No man can altogether escape the dominant influences of his
environment. For good or evil his thought and action must be colored
by the thought and action of his fellows, as his speech will be
colored by the current idioms.
Robin, in spite of his resolution not to be snared in the net Mark
Steele spread for his feet, found himself seething internally, found
himself suffering all the agonies of shame for indignities
unresented, passed over in silence. Steele did his best to make his
life a misery during the few days it took the Block S to move its
beef herd within sight of the Big Sandy stockyards. The man was
moved by a definite policy born of cunning and craftily put into
effect. At no time did he really overstep that limit which would
have brought his crew up standing in expectation of an open clash.
He said nothing, did nothing openly that would have been impossible
for Robin to let go by. But he shaved close. Robin knew that every
man in the outfit was wondering just a little, scenting some sort of
hidden animosity between the two. Steele was curt, peremptory,
oblique, before the outfit. But whenever he caught Robin alone he
taunted him, abused him with a venom that would have been
unendurable if Robin had not known it as part of a calculated plan.
He took it all, outwardly unruffled, inwardly approaching the
volcanic state. He could afford to let Steele think his tactics
would bear fruit--that in the language of the range he had young
Tyler buffaloed. He could afford to let Steele think he was afraid.
Perhaps he was. Robin was not ashamed to admit to himself that he
might be afraid. He did not desire to commit suicide. To grab
anybody’s gun and match himself against Shining Mark was the
equivalent of self-destruction.
There was neither satisfaction nor glory in being shot by a cow
thief merely because a cow thief considered that a good way to cover
up his tracks. Yet short of killing Steele or being killed by him
Robin could see no way out of this predicament except the
unthinkable one Mark had suggested--that he quit the country. He
might be afraid to tackle Steele but he was not sufficiently afraid
to run. If he did not run Mark would eventually force him to burn
powder. Robin could see that clearly enough. And the onus would be
on him, his blood would be upon his own head, to all outward
appearances. Steele was seeing cleverly to that. By every artifice
in his repertoire he was putting Robin in the position of having to
force the issue or feel himself in reality what Mark contemptuously
said he was--a yellow dog.
So matters stood when the herd was trimmed and the cattle loaded.
The outfit was to lie there on the Big Sandy flats for a day or two.
Shipping was done. The pressure of getting beef to market was all
but ended for that season. There were odds and ends of range work
for the riders yet, but the range had been combed once, and so for a
couple of days they would rest and play.
They were rid of the herd by two o’clock and back in camp releasing
their tired mounts and catching fresh horses to ride into town. Tex
Matthews caught a horse, as did Robin. But when the riders swung up
Tex sat on the wagon tongue rolling a cigarette. Robin leaned
against a wheel, silently thinking. The _remuda_ was still in the
rope corral. He had half a mind to rope out his string, pack his
bed, and go home.
“Come on, cowboys,” a Block S man called to them. “The first drink’s
on me.”
Matthews shook his head.
“I’m keepin’ the cook and wrangler company,” he drawled. “I’ll save
money. There’s a long, hard winter comin’.”
Robin said nothing.
The riders laughed and departed. The dust rose in a low banner
behind them, drifted like smoke on the autumn wind and settled on
ground made barren by the trample of ten thousand hoofs.
Matthews finished his cigarette, strolled to the cook tent, got
himself a biscuit and a bit of cold beef. He returned munching and
joined Robin. They squatted on their heels by the wagon. The sun,
still lusty, warmed them despite the chill October wind. They talked
of inconsequent matters. It was very quiet in camp. From where they
sat they could see the gable of the Silver Dollar saloon. Neither
man was a hermit by nature. The cow-puncher had the social instinct.
He was not fond of loneliness, of inaction. All his work was done
_en_ _masse_, with a swing, with the hearty coöperation of his
fellows. As they worked so they played. Tex and Robin grew silent.
They could picture the rest of the crew swapping yarns and ribald
jokes. There would be a poker game or two, town men to meet, perhaps
strange riders with gossip from distant ranges--while they sat there
in a dead camp.
