He could blow the biggest geyser in
the Yosemite valley back into its hole with one whisper. I am a quiet
man, and fond of studiousness and thought. The more we used to see
each other, personally, the less we seemed to like to be together. If
he ever had slapped me on the back and snivelled over me like I've
seen men do to what they called their friends, I know I'd have had a
rough-and-tumble with him on the spot. Same way with George. He hated
my ways as bad as I did his. When we were mining, we lived in separate
tents, so as not to intrude our obnoxiousness on each other.
"But after a long time, we begun to know each of us could depend on the
other when we were in a pinch, up to his last dollar, word of honor or
perjury, bullet, or drop of blood we had in the world. We never even
spoke of it to each other, because that would have spoiled it. But we
tried it out, time after time, until we came to know. I've grabbed my
hat and jumped a freight and rode 200 miles to identify him when he was
about to be hung by mistake, in Idaho, for a train robber.
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