THE COUNTRY BOY 123 



strange parts of their partnership but the 

 strangest part was that the men were so 

 different, yet they got on so well. They 

 were as different, as night and day. Ai 

 Coolidge was the elder and likely the greater 

 money-maker of the two, but he didn't get as 

 much out of life as his partner though he had 

 lived many years longer. Ai Coolidge never 

 made any bad bargains, never took much 

 counterfeit money or never took many chances. 

 Never even gave himself many vacations, 

 other than now and then a camping trip or 

 a horseback ride into the mountains to salt 

 the cattle. On those trips he whittled at a 

 piece of jerked venison and enjoyed life as 

 much as it was ever intended he should. His 

 perfect wife was happiness enough for a man 

 to enjoy and likely in her company he found 

 full value, but his sympathies were never 

 played on like those of Jake McClaine. The 

 two partners must have ridden horseback half 

 of their lives, though it wasn't a range 

 country. They figured interest on horseback, 

 though they never kept a book of the firm's 

 business, which was rather unique; but they 

 soon began to acquire farms, as they loaned 