“Hell, let’s ride,” Matthews suggested at last. “I thought I
wouldn’t until to-night. But--let’s ride in.”
“All right,” Robin agreed.
He had given up the notion of leaving the round-up just yet. There
might be a stray Bar M Bar picked up. He would see it through. And
even if Matthews’ reason had been as stated Robin Tyler had not
stayed in camp to avoid needless spending. He doubted if Tex had
done so. Between himself and this middle-aged Texan a restrained,
wordless friendship seemed to have grown during the fall round-up.
Robin suspected Tex had stayed in camp because he himself had showed
no inclination to go. And Robin had not ridden in with the cowboys
because he knew little pleasure lay in store for him while Steele
was in the crowd. He would be wary, uneasy, uncertain what moment
Shining Mark would choose to maneuver him into a situation from
which he might only emerge feet first.
“I guess the crowd’s in Monty’s from the looks,” Tex remarked when
they rode in among the houses. “Let’s join ’em and hoist a couple,
then go over to the Silver Dollar an’ see if there’s a game goin’.
Maybe we could start one. I feel lucky. Will you play?”
“I might play ten dollars’ worth,” Robin said.
In search of diversion he would rather play poker than drink. Poker
left him clear headed even when the game emptied his pockets. That
seldom happened. Robin played poker with much the same verve that
characterized his riding. His luck at cards had made many a stock
hand half-enviously utter the old saying, “Lucky at poker; lucky in
love. You ought to be a winner with the girls, kid.”
Most of the Block S men were in Monty’s place. They stood along the
bar. Steele was among them and Tommy Thatcher. Tommy in the hour or
so that had elapsed had contrived to build up a comfortable jag. He
swayed a little when he moved. He grinned amiably at nothing in
particular. His voice, when he spoke, was unnaturally loud. The
clatter of talk and laughter filled the place. Over in one corner a
drunken sheep-herder slept in a chair, his head sunk on his breast,
a bright-eyed collie stretched on the floor by his feet.
A “rep” from the Shonkin was signaling the bartender as they
entered.
“Hey, you’re just in time,” he grinned. “Line up here.”
He lifted his glass and chanted:
“Good corn whisky in a polished glass!
Feed it to the cowboys when the range turns brown.
Cows don’t want no liquor, all they need is grass.
So here’s to good corn whisky! Drink her down!
Drink her down!”
Robin found a space between Tommy Thatcher and another man. Mark
Steele leaned an elbow on the bar three removes. He craned his head
to look at Robin with a sardonic twist of his lips. Robin met his
gaze squarely. At least he would not quail before that sneer which
held so much of malice. And as their glances clashed Robin felt
Tommy Thatcher move. He felt his hand touch something. He looked
down. Thatcher had moved in drunken uncertainty, or Robin had been
careless. A little of Thatcher’s whisky had spilled on the bar.
“What the hell! What you shovin’ for?”
“I didn’t shove you, Tommy,” Robin said gently.
“No back talk to me!” Thatcher roared. “Make room for a _man_.”
He bristled up against Robin. It was not in that young man’s mind to
give ground for any one. If Steele himself had thrust arrogantly in
his face like that he would have done just what he did to
Thatcher--put out his hand and shoved him back.
Thatcher stiffened as if some one had struck him. He leaned a little
forward, rose on the balls of his feet. His whole body tensed. His
face altered. It flashed into Robin’s mind that Thatcher was
suddenly sober--that he had only been playing drunk. But he had only
a flicker of time for thought. Thatcher said hoarsely:
“You blasted, pink-cheeked pup!”
With the words he threw his glass of whisky in Robin’s face.
A liquid containing roughly fifty-five per cent of alcohol acts like
mild vitriol on the tender membranes of the eyeball. For a few
seconds Robin felt as if a flame had seared him. He was blind, blind
and in pain. His hands, groping, caught an end of the silk scarf
draped about his neck. With that he dabbed at his burning eyes.
