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 Fe.  They got acquainted, and had a high ole time.

“That evenin’, as John was leavin’ to go back to the ranch, Demijohn tells him he’ll see him later.  John remembers that.  They met up ag’in.  And finally John got to lookin’ for Demijohn, and if he didn’t show up reg’lar John would set out and chase Demijohn all over the country, afoot and ahorseback, and likin’ his comp’ny more every time they met.

“Now, this here Demijohn, who was by rights a city fella, got to takin’ to the timber and the mesas, with John followin’ him around lively.  Ole Demijohn would set in the shade of a tree—­no tellin’ how he got there—­and John would ride up and light down; when mebby Demijohn would start off to town, bein’ empty, and John after him like hell wasn’t hot enough ‘less he sweat runnin’.  And that young John would ride clean to town just to say ‘How’ to that ole hocus.  And it come that John got to payin’ more attention to Demijohn than he did to punchin’ cows.  Then come a day when John got sick of chasin’ Demijohn all over the range, and he quit.

“But the first thing he knowed, Demijohn was a chasin’ him.  Every time John rode in and throwed off his saddle there’d be ole Demijohn, settin’ in the corner of the corral or under his bunk or out in the box stall, smilin’ and waitin’.  Finally Demijohn got to followin’ John right into the bunk-house, and John tryin’ his durndest to keep out of sight.

“One evenin’, when John was loafin’ in the bunk-house, ole Demijohn crawls up to his bunk and asks him, whisperin’, if he ain’t most always give John a good time when they met up.  John cussed, but ’lowed that Demijohn was right.  Then Demijohn took to pullin’ at young John’s sleeve and askin’ him to come to town and have a good time.  Pretty soon John gets up and saddles his cayuse and fans it for town.  And that time him and Demijohn sure had one whizzer of a time.  But come a week later, when John gits back to the ranch, the boss is sore and fires him.  Then John gits sore at the boss and at himself and at Demijohn and the whole works.  So he saddles up and rides over to town to have it out with Demijohn for losin’ a good job.  But he couldn’t lick Demijohn right there in town nohow.  Demijohn was too frequent for him.