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Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
trust in Providence. If you do Providence has been awful darn good
to your stock—so darn good, that I come up here to see you about it.
What’s the answer?”
“I don’t care to tell you anything about my business,” Bond
snarled. “I——”
“You might have to tell somebody about it one of these days,”
Robin interrupted.
Bond stared at him uneasily.
“There’s something queer about this T Bar S brand,” Robin went
on. “I sometimes dabble in queer things. I want to own it. I’m offerin’
you a good price—I’ll take my chances on gatherin’ what I pay for. In
fact I sort of want that brand for a bait. Will you sell? Better sell out
than get froze out. Forty-six hundred is a nice bunch of coin all in a
lump.”
“I’d like to take you up,” Bond declared. “But I can’t.”
“That brand’s registered in your name,” Robin challenged. “You’re
goin’ to get into trouble over it.”
“No I ain’t,” Bond defended. “I don’t own it. Never did.”
“Who does?” Robin demanded.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You might have to tell a judge and jury,” Robin said bluntly.
Bond shifted in his seat, visibly nervous.
“Look,” Robin continued. He turned back the lapel of his coat to
reveal the deputy’s badge. “I’m foreman of the J7 outfit on the Judith
side of the Big Muddy. But I’m a deputy from Tom Coat’s office
besides. Tyler’s my name. I got a blank warrant in my pocket. I don’t
punch cows or be a deputy sheriff for the fun of the thing. I know
somethin’ about this brand you’re supposed to own. You’ll either tell
me who you’re coverin’ up or you’ll go down to Fort Benton on the
morning train. Take your choice.”
“I dassent,” Bond whined. “I don’t know nothin’ about cattle. Never
owned a hoof. Havin’ this T Bar S registered in my name was just a
favor to a certain party. You can’t put nothin’ on me for that.”
“Can’t I? How much did you get for this favor—from this party?”
Robin jeered. “Talk right out loud, Mr. J. Bond.”
 “A couple of hundred,” Bond admitted, with sullen reluctance. “But
you can’t hang nothin’ on me for that, either.”
“Men have been hung for less in the cow country,” Robin said
grimly. “Who is this party?”
Bond shook his head stubbornly.
“Hell!” he cried. “Why don’t you grab the cattle and make him
show his hand?”
Robin stared at the saloon man for a minute. Certain possibilities
occurred to him on the heels of that remark. But he wanted
something more definite.
“Spit his name out,” he said harshly. “I can guess it—but I want to
hear you say it out loud.”
Again Bond demurred. Panic was beginning to show in his face.
“All right, then,” Robin said and rose. “You come with me.”
He wasn’t afraid of Bond holding out to the bitter end. The man
was too frightened. And under Robin’s threatening attitude he
weakened instantly.
“Oh, Lord,” Bond threw out both hands despairingly. “If you got to
know, why the feller that owns the T Bar S, that has owned them
ever since that stock went down to the Bear Paws, is Mark Steele,
range boss of the Block S, Adam Sutherland’s outfit.”
“I expected he did,” Robin answered coolly. “Now how does he
hold title to ’em when you have the brand registered in your name?”
“I got the brand with money he furnished,” Bond admitted sullenly.
“Then I turned around and gave him a legal bill of sale. But he didn’t
want the brand transferred. He got me to hold it in my name.”
“I see,” Robin nodded. “An’ what beef was shipped you collected
the money an’ paid it over to Mark. And so on.”
He drummed on the table reflectively for a few seconds.
“Well, if Mark Steele owns the T Bar S I can’t buy it from you, can
I? You just forget we had this conversation until—well, if it should
happen that Shinin’ Mark got into trouble you might have to explain
the circumstances of this bill of sale in court.”
“If he was where he couldn’t get at me, I’d like to wash my hands
of the whole business,” Bond said morosely. “He was up here this
spring threatenin’ all sorts of things if I ever opened my trap. He was
worried about somethin’. I don’t mind sayin’ I’m scared of him. He’s
dangerous.”
“I guess maybe he is,” Robin agreed. “So you better never admit
to him that you told me who owned the T Bar S. At the same time
you better disown that brand. There’s goin’ to be a mix up over those
cattle by and by. That’s all. So long.”
Robin walked out of the dive. It was a dive, subsisting on the
border of the underworld, betraying its character at a glance. Robin
was glad to get away from the place. Nevertheless he was glad he
had bearded Jim Bond in this den of iniquity—which differed from the
average cow town saloon as the floor of a pigsty differs from a Wilton
rug—because he had gleaned an important fact or two, and one
harassed remark of Bond’s had suggested to him a plan which he
thought worth trying.