They cleared. With tear ducts flooding, with the sting and burn
well-nigh unendurable, still after a fashion he could see. Thatcher
held his aggressive pose, his right hand by his side with the elbow
crooked so that his fingers were even with the curved grip of the
gun which he wore on his belt--where most of the others carried
their six-shooters modestly tucked out of sight in the waistband of
their trousers. Near him Mark Steele leaned on the bar, impassively
watching.
Thatcher’s face cracked in a wide grin and something happened in
Robin Tyler’s breast. He didn’t quite know what it was. He had never
in his careless young life struck a blow nor fired a shot in anger.
He had never even speculated upon himself as a fighting animal. But
for all his deceptive slimness he was a powerful man, lithe, hard,
active as a cat, with untapped and unreckonable reservoirs of
nervous energy.
What he did was to take a step toward Thatcher. What he meant to do
Robin himself scarcely knew, except that he was going to do
something. When the Texan’s fingers closed on his pistol grip Robin
leaped at him like a sprinter off the mark so that all the weight of
his body as well as the spear-like thrust of his arm was behind the
fist that caught Thatcher on the point of his chin.
The Texan went down backward as if a horse had kicked him. His head
and shoulders hit the floor while his spurred heels flipped upward.
The back of his head banged like a hammer on the foot rail that ran
along the base of the bar. He lay where he fell, blood oozing out of
his mouth and nostrils, his arms limp, scarcely a muscle twitching.
The dozen-odd men in the room stood still, hushed, almost holding
their breath. A man’s fist beating a tentative gun play was rare in
the cow country--and the man was little more than a boy, a boy they
all liked. There was something about him as he stood there panting,
with clenched hands, that made them very quiet, made their faces
sober.
Then Mark Steele laughed, a queer mirthless sound.
“Well, well,” said he. “If somebody took an ax and chopped about
forty pounds off John L. Sullivan maybe we could match Tyler with
him.”
The red mist flashed again before Robin’s smarting eyeballs. But he
didn’t try to hit Mark Steele. He didn’t want to touch Steele with
his hands. He wanted to destroy him. Somehow he knew that Steele had
taken a new tack, that he had started Tommy Thatcher on him. And
there was only one answer to Steele, anyway. Thatcher didn’t count.
Robin made a dive for the Colt sticking out of Thatcher’s scabbard.
Live or die he would put an end to this.
But he didn’t get it. Tex Matthews and half a dozen other hands,
divining his intention, grabbed him. They could hold him, but they
could not stop his mouth. He ceased struggling to be free, twisted
himself to face Steele who stood erect now, ready for anything,
cool, alert, almost debonair, smiling slightly. Things were coming
Steele’s way now.
“You dirty dog!” Robin said to him. “You’ve been tryin’ to work me
up to something, and you’ve done it. You and your twin on the floor!
You want to choke me off because I know too much. You two-faced cow
thief! You would-be killer that sicks another man onto somebody
else. Why don’t you come out in the open and do your own dirty
work?”
“You’re crazy, kid,” Mark said mockingly. “You sure got a powerful
temper. You’re plumb reckless with words.”
“Not as reckless as you are with other men’s stock.”
“Well,” Shining Mark shrugged his shoulders, “if other men aren’t
men enough to look after their stock--as you call it--_I_ don’t see
where I’m to blame because your girl asks _me_ to ride home with
her.”
He shrugged his shoulders again, contemptuously.
“Oh, oh!” Robin choked on his words. “By God, Steele, I’ll kill you
for that.”
“Lord, it’s a windy day.” Shining Mark settled his hat on the back
of his dark head. His tone was nonchalance itself. “Now you’ve made
your little war-talk, suppose you get the boys to turn you loose so
you can make it good. _When_ you’re ready. Go heel yourself if
that’s how you feel. You can always find _me_.”
“Turn me loose,” Robin commanded. “I’m through talkin’.”
