THIS is, in all essentials, a true story. It came through an old friend from the Southwest, a newspaper man, who telephoned an invitation to lunch the other day. He says he remembers, as a boy, seeing the whole population of his home town embark on horseback, in wagons, and afoot to go to the hanging. That was in 1881; but it was not till twenty years afterward that he heard from one Chris O’Neill the true inwardness of that hanging, as he told it to me over our coffee. The thing happened in a little frontier town in the cow country; and since swift justice and a ready rope were characteristics of the time and the place, it occasioned only passing comment in that day. Nevertheless, the tale may well bear preserving.

I cannot hope to reproduce my friend’s words, nor the atmosphere of those reckless times, so long dead, which he brought back to life for me. Nevertheless, here is the substance of the story that he told.

II

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.”

III

They had ridden into town, as has been said, with full pockets. They had expected to ride out again in a day or two with empty ones. But the encounter with Jeanie Ross and their subsequent abrupt decision made all the difference in the world. The procedure of each one, in the circumstances, was characteristic. Bud Loupel crossed the street to the bank and opened an account, depositing his money. Jack Mills went into Brady’s back room, where there was a bank of another kind, and set to work to double his.

The bank Bud patronized was owned by Sam Rand, who was also cashier, president, and board of directors. There had been, till some three days before, a teller, but Rand had let him go. Bud found the banker, as a consequence, up to his eyes in unaccustomed work. Rand knew Loupel, knew that the cowboy had a certain aptitude for figures. When Bud, in the casual talk that followed his deposit, mentioned the fact that he was hunting for a town job, Rand hired him on the spot.

An hour or so later Bud went back to Brady’s to tell Jack of his good fortune, and Mills rolled a cigarette and said cheerfully: “Then you’re fixed to lend me five dollars.”

“As quick as this?” Bud asked. “You must have picked ’em mighty scant.”

“I didn’t pick them,” Jack told him. “They picked me.”

They went out together and sought a restaurant and food. By supper time Jack had a job in the blacksmith shop. He was as good with horses as Bud was with figures. That evening they hired a room, and Bud wrote a note to the Hourglass foreman, telling him not to expect them back again. Then they settled down to live the life of sober and substantial citizens. Object matrimony.

Now, this is not a story of how a woman came between two men and turned good friends into enemies. Jeanie Ross did nothing of the kind. It is a fact that they both loved her and that they both wooed her, but it is also a fact that they continued to be pardners just the same. And it is furthermore true that when Jeanie made up her mind between them, Jack was the first one she told.

She told him she was going to marry Bud. And Jack rolled a cigarette with both hands, slowly and with care; he fashioned it neatly, and stroked it between his fingers, and twisted the ends and lighted it before he spoke at all.

“Said so to him?” he asked then.

Jeanie shook her head. “No. I wanted you to know first, because I want you and Bud to keep on being friends. I like you, Jack. But you’re—flighty. Bud’s steady. You’re more amusing sometimes, but he’s more reliable. I couldn’t ever really count on you. I can count on Bud, Jack. But you will go on being friends with him, won’t you? That’s why I’m telling you.”

“He’s steady, he’s reliable, and you can count on him,” Jack repeated, ticking the points off upon his fingers. “Now, is there maybe any other little thing besides?”

“Yes,” said Jeanie softly. “Yes. I love him, Jack.”

He flicked his cigarette away. “Keno!” he exclaimed. “And Bud’s a good scout too. I don’t reckon you’ll ever need to be sorry at all.” He picked up his hat and started away.

“Where are you going?” she asked softly, and there were tears in her eyes for him.

“I aim to tell Bud you’re a-waiting,” he said.

And he did. Bud was working late that night at the bank. Jack bade him go and find her. “And, Bud,” he warned good-humoredly, “I’ll aim to perforate you, sudden and complete, if you don’t name the first after me.”

When Bud was gone Jack stood very still for a while, whistling a little tune between his teeth. Then he went across to Brady’s and had a drink or two, but the liquor would not bite. It was still early in the evening when he sought the room he shared with Bud, and went to bed. Bud, returning two hours later, undressed quietly, because he thought his pardner was asleep.

But Jack Mills was not asleep.

IV

The first was a boy, and was well and duly named Jack Loupel; and Uncle Jack used to go to the house for Sunday dinner and play bear all over the floor of the sitting room. The next was a girl, and the next was a boy again. Bud was by that time cashier of the bank, and Sam Rand left most of the work to him. Jack Mills was just what he had always been; that is to say, a likable, wild young chap with a quick gun and a reckless eye and a fondness for the society he found at Brady’s. Sometimes, after eating one of Jeanie’s dinners, he would take his horse and ride out of town and be gone for a day or two. He was always alone on these excursions; but ranging cowboys came across him now and then and reported that he seemed to be just sitting around, smoking, doing nothing at all. When he got ready he would drift back into town and go to work again. Old man Ross liked him; Jeanie liked him; everybody liked him. But the sober citizens were also inclined to disapprove of him; and some of the stories that came to Jeanie’s ears made her think that when the children were a little older she had better quit asking Jack to come to the house. She hated to think of doing this; and because she was kind of heart, it is unlikely that she would ever have come to the actual point. But that the possibility should occur to her is some measure of the man’s standing in the town.