 CHAPTER XXII
A NEAR SHOWDOWN

Another rider jogged beside Robin Tyler when he rode out of Fort
Benton the following day, a man about thirty, a typical cow hand one
would say from a glance at his sunburned face, the easy effortless
way he sat his horse, the completeness of his riding rig. Sam
Connors was a cow-puncher, but he was also another of Tom Coats’
deputies, a dark horse on the county pay roll, his status as an officer
of the law remaining under cover for purposes best known to a
sheriff whose security in a political job rested on affording protection
to cattlemen against the occasional marauder who looked too
longingly on stock not his own.
The J7 riders were all in camp. They had feasted, so to speak,
won a roughriding contest in Big Sandy. They were very well pleased
with themselves, with their wagon boss, with the world in general.
They had rested for a couple of days and now with the impatience of
youth they craved action.
They got it speedily. Robin reached camp at three in the
afternoon. Before sundown he had bunched his day herd out of the
PN pastures and made it breast the Big Muddy. He threw his horse
herd over the river on the heels of the cattle, ferried his wagons on a
scow borrowed from the PN, and set up his camp on the north shore.
At daybreak he led his riders on circle. For one week he shifted
camp twice a day and swept the country for fifteen miles on either
side as he moved, so that on the eighth day he had picked up every
T Bar S ranging between lower Birch and Big Sandy Creek. He had
by actual count over six hundred in his day herd and the scope of
Shining Mark’s operations loomed bigger than ever. There might be
a few more scattered here and there on the Block S range, but Robin
had enough for his purpose. He reckoned that Shining Mark’s crew
would be taking a lay-off before beef round-up somewhere near the
home ranch. When the swing of his gathering brought the J7 under
the south slope of Shadow Butte, Robin left Tom Hayes in charge
and rode for the Block S.
He wanted to see Adam Sutherland and he wanted to see Shining
Mark—he wanted to get them together. He thought he would explode
a sort of bomb and see what would follow. Mark might stand pat and
say nothing—but he would do something, either at once or soon
after. He might open war at sight. Robin didn’t know how his tactics
would result. The uncertainty keyed him up a trifle.
Probably his greatest desire was to see May, to feel her lissome
body rest for a moment in his arms. There was a greater thrill in that
expectation, a more riotous quickening of his pulse, than in the worst
Mark Steele could do. Love was for Robin a far keener, a more
disturbing emotion than hate—and he didn’t hate Mark. He despised
him. But despising the man did not, as Robin knew, make him any
less formidable.
Dangerous or not, Mark Steele no longer had the power to make
Robin grow moody as he stared out across the plains, nor to hush
the song on his lips when he rode. He galloped now through the
foothills lilting one of those interminable ditties every range rider
knew, the saga of what befell a trail herd between the Staked Plains
and the Canada line. The ground was dry and hot, the grass a crisp
brown. All the delicate wild flowers, the tender green of spring, had
vanished under the brassy glare of a midsummer sun. The streams
were dwindling in their pebbly beds. Yet the old charm of the plains
held good. That wide land had changed its aspect but intrinsically it
remained the same, passing through its orderly cycle of blazing July
heat, to verge into brown, still autumn—then white winter, and after
that once more the green and beautiful spring.
Robin came whistling down the slope into the home ranch. He
noted the tents of the round-up on the creek below an irrigated
meadow. He hoped both May and her father would be at home and
not in town. When he drew up at the porch steps he saw that May, at
any rate, was there. Her yellow head showed at an open window.
She blew him a kiss with both hands and beckoned him to come in.
Robin needed no second invitation.
“You glad to see me?”
 “Glad?” The girl threw back her head and laughed happily. “Oh,
Robin, you’re funny. Are you blind?”
Robin’s vision was keen enough. He could see the glow in her
eyes, the flush that warmed her cheeks, and his ears drank in the
note of gladness in her voice.
“Well, I like to hear you say it,” he smiled. “Because I haven’t
much time to make love. I’m a foreign rider from a distant range and
I’ve got to consult your father on business. Likewise I see the Block
S camp on the creek, so I reckon Mr. Steele may be present, which
makes me keep my weather eye open. Is the owner of the Block S
around?”
Robin was standing with May in the bend of his arm. He kissed
her with the last sentence—and started a trifle at the unexpected
answer to the last question—since it came in the unmistakable deep
tones of Adam Sutherland himself.
“Yes, the owner of Block S is around,” he said. And after a second
in which his daughter and his foreman looked at him in silence he
continued harshly: “And it looks to me like it stands me in hand to be
around.”
May’s head went up. The hand that rested on Robin’s shoulder
tightened a little in its grasp. Her color flamed. Her eyes took on a
different brightness from the soft gleam that had welcomed her lover.
But Robin found his tongue first, forestalling her.