They let him go and stood clear. All but Matthews. Tex stood beside
Robin. He kept his hand lightly on Robin’s arm.
“Lend me your gun, Tex,” Robin had pinched all the feeling out of
his voice. He asked for the weapon as casually as he might have
asked for a match.
Matthews shook his head.
“I can’t do that, kid,” he said slowly. “You know I can’t.”
“Here. Some of you fellows lend a hand with Tommy.” Steele turned
his back on Robin and bent over his fallen friend. With the help of
other Block S riders they lifted up the unconscious man while the
bar-tender passed over a pitcher of water to revive him.
Robin looked at them a second. It was against the range code for any
man in that room to lend him a gun, under such circumstances. He
made for the door. There were other men in town, who as yet did not
know of this clash. Perhaps--he strode away to the Silver Dollar,
and Matthews kept step beside him.
It was the same there. Robin left the saloon, went up past the
single row of houses toward the Sutherland store. If he couldn’t
borrow he could buy. And still beside him walked Tex Matthews. Half
way between saloon and store Robin halted.
“What you stickin’ with me for?” he demanded.
“I’m your friend,” Tex said. “If you ever needed one you do now.
After a while I got somethin’ to say to you.”
“It’s all said,” Robin muttered and walked on. “I got to get a gun.”
“Sure. But you won’t get one in this man’s town to-day.”
News bears wings in a hamlet. It seems indeed if it be ill news to
have a telepathic quality of transmission. Robin made his request
matter-of-factly. Buying a Colt revolver was probably as common a
transaction as buying a hat. But the clerk shook his head.
“Sorry,” he said, “but we can’t do it.”
Robin pointed to a row of weapons protruding from a shelf.
“You got ’em for sale,” said he. “My money’s as good as anybody’s.
You take it for tobacco and clothes. Why not for a .45 and some
ammunition?”
“Sorry,” the man repeated. “I can’t. I got orders.”
Robin cast his eyes about the store. In the rear by the bookkeeper’s
high desk Adam Sutherland sat smoking a cigar. Beyond him there was
a figure Robin knew. He turned on his heel and walked out.
“The deck’s stacked against me,” he said a little bitterly to
Matthews. “If I could get my hands on a gun I’d settle it quick,
win, lose, or draw. He’s forced it on me even if it looks like I’m
makin’ the play. I got to go through with it, and why not now?”
“Come over here and sit down a spell,” Tex replied. “I got somethin’
to say, myself.”
He led the way to a pile of ties beside the spur track that served
Sutherland’s store. They sat down. Before them Big Sandy spread its
limited area, two or three dozen buildings on a bald flat, dwellings
surrounded by yards guiltless of tree or shrub, the unpainted walls
bleached to the drab gray of the sagebrush that flowed in an
unrippled wave to the edge of the town. The only spot of color was
the bit of green lawn about Adam Sutherland’s white cottage. The cow
horses dozed on three legs in a row on the dusty street. Here and
there a man moved about his business. Beyond the town the Bear Paws
loomed against the sky line, a purple mass with white tufts of cloud
hovering about the high conical peaks.
“Advice in a case like this is about as welcome as ice cream in
January,” Matthews broke silence. “Just the same I got to pass some
along. Maybe I won’t tell you nothin’ you don’t know. First off, you
got no license to tangle with Mark Steele. You know what I mean.”
“I know it. I got no choice.”
“You’ve got this much choice,” Tex pointed out. “You’ve declared
yourself. But you ain’t put no time limit on it. You made no break
about givin’ him two hours to quit town, or twenty-four hours to
leave the country or any such damn fool bluffs that you have to live
up to, or be laughed out of the country yourself. You said you’d
kill him. You can do that when you get ready. You keep your hat on
an’ let him think about that.”
“Well?” Robin muttered.
Tex reached for his cigarette material.
“You ain’t ready yet,” he continued. “You won’t have to go huntin’
trouble now. It’ll hunt you. You have an enemy in Shinin’ Mark, but
you’ll have a worse one in Tommy Thatcher from now on. Steele’s bad,
but he’s game. He’d stack up against anybody, anywhere, anytime.
