well, about killings; but, Dade, I had to.  I hate it myself.  You needn’t think I like the idea, just because I haven’t talked about it.  A fellow feels different,” he added slowly, “when it’s white men.  When we fought Injuns, I don’t believe it worried either one of us to think we’d killed some.  We were generally glad of it.  But these others—­they were mean enough and ornery enough; but they were humans.  I was glad at the time, but that wore off.  And I’ve caught you looking at me kinda queer, lately, as if you hated me, almost.  You ought to know—­”

“I know you’re always going off half-cocked,” chuckled Dade, quite himself again.  “No, now you mention it, I don’t like the idea of shooting first and finding out afterwards what it was all about, the way so many fellows have got in the habit of doing.  Guns are all right in their place.  And when you get away out where the law doesn’t reach, and you have to look out for yourself, they come in mighty handy.  But like every other kind of power, most men don’t know when and how to use the gun argument; and they make more trouble than they settle, half the time.  You had a right to shoot, that day, and shoot to kill.  Why, didn’t the Committee investigate you, first thing after Bill was elected, and find that you were justified?  Didn’t they wipe your reputation clean with their official document, that Bill sent you a copy of?  No, that never bothered me at all, old man.  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.