“You don’t sound very pleased,” he said quietly. “Do you reckon
it’s a crime for a man to love your girl?”
“From what I’ve heard you’re kinda free and hasty in your lovin’,”
Sutherland replied.
Robin’s face clouded.
“You have no right to say a thing like that,” he returned.
“I got a right to say what suits me,” Sutherland declared. “I don’t
know as you’re the man I’d pick for my daughter.”
“Your daughter,” May broke in with unexpected passion in her
voice, “will do her own picking when it comes to a man. You know
that, dad. I’ve told you time and time again. I’ve been good and
obedient in everything you’ve ever asked of me. But you can’t do my
marrying for me.”
 “It’s come to that already, has it?” Sutherland muttered. He took
off his hat and rolled it in his hands. His glance, bent alternately on
Robin and his daughter, was doubtful. But neither that dubious
glance on his otherwise impassive, florid face, nor the tone of his
voice, gave any clue to what lay in his mind. “You ain’t lost no time.
Talk about marryin’—a couple of kids!” he snorted suddenly. “I’ll have
something to say about that.”
“Say it, then,” Robin suggested. “Say it right now. Let’s hear your
kick on me as a man, if you have one.”
“There’s something else I want to talk about to you first,”
Sutherland said slowly. His glance flickered toward the south
window. “This can wait awhile. Come out on the porch.”
“Dad.” May put her hands up on her father’s thick shoulder. “You
don’t really think I haven’t a right to pick my own man, do you?
You’re not going to make a mistake like that?”
“I never denied you much,” he looked down at her. “But the man
that gets you’s got to be all wool an’ a yard wide.”
“You won’t quarrel with Robin about me, will you?” she wheedled.
“No. He won’t,” Robin put in, his pride a little in arms at the idea of
her pleading for him. “It takes two to make a quarrel.”
“No, we won’t quarrel,” Sutherland answered. “There ain’t goin’ to
be any argument, even.”
“I want to see you before you leave,” May said to Robin.
“You will,” he told her. “I can promise you that.”
“Are you sure you’ll keep that promise?” old Adam’s eyes
narrowed as he asked the question.
“Yes,” Robin said gently. His gaze, which had followed
Sutherland’s look through the window, noted Mark Steele standing
by a porch column. He wondered how Steele had got there unheard
and how Sutherland’s heavy tread had not warned them of his
coming. He had a flash of how completely love may absorb a man
and dull his alertness for other things. Looking now at Shining Mark’s
head and shoulders limned against the sky he qualified his simple
assertion. “Yes, if I’m on my feet and able to navigate.”
Sutherland caught Robin’s meaning.
 “There ain’t goin’ to be no show-down—not yet,” he said. “Come
on.”
May, too, had seen Steele.
“I don’t like this,” she said sharply. She caught Robin by the arm. “I
don’t want you to go out there and meet that man. You mustn’t.”
Robin shrugged his shoulders.
“I got to meet him here an’ there, sometime,” said he. “I never did
really side-step him. I surely won’t now.”
“Listen, my girl,” Sutherland frowned. “I’m boss of this layout.
There’ll be no private wars started here. There may be some talk but
there’ll be no shootin’. Tyler’s right. He can’t side-step. There’s a
matter of business to be talked about. You leave keepin’ peace
between these two to me.”
May smiled and kissed her father brightly. Robin marveled at her
easy assurance. He doubted even Adam Sutherland’s power to avert
a clash if Shining Mark made a move. That, it seemed to Robin, was
a little beyond even a cattle king in the heart of his own domain.
“You run along, now,” Sutherland told his daughter. She obeyed at
once.
Robin moved toward the door. Almost instinctively he gave a little
hitch forward to the gun scabbard on his belt. Sutherland stopped
him with an imperative gesture.
“You heard what I said.” His tone was pitched low, but lacked none
of its habitual authority. “Don’t you make no breaks. He won’t. You let
me walk out ahead.”
Robin gave way to him. He didn’t know what was coming, but he
was ready for anything. If a little tension seized him he was
nevertheless alert, mentally and physically prepared for the
unexpected.
Shining Mark greeted him as casually as if nothing had ever risen
between them. Robin looked at him in silence. He couldn’t simulate
that indifference. He wouldn’t pretend. He kept his eye on Steele and
his mouth shut. Mark shrugged his shoulders, looked at his
employer.
“What I wanted to ask you,” Sutherland turned to him and spoke,
“was what you’re doin’ on my range with the J7 round-up?”
 “Oh, well——” Robin scarcely hesitated. This was as good an
opening as he wanted. It seemed almost as if Sutherland had made
it for a purpose. He couldn’t possibly know what Robin was there for,
but he could not have led up to Robin’s opening gun more directly.