One day, about seven years after Bud and Jeanie were married, Bud sought out Jack Mills and asked him to get his horse and come for a ride. “Want to tell you something, Jack,” he explained.

Mills saw the trouble and distress in the other’s eyes, so he saddled up, and they trotted out of town. When the last building was well behind them, Jack asked mildly: “What’s on your mind, Bud?”

Bud Loupel, with some hesitation, said: “I’m in trouble.”

“Yeah! I judged so,” Mills told him. “Well, what brand?”

“I’ve been putting money in the market at Wichita,” Loupel said. “I’ve had rotten luck. It’s gone.”

Jack nodded. “I got three-four hundred in the bank,” he suggested. “Take that.”

“It’s not enough.”

“Maybe I could look around and raise five hundred more.”

“It wouldn’t do a bit of good.”

Mills produced tobacco and papers and rolled a slow cigarette while their horses jogged along. At last: “How much?” he asked.

“Forty-four hundred.”

“You’ve saved a right smart, ain’t you?”

“It’s the bank’s,” Loupel confessed, and Jack puffed deeply and expelled the smoke in a cloud and remarked:

“Well, at a guess, I’d say you were a damned fool.”

“I know it.”

Their horses plodded on, and the dust cloud rose and hovered in the air behind them. For a space neither man spoke at all. Then Loupel bitterly exclaimed: “I’m not whining for my own sake, Jack. If it was me, I’d hop out. I’d take a chance. But Jeanie....”

“Sure,” Jack Mills mildly agreed. “Sure.”

“Damn it, Jack, Jeanie’s proud of me. She’s proud of me.”

“Yeah!”

“I can’t bear to think of her knowing. It would just about bust her.”

Mills drawled: “Your sentiments does you credit, Bud.”

There was a cold and scornful anger in his tone that kept the other for the moment silent. They rode on, side by side, and Loupel, covertly watching the younger man, waited for him to speak. Mills finished his cigarette, eyes straight before him, face unchanging. Then he flicked the butt away and turned in his saddle and looked at his pardner.

“What’s Rand say?” he asked.

“He’s been away. Due back to-morrow afternoon. He’ll spot it in a minute.”

Mills whistled for a moment, between his teeth, a gallant little tune; then he nodded, as though in decision, and he asked: “All right, Bud. What’s your idea?”

While they rode on at the trot toward the low hills south of the town Bud Loupel outlined his idea; and when they turned back again at sunset Jack had agreed to do what the other asked of him.

V

At ten o’clock next morning the town lay still and shimmering in the blistering sun of a summer day. There were one or two men in Brady’s, and here and there along Main Street other figures lounged in the shade. Jack Mills rode in from the south on a strange horse, wearing new overalls and an indistinguishable hat. There was a red bandanna loosely knotted about his neck. He encountered no one within recognizing distance. In front of the bank he dropped off, hitched the horse, lifted the handkerchief so that it hid his mouth and nose, and stepped into the building. Two or three people at some distance saw him go in, and idly wondered who the stranger was.

He had hoped to find Loupel alone in the bank; but Jim Paine was there. Paine had just cashed a check and stood with his back toward the door, talking to Bud. When Bud saw the masked man he turned pale, and Jim marked the change in his countenance and whirled around. But Jack’s gun was leveled, so Bud and Jim Paine reached for the ceiling.

Mills, with some attempt to disguise his voice, said harshly to Bud: “Paper money. All of it. Quick!”

Loupel, hands still in the air, started toward the safe. Jack looked that way and saw that the safe door was open. He changed his mind.

“Wait,” he commanded. With a gesture he bade Paine face the wall. Then he leaped the counter, motioned Loupel aside, and himself approached the safe. Paine, watching sidewise, saw the masked man drag out half a dozen packets of bills and stuff them into the front of his shirt. Mills did this with his left hand; his right hand held the gun, and his eyes covered Paine and Loupel almost constantly. Loupel, backed into a corner, watched in silence.

When Mills had taken what he came for, he rose and turned toward the counter again. At that instant a gun roared behind him, and something tugged at his shirt, under the left arm. He whirled, saw Rand standing in the back door of the bank building. Rand’s gun was going. Jack fanned his hammer twice, and the banker fell.

Paine had not moved. Mills swung, half crouching, toward Loupel. Loupel had double-crossed him. That was the thought that tightened his finger on the trigger. But—Jeanie! That was the thought which made his trigger finger relax. He slid across the counter, made the door in one jump. Five seconds after his shot, his horse was galloping out of town. And as he passed the last house a rifle spoke, somewhere behind him.

