At the outer end of a long ride, a circle which was carrying them
deep into the Bad Lands lining the north side of the Missouri River,
Robin found himself riding beside Mark Steele after all the other
riders save Tommy Thatcher, Tex Matthews and himself had been turned
off. They had fallen into pairs. Thatcher and Matthews jogged fifty
yards in the rear.
“You mentioned rustlers one time to me,” Robin said guilefully. “I
haven’t seen no sign of crooked work. Did you dream somebody was
draggin’ the long rope on the Block S range?”
“If you were awake,” Mark retorted, “you might notice that
slick-ears is damned scarce in this rough country where there’s
generally plenty on account of bunches being missed here and there.”
“Maybe so,” Robin answered. “But I haven’t noticed anything that
looked like a maverick totin’ a strange brand, either.”
“Look here.” Shining Mark lowered his voice. “What I said to you and
what I say now is not for publication. I told you because you work
for old Mayne and I reckon he can’t afford to have his stock stolen.
You can tell old Dan what I said if you like--but you can tell him
likewise that if I hear any loose talk about cow thieves there’ll be
dust flyin’ around him. I know what’s goin’ on. I don’t want no
rustler tipped off that I’m on his trail. You tell old Mayne to
either keep his face closed or stop drinkin’ whisky.”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself,” Robin suggested mildly.
“I’m tellin’ _you_ to tell him,” Steele drawled coolly. “You’ll see
him first, I guess. And that goes for anybody. _Sabe?_”
He shot the last word at Robin as if it were a challenge.
“Don’t know as I do, but I hear what you say,” Robin answered
slowly.
Steele rode along looking sidewise at him now and then. Robin was
sensitive to impressions. He felt that this slender and capable
range foreman regarded him with suspicion and annoyance, and a touch
of contempt. Whether there was more in the back of Mark Steele’s
mind Robin couldn’t say. Mark’s words did sound like a threat. Robin
suspected Steele meant his message to Dan Mayne to be taken as a
threat. It was as if he said, “You fellows keep off my trail or
you’ll get hurt.”
It wouldn’t be the first time in the history of the cow business,
Robin knew, that a range boss had used his delegated power and
freedom of movement to feather his own nest at the expense of other
people. Nor would Shining Mark be the first man to grow restive and
see red when he found himself in danger.
Robin knew he had to be wary--or blind. Steele was obliquely warning
him that he and Dan Mayne had better be blind. But he did not let
Steele know that he so understood. He simply said:
“So long as this sight unseen cow thief don’t show his mark on
anything belonging to the man I work for, I leave him--or them--to
you. The Block S can take care of its own.”
“You’re damned right it can,” Steele said tartly, “long as I run it.
I don’t like cow thieves, myself.”
Again that curious repetition, emphasised Robin had no acquaintance
with classic literature, or he might have retorted: “Methinks thou
dost protest too much.”
As it was he said nothing.
A mile farther Steele pulled up. When the other two came abreast he
pointed into a ravine pitching down to a steep-walled canyon.
“You and Tex,” he instructed Robin, “drop in here and get across on
top of that other bench. Shove everything from there on back to
camp. We’ll take in the flat at the river and come up the bottom of
the canyon.”
They parted. When Matthews and Robin reached the high bench across
the canyon the other two were near the drop-off into the river,
riding fast. Robin reflected that if there were any Bar M Bar cows
with unbranded calves in that river flat they would probably stay
there. But orders were orders. He couldn’t go one place when he had
been told to go elsewhere. A range boss’s word was law on round-up.
If a “rep” didn’t like it he could cut his string and go home.
Bunches of cattle dotted the long, narrow plateau they had gained.
The wild brutes fled before them until the dry soil smoked under
their feet. All they had to do was lope and yell now and then. The
cattle could only follow that bench north to the round-up ground.
Where Tex and Robin crossed the canyon was the only possible
crossing in ten miles.
But though Steele had ordered them to work back from there, between
them and the river the bench held other cattle.
Tex rested both hands on his saddle horn and looked south. He
frowned. A cow-puncher on circle is supposed to get all the cattle
in sight except on ground he knows will be swept by other riders.
They were both aware of that. Robin didn’t need to ask what Tex was
thinking.
“He wasn’t none too clear, was he, kid?” Tex remarked. “He said to
work back. But if one of ’em don’t come up behind us there’ll be a
parcel of stuff missed.”
“Let’s linger awhile,” Robin suggested. “See if one of ’em shows up.
They’ll be in the river bottom by now.”
They got down off their horses, sought the shade of a clump of jack
pine. Half an hour passed. Those distant cattle fed undisturbed.
“If they came up the canyon they ought to be abreast of here now.”
Robin broke a long silence.
“Yep. Let’s ride,” Tex muttered.
“Which way?”
“Look into the canyon first.”
A view of that deep gorge, straight-walled, floored with sage, gave
sight of cattle feeding quietly between them and the river.
“No riders in sight,” Tex commented. “Maybe they went swimmin’.
Reckon we better get those cattle below us on the bench, kid.”
“Mark’ll bawl us out if one of them does come up behind us,” Robin
observed. “But I ain’t workin’ for the Block S. I don’t want to miss
cattle.”
“We ain’t supposed to miss cattle,” Tex replied. “As a matter of
fact I remember now that a man can’t ride up on this bench from the
river bottom. Steele and Thatcher got to come up the canyon. I was
mixed up on that proposition a couple of years ago on a pack trip
down here. Mark knows that too. I guess he forgot.”