“As a matter of fact I ambled up here partly to ask you if you had any
objection to me combing your range—and partly to see if I could
make a little deal in cows with you. I bought a bunch of cattle the
other day. That’s what I’m doin’ this side the river; gatherin’ ’em. I
wouldn’t mind sellin’ ’em to you. I only bought them on spec.”
Sutherland stared at him for a few seconds and Robin wondered if
he would turn and rend him or follow the lead—if he would
understand by any chance what Robin was driving at.
“I’ll buy cows any time the price is right,” he said indifferently.
“You’re sort of expandin’, aren’t you? What you got to sell?”
“The T Bar S brand. There’s a lot of ’em clutterin’ up your range.”
“If I don’t buy you out,” Sutherland inquired, “what do you aim to
do with ’em?”
“Oh, somebody else’ll buy,” Robin answered. “I don’t aim to go
into the cow business myself. The outfit I work for don’t care to have
its round-up foreman ownin’ cattle.”
“So you’ve bought the T Bar S and you want to sell it to me?”
Sutherland commented thoughtfully.
Robin watched Steele closely during this exchange of talk. He
saw Mark start when he named the brand, noted the flick of his
eyelids. Beyond that the man gave no sign. He was cold-blooded,
Robin thought.
“What’s your price?” Sutherland asked.
“Eighteen dollars a head,” Robin announced.
“How many head you estimate the T Bar S’ll run?”
Robin could have hugged the old man for those pointed
questions. If anything could galvanize Steele into word or deed that
might expose his hand, that sort of thing would. Selling his own stock
—no matter if they were stolen—over his head, before his own eyes.
“I can’t say very close because I don’t know how many more I’ll
pick up. Right now I’ve got between three and four hundred head.”
Sutherland continued to stare at him hard.
 “I might dicker with you,” he said slowly. “Can you give me a legal
transfer of the T Bar S brand?”
“I don’t know why not,” Robin said. “Anyway, I can deliver the
cattle.”
“I’ll give you sixteen dollars.”
Robin took a few seconds to consider this, in reality to watch its
effect on Shining Mark. And the effect seemed to be nil—unless a
slight twisting of his mouth meant anything more than a covert sneer.
“Split the difference,” he suggested. “Make it seventeen.”
“All right. It’s a deal at seventeen,” Sutherland agreed.
“I can depend on that?” Robin inquired.
Sutherland frowned.
“My word’s never been doubted. What you mean?”
“Nobody’s doubtin’ it now,” Robin smiled broadly. “I just wanted to
be sure you wouldn’t change your mind. I’ll have the last of the T Bar
S’s picked up in a few days. Where do you want me to deliver?”
“Just a minute,” Shining Mark broke in crisply. “Before you
consider that deal closed I’d like to ask you who you bought the T
Bar S from?”
“I don’t know what your interest in the matter is,” Robin answered
him coolly. “But since you ask polite it’s natural I’d buy from the man
that owns it, Jim Bond of Helena.”
“Have you got a bill of sale, and the brand transferred to your
name?” Mark asked slowly.
Robin’s lip curled as he looked at Steele and made his bluff good.
“I’m proceedin’ to sell the T Bar S lock, stock an’ barrel to Adam
Sutherland,” he said. “You can take it I know enough about the cow
business to have a clear title.”
“You can’t sell nothin’ wearin’ a T Bar S to Sutherland or anybody
else,” Mark said very slowly and distinctly. He had drawn himself
straight as an arrow. His mouth had an ugly twist. “If Jim Bond gave
you a bill of sale for the T Bar S it ain’t worth the paper the damned
old crook wrote it on. He don’t own it. He never did. The brand
registry stood in his name, but I own the cattle and I can prove
ownership. I’ve owned ’em ever since the time the T Bar S’s were
turned loose on this range. I give you notice right now. I can produce
the papers for that. You won’t deliver no T Bar S cattle to Adam
Sutherland nor anybody else, Mr. Tyler.”
Anger rang in his voice. Unquestionably Shining Mark was stirred.
But he made no move beyond that defiant speech. Robin, watching
him closely, shrugged his shoulders.
“You may have the papers,” he said insolently. “But I’ve got the
cattle. I’ll deliver ’em to the Block S.”
Steele took a step forward. For a breath Robin thought Shining
Mark meant to burn powder at last and he stiffened in his tracks, half
turned, ready. But Mark controlled his temper. He, too, shrugged his
shoulders. His lips parted, but before the words were uttered
Sutherland faced him.
“So you claim to own the T Bar S brand?”
“I do own it,” Mark said coolly.
“An’ you’ve owned it for two years, here on my range, unknown to
me? Hidin’ behind another man’s registry of the brand?”
