him up while the skinner was gettin’ the chains on the other mules.  That ole mule was sure wabblin’ like a duck, but he come aside his ole place and followed along all day.  We was freightin’ in to camp, back in the Horseshoe Hills.  You know that grade afore you get to the mesa?  Well, the ole mule pulled the grade, sweatin’ and puffin’ like he was pullin’ the whole load.  And I guess he was, in his mind.  Anyhow, he got to the top, and laid down and died.  Mules sure like to work.  Now a horse would have fanned it.”

Shoop nodded.  “I never seen a animile too lazy to work if it was only gettin’ his grub and exercise.  But I’ve seen a sight of folks too lazy to do that much.  Why, some folks is so dog-gone no account they got to git killed afore folks ever knowed they was livin’.  Then they’s some folks so high-chinned they can’t see nothin’ but the stars when they’d do tol’able well if they would follow a good hoss or a dog around and learn how to live human.  But this ain’t gettin’ nowhere, and the sun’s keepin’ right along doin’ business.”

They rode across the beautiful Blue Mesa, and entered the timberlands, following a ranger trail through the shadowy silences.  At the lower level, they came upon another mesa through which wound a mountain stream.  And along a stream ran the trail, knee-high in grass on either side.

Far below them lay the plains country, its hazy reaches just visible over the tree-tops.  Where the mountain stream merged with a deeper stream the ground was barren and dotted with countless tracks of cattle and sheep.  This was Sheep Crossing, a natural pass where the cattlemen and sheepmen drifted their stock from the hills to the winter feeding-grounds of the lower country.  It was a checking point for the rangers; the gateway to the hills.

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’.”