ght as well remember that Bud had a half
interest in the two claims, and that he would certainly stay with it.
Meantime, he would tell the world he was his own boss, and Cash needn't
think for a minute that Bud was going to ask permission for what he did
or did not do. Cash needn't have any truck with him, either. It suited
Bud very well to keep on his own side of the cabin, and he'd thank Cash
to mind his own business and not step over the dead line.

Cash had laughed disagreeably and asked Bud what he was going to
do--draw a chalk mark, maybe?

Bud, half drunk and unable to use ordinary good sense, had said yes, by
thunder, he'd draw a chalk line if he wanted to, and if he did, Cash had
better not step over it either, unless he wanted to be kicked back.

Wherefore the broad, black line down the middle of the floor to where
the table stood. Obviously, he could not well divide the stove and the
teakettle and the frying pan and coffeepot. The line stopped abruptly
with a big blob of lampblack mixed with coal oil, just where necessity
compelled them both to use the same floor space.

The next day Bud had been ashamed of the performance, but his shame
could not override his stubbornness. The black line stared up at him
accusingly. Cash, keeping scrupulously upon his own side of it, went
coldly about his own affairs and never yielded so much as a glance at
Bud. And Bud grew more moody and dissatisfied with himself, but he would
not yield, either. Perversely he waited for Cash to apologize for what
he had said about gamblers and drunkards, and tried to believe that upon
Cash rested all of the blame.

Now he washed his own breakfast dishes, including the frying pan, spread
the blankets smooth on his bunk, swept as much of the floor as lay upon
his side of the dead line. Because the wind was in the storm quarter and
the lowering clouds promised more snow, he carried in three big armfuls
of wood and placed them upon his corner of the fireplace, to provide
warmth when he returned. Cash would not touch that wood while Bud was
gone, and Bud knew it. Cash would freeze first. But there was small
chance of that, because a small, silent rivalry had grown from the
quarrel; a rivalry to see which kept the best supply of wood, which
swept cleanest under his bunk and up to the black line, which washed his
dishes cleanest, and kept his shelf in the cupboard the tidiest. Before
the fireplace in an evening Cash would put on wood, and whe