“I have. You can put it that way if you like.”
“I don’t like it no way you put it, Steele,” old Adam said. “If the J7
has gathered between three and four hundred in that brand there’s a
screw loose somewhere. I know how many head came in here two
years back. That ain’t a natural increase. You know what I mean.”
“I can’t help what you mean,” Steele replied quite casually. He
leaned against the porch column, cocked up one booted foot and
played with the spur rowel. “If they’ve increased plenty so much the
better for me. I own ’em. I can prove ownership. You can be
suspicious if it suits you. If you think I’ve rustled you know what to do
about that. You’ve handled rustlers before.”
“You have rustled, by God—an’ you’ve done worse!” Sutherland
gritted.
Shining Mark looked at him unmoved.
“That’s open to argument,” he said brazenly. “You’ve got stock
detectives. You’ve got men with eyes in their heads. They’ve been
around me all the time. If you think you got a case, go ahead. I’ve
got a clear conscience, Sutherland. And I own that T Bar S brand.
Nobody’s goin’ to sell it but me—an’ don’t you forget that, Mr. Robin
Tyler.”
 “I told you before you may have papers enough to choke a cow,”
Robin said. “But possession is nine points of the law, I’ve heard. I’ve
got the cattle. I’ll deliver ’em to the Block S. You can gamble on that.”
“Maybe you will, maybe you won’t,” Shining Mark snarled. “I’m
here to tell you you won’t. I’ll tell you something more. I’ll——”
“That’s enough, Steele,” Sutherland stepped between them. “You
make a break on this porch and you’ll go feet first off the ranch. You
shut up an’ ride while the ridin’s good. An’ keep ridin’.”
“Oh, I’ll ride off your ranch fast enough,” Steele said with an ugly
laugh. “But after that I’ll ride where I damn please. This is a free
country, Sutherland. You can’t run me out of it because you don’t like
me to own stock on your range.”
“I don’t care a whoop about you ownin’ stock on my range,”
Sutherland growled. “But it sure don’t set well on my stomach to
have a man I trusted turn out both a liar an’ a thief.”
Shining Mark laughed sardonically. He turned and clanked down
the steps.
“Talk’s cheap but it takes money to buy whisky,” he flung back
over his shoulder. “Say what you like. Think what you like. But don’t
monkey with my cattle or you’ll burn your fingers—both of you.”
He mounted and rode away. They watched him lope toward the
round-up camp. In Robin’s mind lurked a wonder as to what Shining
Mark’s next move would be. Steele would never lie down under that,
Robin knew. He was too cool, too determined—so sure that he was
safe that he could and would defy them. The hate in his eyes and
voice spelled trouble to Robin’s discerning eye.
Then he turned to find Sutherland steadfastly regarding him.
“I sure got a couple of enterprisin’ wagon bosses,” the old man
said tartly. “One aims to steal my cattle and the other aims to steal
my daughter.”
 CHAPTER XXIII
CROSSED WIRES

The likening of himself to Mark Steele as a marauder made Robin

flush.
“Oh, is that so?” he said stiffly. “You put us in the same class, do
you? You figure that me lovin’ your girl and wanting her is the same
as him stealin’ your calves. I like that. I sure do!”
“I didn’t mean it quite like that, kid,” Sutherland stared absently
after his thieving foreman. “But it don’t seem like I can trust anybody
any more.”
“You can’t trust me because I like May an’ want her,” Robin said
hotly. “It don’t occur to you that her wanting me has anything to do
with it. I’m on the level with a thief because I want to marry your
daughter, eh? What’s the matter with me? Does a man have to be a
millionaire and a hell-roarer and a parlor lion all rolled into one before
you favor him as a son-in-law?”
“Not quite,” Sutherland replied. “But he’s got to be somethin’, an’
he ought to have somethin’. She’s all I’ve got—an’ she’s just a kid.
She owes me somethin’, too. I’ve built up a fortune for her to have
when I’m through. I got to be sure it’s her, not the fortune, a man’s
after—an’ that he is a man.”
“I don’t care a darn about your fortune,” Robin said angrily. “I can
make a fortune of my own, I reckon, if I get down to it. May’s of age,
anyway. If she’s the kind of girl I think she is she’d like to have your
blessin’, but if it ain’t to be had, in a pinch she’ll do without it. You got
no right to keep her in a glass case. And I don’t think you can.”
“You’re just a couple of kids,” Sutherland repeated stubbornly. “I
won’t hear of it. I don’t know whether you’re the real thing or a false
alarm, Tyler. I don’t want to seem arbitrary, but you got to put this
thing out of your mind if you work for me.”
Robin shook his head.