They turned and rode south. Because to ride down the bench openly
would start every hoof running toward the blind cliff overlooking
the Big Muddy they sought the farther side and worked along under
the brow, out of sight, until they judged they were south of the
last bunch. It was rough going on steep sidehills with loose earth
crumbling underfoot, gullies to scramble over, thickets of jack pine
to scrub their faces with low branches.
They came out on the bench again less than half a mile from the
plateau end. Between them and where they had crossed the canyon at
least a hundred and fifty cattle showed.
“Shucks, there sure would have been a bunch of stuff missed,” Tex
grunted.
“Let’s take a look into the bottom,” Robin said. “Let’s look at the
old Missouri once more for a change.”
“Go look your head off,” Matthews said good-naturedly. “I’ve seen
her plenty. I near drowned in her two or three times. She’s no
beautiful sight I long to see.”
“All right. I’ll catch you.”
Robin headed for the end of the bench on a high run. He wanted to
look. He didn’t know what he expected to see. He didn’t know if
there was anything to be seen.
What he did lay eyes on was sufficient to make him whirl his horse
back out of sight the moment his eyes peered over the high bank.
Then he dismounted, crawled to the rim and lay flat on his stomach,
just as he had lain and looked that afternoon on Birch Creek, a
deeply interested spectator.
There was a good deal of activity in that lonely bottom. Fairly in
the middle of a flat three hundred yards wide and half a mile long
Steele and Thatcher had bunched about a hundred head of cattle of
all ages. With only two riders to hold them this herd surged first
one way then another and the two horsemen kept their mounts on the
jump. Yet now and then one or the other managed by a combination of
speed and skill to cut off a cow and a calf and turn them toward the
blind end of the flat.
Robin watched for half an hour. By that time the job was done. At
least thirty cows and calves had been separated from the herd. Then
Steele and Thatcher headed the remnant of mixed stuff into the mouth
of the wide canyon.
Robin mounted and sped south to overtake Matthews, who loped along
with little bunches of wild cattle streaking out ahead of him. Robin
had seen enough. Back in that bottom was a lot of fine material for
Steele and Thatcher to work on at their leisure when round-up was
over. No riders would sweep that territory for seven months. Those
cows and calves would winter in the bottom. They would not see a
rider until that precious pair came down to run the T Bar S on the
calves. God only knew what would befall the cows. But whatever
happened to them, long before spring, cows and calves would be
separated, and the fresh brand scars healed. No one would ever
question that indelible mark of ownership.
Robin was satisfied up to a certain point. He had an idea how they
worked. He knew who they were. No doubt of that remained. He was
pretty sure that although there might be Bar M Bars in that
throwback, there must be other brands, that in every place where
this pair of thieves took the outside circle there would be cows and
calves thrown back to be worked on later. Robin felt sure they
played no favorites. He wondered what Adam Sutherland would say if
he knew. He did not have to wonder how Dan Mayne would take it.
Robin wished he had prevailed on Tex to ride with him to that
jump-off. He had only his own word, as yet, in spite of what he had
seen. So he couldn’t talk, even to Tex Matthews, whom he liked and
felt he could trust. He could only relate this tale of wonders
beheld to Dan Mayne, whom he couldn’t trust to keep still.
Still, Robin was sanguine that in time, in not too great a span of
time, Steele and Thatcher, with a little secret assistance from
himself, would tangle themselves in their own ropes. The stock
inspectors would get them, if a necktie party from the Bear Paws
didn’t get them first.
He rode fast. He wanted to be well ahead of those two driving the
canyon. He took the opposite side of the bench from Tex and stirred
the running cattle to even greater speed. Matthews spurred up to
join him.
“Hey, what’s the rush?” he inquired. “What for the Blocker graze?
Sutherland wouldn’t thank you for meltin’ the tallow off’n his
steers’ ribs thataway.”
Robin let that go by. It struck him that he had better stop Tex from
casual talking.
“Say, Tex,” he put it bluntly. “Don’t you let out I rode down where
I could look into the river bottom, will you?”
Matthews stared at him for a second. Robin matched his gaze without
change of expression. The Texan suddenly shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m deef, dumb an’ blind,” said he. “What’d we do? Cross the
canyon, see a few head behind us, a little back, an’ get ’em?”
“Yes, if anybody asks,” Robin agreed.
“Guess maybe we _had_ better run a little fat off these steers,” Tex
drawled, “else we sure will have Mark inquirin’ where in hell we
were at. An’ you don’t want him gettin’ curious? Eh?”
“You’re gettin’ curious?”
The Texan shook his head.
“I been on many a cow range since I quit the Rio Grande,” said he.
“An’ on some of ’em I learned not to be curious. It’s a wise
cow-hand that knows enough to keep his mouth shut. The flies don’t
get in.”
“Blow flies,” Robin muttered.
Tex laughed.
“You’re a bright kid,” he said teasingly. “Let’s push these cows on
an’ talk about the weather.”
They hazed the cattle up the bench, between those gaudy canyons,
torn out of the plains level as if by some Gargantuan plow. Robin
loped over to the rim of the canyon once for a look down. Cattle
were running. He could see the glint and flash of shining horns. Far
back a haze of dust showed where Steele and Thatcher were punching
up the drag. Robin felt easier. He and Tex were well ahead of that
thieving pair. Mark would not be suspicious of spying from above.
Nearly an hour after they threw their cattle on the round-up ground
Steele and Thatcher came in with a couple of hundred head. They were
the last drive. Their horses were rough with sweat, tired. When they
rode into camp to catch fresh mounts to work the herd Mark commented
on their ride. To Robin it seemed like overdoing the thing.
“Ten miles for nothing,” Mark observed to him casually. “There was a
lot of stuff in the canyon, but hardly a dozen head in the river
bottom.”