The thin mountain air was hot. The unbridled ponies drank eagerly, and were allowed to graze. The men moved over to the shade of a blue-topped spruce. As Lorry was about to sit down he picked an empty whiskey bottle from the grass, turned the label toward Shoop, and grinned. He tossed the bottle into the edge of the timber.
Shoop rolled a cigarette, and Lorry squatted beside him. Presently Shoop's voice broke the indolent silence of noon: "Just why did you chuck that bottle over there?"
"I don't know. Horse might step on it and cut himself."
"Yes. But you chucked it like you was mad at somethin'. Would you thrun it away if it was full?"
"I don' know. I might 'a' smelt of it to see if it was whiskey or kerosene some herder forgot."
"It's right curious how a fella will smell of a bottle to see what's in it or what's been in it. Most folks does that. I guess you know what whiskey smells like."
"Oh, some; with the boys once or twice. I never did get to like it right well."
Shoop nodded. "I ain't what you'd call a drinkin' man myself, but I started out that way. I been tol'able well lit up at times. But temperance folks what never took a drink can tell you more about whiskey than I can. Now that there empty bottle, a hundred and thirty miles from a whiskey town, kind of set me thinkin'."
Lorry leaned back against the spruce and watched a hawk float in easy circles round the blue emptiness above. He felt physically indolent; at one with the silences. Shoop's voice came to him clearly, but as though from a distance, and as Shoop talked Lorry visualized the theme, forgetting where he was in the vivid picture the old ex-cowboy sketched in the rough dialect of the range.
"I've did some thinkin' in my time, but not enough to keep me awake nights," said Shoop, pushing back his hat. "That there whiskey bottle kind of set me back to where I was about your years and some lively. Long about then I knowed two fellas called 'John' and 'Demijohn.' John was young and a right good cow-hand. Demijohn was old, but he was always dressed up like he was young, and he acted right lively. Some folks thought he was young. They met up at a saloon down along the Santa Fé. They got acquainted, and had a high ole time.