 “I can’t do that,” he answered soberly. “I couldn’t do that even if I
wanted to, even to please you. I’d like you to think I was the real
thing. I don’t know how I can do it any more than I have been doin’.
I’ve had my heart set on her ever since the first time I saw her—an’ I
think it’s the same with her. I’ll play fair, but I won’t back down an
inch where she’s concerned.”
“You’ll do this,” Sutherland said decisively. “You won’t see her no
more till this Shining Mark business is settled. Then you’ll have to
show me you’re capable of handlin’ a big cow outfit, top an’ bottom,
inside out, before I’ll hear of any marryin’. I’ve only the one kid. I’ve
raised her well. I got to make sure she’s makin’ no blunder.”
Some instinctive wisdom forbade Robin taking issue with that. He
rebelled against Sutherland’s attitude—yet saw dimly a certain
justice on the older man’s side. So he held his peace where his
feelings urged him to headlong defiance. He had had to be patient
before. He could be patient now.
And Sutherland, as if he had issued an edict which could not be
gainsaid, returned to the business in hand.
“So,” said he, “you took that five thousand dollars to buy the T Bar
S? What’s the idea, anyhow?”
“I did and I didn’t,” Robin brought his mind back to cattle and
Shining Mark. “I went up to Helena prospectin’. I ran a sort of
whizzer on old Jim Bond and found out what I wanted to be sure of.
Mark owns the T Bar S right enough, did from the beginnin’. Bond’s
just a cover, an’ he admitted that. Then I crossed the Missouri an’
worked some range. I’ve still got your check. I didn’t buy ’em, of
course. I thought maybe I could do that, an’ ball Mark up that way.
But I didn’t need to. I was simply runnin’ another bluff on Steele
because you gave me a good chance. I couldn’t sell the T Bar S to
you, lawful. But thinkin’ I might’ll make him do somethin’. I don’t
know but you could put him in the pen right now—since he’s claimed
ownership. As a matter of fact, by actual count, I’ve got six hundred
odd T Bar S cattle in my day herd right now, at Shadow Butte. That
number just naturally proves most of ’em stolen. A hundred and fifty
head mixed stock don’t double up twice in two years.”
Sutherland grunted something unintelligible. He ran his stubby
fingers through his grizzled hair and looked at Robin. He did not say
Robin had done well or ill. He simply looked—deeply interested, very
thoughtful.
“There’s a few more I expect, scattered around,” Robin continued.
“Do you want me to get ’em all?”
Sutherland didn’t answer that question directly.
“I expect Mark feels dead safe,” he muttered. “He hasn’t run his
iron on anything this spring. I guess we couldn’t make out a clear
case if it come to a trial. I thought—I kinda—an’ we got to connect
him up with shootin’ Tex Matthews yet.”
He stood in a brown study.
“If he stands pat on what he’s got, an’ walks a chalkline, we can’t
do nothin’,” he said at last. “Your word alone, an’ circumstantial
evidence, won’t put him where I want him, Tyler.”
“He won’t stand pat,” Robin prophesied. “I won’t let him, for one
thing. I’ll never be safe on this range with him holdin’ out at Mayne’s.
I’ve troubled Shinin’ Mark too long an’ too much. He’ll try to get me
one way or another. I can see that in his eye every time I look him in
the face. He’ll never give up the T Bar S. And I’ve got ’em. My hunch
is to keep ’em. I’d run the Block S on every hoof, an’ see what he’d
do about it. Do you want me to hold those cattle? Two-thirds of ’em
he stole from you. Are you goin’ to let him get away with them—and
more?”
Sutherland ripped out an oath.
“I won’t let him sit like a wolf in his den at the Bar M Bar,” he
declared. “I’ll buy Mayne out. I’ll give him all his outfit is worth. If he
won’t sell I’ll freeze him out. An’ Steele won’t have no hold out or
herd to cover up with. But about these T Bar S’s—I don’t know.
Law’s law—when it comes to property. You can’t just grab ’em.”
“But I have grabbed ’em,” Robin declared. “The original idea in my
mind was to prove to you that he was a darned thief. Then I went
ahead an’ gathered those cattle, gathered and held them on my own
responsibility as boss of the J7—just to make Mark show his teeth.
He will—he can’t help it if he thinks I’m out to beat him at his own
crooked game.”
A queer gleam showed in Sutherland’s eyes.
 “That’s up to you,” Robin added. “I’ve run the outfit in your
interest. If you don’t want me to use my own judgment, tell me what
you want done. Say what you want me to do with those stolen
cattle.”
“Hold ’em,” Sutherland said briefly. “Gather all you can find.
Outside of that use your own judgment. I want to nail that murderin’
thief—both of ’em.”
