Well, then, we got to Pochette's--I think I have remarked the fact. And at Pochette's, just unharnessing his team, limped my friend of White Divide, old King. Funny how a man's view-point will change when there's a girl cached somewhere in the background. Not even the memory of Shylock's stiffening limbs could bring me to a mood for war. On the contrary, I felt more like rushing up and asking him how were all the folks, and when did Beryl expect to come home. But not Frosty; he drove phlegmatically up so that there was just comfortable space for a man to squeeze between our rig and King's, hopped out, and began unhooking the traces as if there wasn't a soul but us around. King was looping up the lines of his team, and he glared at us across the backs of his horses as if we were--well, caterpillars at a picnic and he was a girl with nice clothes and a fellow and a set of nerves. His next logical move would be to let out a squawk and faint, I thought; in which case I should have started in to do the comforting, with a dipper of water from the pump. He didn't faint, though. I walked around and let down the neck-yoke, and his eyes followed me with suspicion. "Hello, Mr. King," I sang out in a brazen attempt to hypnotize him into the belief we were friends. "How's the world using you, these days?" "Huh!" grunted the unhypnotized one, deep in his chest. Frosty straightened up and looked at me queerly; he said afterward that he couldn't make out whether I was trying to pull off a gun fight, or had gone dippy. But I was only in the last throes of exuberance at being in the country at all, and I didn't give a damn what King thought; I'd made up my mind to be sociable, and that settled it. "Range is looking fine," I remarked, snapping the inside checks back into the hame-rings. "Stock come through the winter in good shape?" Oh, I had my nerve right along with me. "You go to hell," advised King, bringing out each word fresh-coined and shiny with feeling. "I was headed that way," I smiled across at him, "but at the last minute I gave Montana first choice; I knew you were still here, you see." He let go the bridle of the horse he was about to lead away to the stable, and limped around so that he stood within two feet of me. "Yuh want to--" he began, and then his mouth stayed open and silent. I had reached out and got him by the hand, and gave him a grip--the grip that made all the fellows quit offering their paws to me in Frisco. "Put it there, King!" I cried idiotically and as heartily as I knew how. "Glad to see you. Dad's well and busy as usual, and sends regards. How's your good health?" He was squirming good and plenty, by that time, and I let him go. I acted the fool, all right, and I don't tell it to have any one think I was a smart young sprig; I'm just putting it out straight as it happened.