Thatcher’s different. You busted him horrible. He’ll get you if
there’s a chance, but it won’t be on the square. You’ll need eyes in
the back of your head for Tommy Thatcher. I know him better’n you
do. I know of him a long time back.”
“I don’t know as that makes any difference,” Robin muttered.
“As for Steele,” Tex went on, unheeding the interruption, “when it
comes to gun play he’s got it on you from soda to hock. He’ll rattle
you first--you got a hell of a temper, kid. I see that to-day for
the first time. You stew inside, and go off like dynamite. And I’ve
seen enough wild west to know you can’t stack up against a
cold-blooded proposition like Steele unless you’re as cool as he is.
Pass it up this time. Go home. Get yourself a forty-five that fits
your hand. Spend your wages on ammunition. Practice faithful till
spring. Then go get him.”
“Meantime,” Tex patted Robin on the shoulder, “I have a hunch what
lays back of this trouble between you and Shinin’ Mark. I seen
enough this last week or so, to know he meant to crowd you till you
turned on him. I think I know his game. I ain’t goin’ to take this
fight off your hands, Robin. But I can promise you one thing--if he
gets you I’ll get _him_. And that goes for Thatcher, too.”
He lit his cigarette and stood up.
“I’m amblin’ along,” he announced. “You let things go as they lay.
Think over what I said and do it. You’ll win.”
He stalked away. Robin sat on the ties staring at the ground, his
hands clasped over one knee. He appreciated Tex Matthew’s moral
backing, but it did not assuage the bitterness in his heart. He had
seen a man or two run amuck and die with a smoking gun in hand and
he had wondered what drove a man to such desperate measures, what
terrible passion made a man court death or inflict death. He knew
now. It was no comfort to him that he had punished Thatcher.
Thatcher didn’t count. He had played into Steele’s hand.
If he were dead he could not talk about stolen calves. That was all
Steele wanted, to stop his mouth or make him leave the country. If
he went up against Steele now Mark would have his wish. Matthews had
spoken the truth and Robin knew it. With an even break for the draw
Mark would kill him before he could get his gun leveled.
And still--when he recalled the look on Steele’s face, the tone of
his voice when he twisted Robin’s remark about other men’s stock
into an opportunity to put a dirty slur on Ivy and so make Robin
appear a fool writhing in jealousy--he wanted a gun now. Chance or
no chance! When that feeling surged up in him he felt as if he
couldn’t stand living while Shining Mark was free to talk like that.
Yet, besides Matthews’ advice, a cold little voice within Robin said
that if he did arm himself and go after Steele now he was as good as
a dead man. There was an uncomfortable chill in that assurance.
Robin sat deep in thought. He had forgotten where he was. He had
become almost oblivious of time and place in brooding. The tempest
of passion which had made his heart swell until it seemed as if it
would burst had died out and left him depressed, almost sick, as the
poison of a great anger often does. He sat there locked up in
himself and he did not hear or see May Sutherland until she spoke to
him.
“Howdy,” he answered her greeting. But he did not rise nor doff his
hat nor act as he would normally have done. He couldn’t seem to
think straight. He didn’t understand why she was there at all, nor
what she could have to say to him. She belonged in the camp of the
enemy. That was natural. When a man attacked the range boss of a big
outfit the big outfit always stood behind its own man. He had
forgotten that May hated Mark Steele. But May did have something to
say to him for she sat down on the ties.
“I heard about that trouble,” she began. “I heard what Mark said to
you and you to him. I’m awfully sorry.”
“Don’t know why you should be,” Robin muttered. “Not your funeral.”
“If there is to be a funeral I hope it will be his,” May breathed.
“But you are not going to be so foolish as to fight him, are you?”
Robin smiled bleakly.
“You think a man should lie down and let another man walk over him?”
he asked.