“I guess that’s all, then,” Robin said after a brief silence. “I want to
speak to May like I promised. Then I’ll ride.”
“You got to promise me you won’t be seein’ her on the quiet,”
Sutherland persisted. “You’re young an’ you’re good-lookin’. I don’t
know how much more there is to you.”
“If there was no more to me than that,” Robin retorted, “I wouldn’t
be runnin’ a round-up for you.”
“You might be a top cowman an’ still be darned poor timber for a
husband,” Sutherland observed. “A girl’s judgment don’t go far. I got
to know you better.”
“Hell, a fellow would think it was you I aimed to marry, not your
girl,” Robin sputtered, “the way you want to be so sure I’m all wool
and a yard wide.”
“It’s all in the family,” Sutherland grinned slightly, for the first time
in their conversation. “I think a heap of that kid. I don’t aim for her to
take no chances if I can help it. Is it a promise?”
“Yes,” Robin agreed. “I know I have to attend to my work. But
seein’ me once in a while is more her affair than yours, I think. If May
wants to have it that way, yes. And only as long as she wants to
have it that way.”
Sutherland fished a cigar out of his pocket, bit off the end with
utmost deliberation.
“I’ll give you ten minutes with her,” he said. “You tell her what I
said.”
Old Adam was still nursing the unlighted cigar when May and
Robin came out on the porch ten minutes later, ten minutes precisely
by the clock.
“Good-by,” Robin said to her. “I’m on my way.”
 She put her face up to be kissed and Robin kissed her without
regard to her male parent. Then she went back into the house. He
stood a moment.
“You got no particular orders for me, I suppose?” he inquired.
“No. I told you to use your own judgment. It’ll be two weeks before
beef round-up starts. We’ll see what breaks by then.”
Robin went jingling his spurs down the porch steps. At the bottom
Sutherland halted him with a word.
“Look, kid,” he said. “You keep your eyes peeled for Mark. The
minute you think you’ve got him right—you call on Tom Coats. Don’t
go takin’ the law into your own hands.”
“All right.” Robin smiled to himself. “I guess I won’t do nothin’
rash.”
He had not told Sutherland that he already had one of Tom Coats’
men on hand for just such an emergency, nor that he, himself, was
clothed in the majesty of such law as Chouteau county afforded.
That was his own affair.
He rode away, not altogether happy, but fairly hopeful. He had
truthfully repeated Sutherland’s ultimatum to May and she had
counseled patience.
“I know him so well,” she said. “If we defy him he might never
forgive us. I think he likes you well enough, Robin. But he has often
hinted at ambitious things for me. There was never a man paid me
any attention that he approved of. He has always made everything
come out the way he wanted and he can’t somehow think of me as a
woman with definite ideas of life for herself—only as a little girl that
he’s raised. So be patient, Robin. Don’t make me a bone of
contention. I will see you now and then, all open and above-board. If
in the end we have to take the bit in our teeth, we’ll do so. I’m game.
I’d turn my back on anything for you. But if you could be the son he’s
never had, it would be better—for all of us.”
And Robin had agreed; the more readily since he had a pride of
his own and Sutherland had touched it deeply. He would show this
cattle king that a man could amount to something even if he were not
of the pastoral blood royal that counted its cattle on a thousand hills.
And there was Shining Mark to be coped with, one way or another
before he, Robin Tyler, could ever ride at ease in the Bear Paws or
lie down to sleep at night with no care in his mind. Neither task would
be easy; the second held as great an element of personal danger as
it did when Robin rode for Mayne. It seemed to him that as his
career and outlook expanded life grew more complicated, clashes
more inevitable, responsibilities greater. But he had no mind to shirk
anything that loomed on his horizon.
He reached his camp by Shadow Butte, slept on his plans, and
flung his riders abroad at dawn. Their circle brought them near the
Bar M Bar. Robin turned off all but Sam Connors and jogged with
Sam down by his own cabin to have a look. He paused a second on
the bank above to have a look around. Wild cattle were streaking
westward before the J7 riders. The Mayne ranch lay in the creek
bed, a huddle of buildings and corrals. Robin wondered, as he
dropped into the flat, if Shining Mark had transferred himself to the
Bar M Bar now that Sutherland had kicked him out.
He and Connors rounded the cabin. Before the door a saddle
horse that Robin knew stood with reins on the ground, head
drooping in the bright morning sun. On the little stoop Ivy Mayne sat
nursing her chin in cupped palms. She looked up as they drew rein,
sprang to her feet and held out both hands.
“Oh, Robin, Robin!” she cried. “I was thinkin’ about you.”
Her cheeks were tear stained. The look on her face gave Robin a
pang. And there was nothing he could do or say—nothing. He knew
that. He sat in his saddle, silent. Sam Connors glanced at the girl, at
Robin.