Half a mile from town he looked back and saw three or four horsemen just emerging from Main Street. On their heels others appeared. He laughed a grim little laugh, and slid forward in his stirrups to help his horse to greater speed. But when he reached the hills, some half a dozen miles south of town, they were close behind him, and their rifles were reaching out for him. He knew a certain cave, a narrow, shallow cover. Poor refuge, but better than none.

In this cave they brought him to bay. He lay prone behind the bowlder that screened and half closed the entrance, and watched them draw off and circle to inclose him. “Got a little while,” he said to himself. “Fireworks won’t start right away.”

Satisfied of this, he rolled a little on his side and drew from the front of his shirt the packages he had taken from the safe. Strictly in line with Bud Loupel’s well-laid plan, these were simply dummy packets of waste paper, with a genuine bill on the outside of each bundle. Mills laid them on the ground and studied them thoughtfully, considering their significance.

His situation was sufficiently desperate. Rand was dead. He had no doubt of that, and he regretted it. He had always liked Rand, but there had been no choice at the moment. The question was, what next! These fake bundles of money had their place in the scheme of things. If he kept them, told the true story, they might well save his life. Frontier justice was swift, but it was also tempered by considerations not accepted under a more rigid system of law. If he proved Bud Loupel’s part in this, Bud would be damned, and he might himself be saved. And the dummy bundles would prove Bud’s guilty foreknowledge of the robbery.

A rifle bullet spattered on the rock above him, and he postponed decision. “Needs thinking over,” he told himself. “We’ll see what we will see.”

They held him in siege all that afternoon, and toward sunset brought a barrel of kerosene from town. Men climbed the hill above the cave, where the bullets could not reach them, and poured this oil so that it ran down into a pool just in front of his retreat. Then they set fire to it. He saw at once that he could not endure the smoke and gas, and after some preparations shouted his surrender.

They bade him come out with his hands in the air, and he did so. His boots were somewhat scorched by the flames. Then they tied his hands behind his back and his ankles beneath the horse’s belly, and took him back to town. Toward dusk he was lodged in the calaboose there, and Nick Russ, the deputy, went on guard outside.

VI

About nine o’clock that night Bud Loupel came to the calaboose and asked if he could talk with Mills. Russ told him to go ahead. Bud asked permission to talk privately; and, though Russ was inclined to protest, he was at length persuaded. The deputy moved away from the little, one-room building, and Bud went inside. Mills was confined in a rude cell of two-by-four timbers. Bud approached these bars, and Jack came to meet him.

Loupel was sweating faintly. “For God’s sake, Jack,” he whispered. “This is terrible!”

Mills grinned. “Well,” he agreed. “It looks right critical to me.”

“If Rand hadn’t happened to get back ahead of time.... Hadn’t come in right then....”

“You didn’t happen to know he was coming, I don’t reckon.”

Loupel cried: “No, no, Jack. Honest to God!”

Mills nodded. “I know. I thought at first you did; but I reckon you wouldn’t play it that low down. Is he—hurt much?”

“Oh, you got him.”

“Yeah,” said Mills. “Well, that’s tough, too. When is it going to happen to me?”

“To-morrow morning.”

“They’re right prompt, ain’t they?”

Loupel gripped the stout timbers to stop the trembling of his hands. There was a terrible and pitiful anxiety in his voice. “Jack!” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Have you told?”

Mills turned his head away; he could not bear to look upon this old friend of his. “Why, no,” he said gently. “No, Bud, I ain’t told. Don’t aim to, if that helps any.”

“But the money,” Bud stammered. “The packages of bills. You couldn’t get rid of them. When they find them, they’ll know.”

“They won’t find them bundles,” Jack Mills told him; and, while Bud could only stare with widening eyes, he cheerfully explained: “You see, I was cold for a spell. So I had me a little bonfire in that cave.”

There was something hideous and craven in the relief that leaped into the eyes of Bud Loupel. Mills reached through the bars, caught the other’s shoulder, shook him upright. “Take a brace, Bud,” he said gently. “Go on home.”

Bud Loupel could not speak. He turned and went stumbling toward the door; he forgot so little a thing as shaking his pardner’s hand in farewell. Jack watched him go; and as the other reached the door he called:

“Take care of Jeanie, Bud.”

Loupel turned to look back, muttered a low assent, went on his way. Mills heard him speak to Russ as he departed. Then the deputy came to look in and make sure that the prisoner was still secure. He resumed his seat on a chair tipped against the wall, just outside the door.

Mills went back to the bench against the rear of his cell and rolled and smoked a cigarette. Then he lay down, one knee crossed above the other, and the man on guard heard him whistling.

Heard him whistling softly, between his teeth, a gay and gallant and triumphant little tune.