There were two cowboys in the O K O outfit, otherwise called the
Hourglass; and these two men were pardners. This, I was given to
understand, is a very different thing from being partners. In France, a
few years ago, they would have called themselves “buddies.” The
relationship is the same, though it appears under another name. The two
men were named Jack Mills and Bud Loupel. If you hired one, you hired
both. If one was fired, the other quit. If you licked one, the other
licked you; and if one became involved in a shooting affray, the other
was apt to be somewhere in the background with a gun in his hand and an
eye out for possible sharp practice by allies of the party of the second
part. The foreman of the Hourglass, being wise in his generation,
assigned the two to tasks at which they could work together; and they
stayed with that outfit for a length of time that was considered
extraordinary in those tempestuous days. That is to say, they labored in
the vineyard for the O K O for a matter of a year and a half. At the end
of that time Jack Mills was twenty-one and Bud Loupel was twenty-two.
As they did their work jointly, so they took their pleasures together;
and it came to pass on a certain day that they rode away to town with
full pockets and lively plans for the evenings immediately before them.
Jack Mills, always the gayer spirit of the two, pulled his gun at the
edge of town and perforated the blue sky above him. At the same time he
emitted certain shrill sounds and spurred his horse to the gallop. Bud
was more given to a certain sobriety and decorum; he did not shoot and
he did not yell. But his horse kept close beside the other’s. They swung
into the wide and dusty main street with hats flapping, horses racing
like jack rabbits, holsters pounding against their thighs. They swept
up the street together, saw the same vision at the same instant, and
jerked their horses to a sliding, tail-grinding stop with a single
movement of their bridle hands.
The vision’s name was Jeanie Ross. She was the daughter of old man Ross,
the storekeeper, and she had just come home from the East. The rattle of
the shots had brought her to the door of the store, and she stood there
when the two cowboys discovered her. She looked at them; they stared at
her. Then Jack Mills swung boldly to the ground and walked toward her,
grinning in his pleasantly likable way. He swept his wide hat low, and
he said: “Ma’am, I’m Jack Mills of the Hourglass.”
The girl, though she had lived long in the East, was a daughter of the
West. She was amused and not displeased, for Jack was easy enough to
look at. She smiled, and this emboldened Bud Loupel, who was always
conservative, to imitate his pardner’s example. He, too, dismounted and
stepped forward, and Jack Mills bowed again to the girl and told her:
“Furthermore, ma’am, this here is my bashful friend, Bud Loupel. The cat
has got his tongue, but he’s a nice little fellow. Now you know
everybody worth knowing.”
Jeanie Ross, still very much amused, asked: “Who were you shooting at?”
“The man in the moon,” said Jack Mills. “But I missed him a mile.”
She laughed and said she was glad of that. “I’d hate not to be able to
see him up there once in a while,” she told Jack.
“Just to prove he ain’t hurt,” he assured her, “I’ll ride in and point
him out to you when the signs is right.”
She shook her head, looking from one man to the other, withdrawing a
little into the doorway. Jack marked, even then, that her eyes rested
longest on Bud Loupel. “I’ve studied astronomy my own self,” she said,
and while he was still crushed by that she backed into the store and
disappeared.
The two mounted in silence and continued more demurely down the street.
In front of Brady’s they hitched their horses, tramped dustily inside,
and touched elbows at the bar. The first drink was taken without speech;
the second followed it.
After a while Bud Loupel said: “Jack!”
“Huh?”
“Me, you know what I aim to do?”
Mills grinned. “I don’t know, but I’m waiting.”
“I aim,” said Bud Loupel, “to quit the range and get me a job in this
here little old town.”
Jack Mills banged his open hand upon the bar. “Bud, she sure is that and
more,” he cried. “Just make it the same for me.”