“I’ll ride on a ways,” he said and was gone before Robin could
stay him or bid him go. His own instinct was to ride on—and still—he
couldn’t be brutal in the face of her distress. Ivy held out her hands
again.
“Get down, Robin, and talk to me—please,” she begged. “Please.”
He dismounted.
“I was a fool.” The words tumbled out of her hysterically. “Come
back, Robin. I want you.”
She flung herself at him. Robin caught her by the shoulders, held
her at arm’s length, looked down at her sorrowfully.
 “Get hold of yourself,” he commanded. “Don’t act crazy. You don’t
want me. You’d ’a’ kept me when you had me, if you’d wanted. You
can’t play with a man, discard him, and pick him up again, just as
you take the notion. You know that. What’s the matter with you?”
She turned away from him with a stifled sob.
“Oh, I know, I know,” she wailed. “I’ve lost you. I am crazy. I’ve
always been crazy. I ought to kill myself an’ I haven’t got the nerve.
Oh Robin, Robin, I wish I was dead!”
She sank into that huddled posture on the step and cried in a way
that made Robin ache. Then suddenly, while he wondered if it were
wise or kind to say more, or if it would be better to ride away and
leave her, she stopped weeping, looked up at him.
“I didn’t mean what I said,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I
said it. I know you haven’t any use for me an’ I don’t blame you. I am
about crazy, Robin. You better ride along. Mark Steele’s ragin’
around this country somewhere.”
“He was at the Block S yesterday an’ he didn’t seem particularly
ragin’ when I was around,” Robin said quietly. “Has somethin’
happened?”
“He’s got me in trouble an’ just laughs at me,” she said wearily. “I
don’t know what I’m goin’ to do. Dad’ll just about kill me when he
finds out. Or he’ll go after Mark an’ get killed himself.”
“He can’t give you the worst of it that way,” Robin fairly sputtered.
“He promised to marry you, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but that’s nothin’ to him,” she sighed. “Promises don’t mean
nothin’ to Mark Steele. I took care of him last winter when he was
shot, like he was a baby. He fixed it up to buy a half interest with dad
this spring when he fell into that money. He’s backed out of
everything. He rode in last night fairly foamin’ about somethin’. He
had some things there he wanted. He got ’em an’ rode away an’ as
good as told us both to go to hell. He was wild. I never saw him so
ugly.”
Robin could easily guess the fury that raged in Steele once he
had time to think, feeling himself checkmated, his liberty as well as
the fruits of his crafty stealing endangered by Robin’s latest move.
But that was no matter to be discussed with Ivy. He was sorry for her
—but——She looked at him and her lips quivered. Then a curious
gleam lit her dark eyes.
“If you hadn’t met that tow-headed Sutherland girl, this wouldn’t ’a’
happened,” she blazed out at him.
There was no dealing with that oblique reasoning. Robin knew
Ivy’s wayward moods of old. He made a little impatient gesture. Ivy
rose.
“I’m goin’ to the Block S one of these days an’ tear her eyes out,”
she said passionately.
“Look,” Robin said sternly. “You had me. You could always have
had me. I’d ’a’ stuck through anything. But he came along when I
was hoein’ a hard row. You got to despisin’ me an’ admirin’ him.
That’s all there is to it. When I came back after jumpin’ the country
because I thought I’d killed him, you had dropped me like a hot
potato. Don’t go blamin’ another woman for somethin’ you did
yourself, because you wanted to.”
“Both of ’em.” Ivy gritted her white teeth. “I got it in for both of ’em,
her an’ Mark. He could ’a’ left me alone, an’ she could ’a’ left you
alone an’ it would ’a’ been all right. I hate them both. I have a mind to
ride to the Block S and shame ’em before everybody. That’s what I
started out to do this mornin’.”
“Better turn around an’ go home,” Robin counseled. “No good
actin’ like a crazy woman. Go home an’ make a clean breast of it to
the old man an’ let him deal with Shinin’ Mark.”
“He’s afraid. Everybody’s afraid of Mark Steele,” she sneered.
“He’d say I was to blame for givin’ in, an’ he’d about kill me. All he
thinks anything of is his cattle. He’s wild now because Mark backed
out of the partnership. Says Mark’s a darned cheatin’ cow thief.”
“He is, too,” Robin said coldly. “Only he’s as bad as Mark because
he knew that long ago.”
“Oh, I don’t care what he is,” she cried. “I don’t care. I’m so near
crazy I don’t care who is what, or what happens.”
“No good feelin’ like that,” Robin tried to soothe her. “Go home an’
try to settle down an’ forget it. You ain’t the first girl that trusted a
man that was no good. You’re better off without him.”
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