“I imagine Mark Steele could do and say things no one could pass
up,” she replied. “And what he said to you about Ivy was rather
terrible in its significance.”
“Oh, you got that too, eh?” Robin observed. “They talk in this town
like a lot of old women. I expect there’s been a lot of trimmin’s
put on what happened. It got to you quick.”
“It’s always like that in a little place. Everybody knows all about
everything at once.”
“Yes. They think they do.”
It ran in Robin’s mind that Steele had made his hand very strong.
Every one knew what had happened at the dance on Little Eagle. The
natural inference was that Robin was crazy jealous since according
to current conventions he had every reason to be. Thus Robin’s
threat would be tabbed as the fury of a jilted lover. If he jumped
Steele and Steele killed him it would be a clear case of
self-defense. Robin squirmed inwardly to think May Sutherland should
regard him as merely a jealous man with an uncontrollable temper.
But he couldn’t complain, he could not now of all times put forward
his uncorroborated word that Shining Mark simply wanted him out of
the way because Mark was rustling stock and Robin Tyler had
discovered certain incriminating facts.
“If everybody in Big Sandy has me sized up that way you won’t get
much credit for sittin’ here talkin’ to me,” he said soberly.
“I don’t have to care what any one in Big Sandy thinks of what I
do--except my father,” she flashed at him. Her next sentence
startled Robin. “Why did you call him a cow thief? It isn’t like you
to call names.”
It was on the tip of Robin’s tongue to say, “Because he is,” but he
checked that answer. His mind was getting back to its normal
acuteness. If May wondered why he flung that at Mark, so might
others wonder--even Sutherland himself, being a cattle owner, might
privily ask himself if there _could_ be any such fire behind the
smoke. As matters stood, what he knew about Steele and Thatcher and
the T Bar S might prove as effective a weapon to fight Steele as any
.45, if he could live long enough to use it. He could blunt the edge
of that weapon by unsupported accusation now. They would say that
young Tyler was shooting off his face instead of his gun.
“I got nothin’ to say about that,” he told May. “In fact I got no
more to say about the whole business. I got something to do about
it, but I’m headed off just now because I can neither beg, borrow,
nor steal a gun in this town, and I don’t own one. I will, though,
before long.”
“You’re determined to go through with this?”
“Say, you’ve grown up in this country, even if you went away to be
educated,” Robin said impatiently. “You know I can’t back up now. I
couldn’t live in this country if I went side-steppin’ Mark Steele
after this. You ought to know. Your dad has killed two men that I
know of in his time.”
May had a pair of gloves in her hands. She twisted them,
straightened them out, and crumpled them up again. Robin sat silent.
The girl rose to her feet.
“I wish you luck,” she said in a wistful tone. “It seems to me
utterly and terribly foolish for you to make a threat in a passion
and then in cold blood live up to it. That’s carrying regard for
your word too far.”
“I have a regard for my word,” Robin said stiffly. “I never broke it
yet. I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
“Even in anger?”
“I never was so mad I’d say what I didn’t mean,” Robin protested.
“That’s when a man _does_ say what he means. I do anyway.”
“Then you really accused Mark of being a thief? It wasn’t just an
angry taunt, an insult?” she challenged.
“You seem mighty curious about that,” Robin neither denied nor
admitted.
“I am. Because if you know that to be true you would be a fool to
risk your life in a clash with a man who is deadly with a gun,
cold-blooded enough to shoot you and laugh about it. Let the law
deal with him. There is law, and officers with authority to deal
with a cattle thief. I wondered if there wasn’t more in this trouble
than just--just----”
“Just a row over a girl,” Robin finished the sentence grimly. “Well
you’re right. There is. She was only dragged in to make the play
strong. I didn’t drag her in. Anyway, I don’t want to discuss it any
more. It’s gone past the talkin’ stage.”
May looked down at him with a troubled air.
“I suppose you don’t thank me for interesting myself in your
affairs,” she said. “But I’d much rather see Mark Steele dead or in
jail, than you.”
“So would I. A darned sight rather,” