"If I turn you loose, Buck, what will you do?" he asked at last, in a curious tone.
"If you—Ward, I'll prove I'm a friend to yuh in spite of the idea you've got that I ain't. I never done nothing—"
"No, of course not." Ward's lip curled. "That was my mistake, maybe. You always used to say you were my friend, when—"
"And that's the God's truth, Ward!" Buck's face was becoming flushed with his eagerness. "I done everything I could for you, Ward, but the way the cards laid I couldn't—"
"Get me hanged. I know; you sure tried hard enough!" Ward puffed hard at his cigarette, and the lips that held it trembled a little. Otherwise he seemed perfectly cool and calm.
"Say, Ward, them lawyers lied to you."
"Oh, cut it out, Buck. I've seen you wriggle through a snake-hole before. I believe you're my friend, just the way you've always been."
"That's right, Ward, and I can prove it."
Ward snorted. "You proved it, old-timer, when you laid up there behind a rock with your sights on this shack, ready to get me when I came out. I sabe now how it happened Jim McGuire was found face down in the spring behind his shack, with a bullet hole in his back, that time. You were his friend, too!"
"Ward, I—"