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.

While they rode together up the valley, Jack told the details of the
encounter with Jose, and declared that he was doing all that even Dade
could demand of him by resisting the desire to ride down to Santa Clara
and make Jose swallow his words.

"I'd have done it anyway, as soon as I brought Teresita home," he added,
with a hint of apology for his seeming weakness. "But, darn it, I knew
all the time that she made him think she was running away from me. It
did look that way, when she stopped as soon as she met him; I can't
swear right now whether Tejon was running away, or whether he was just
simply running!" He laughed ruefully. "She's an awful little tease--just
plumb full of the old Nick, even if she does l