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
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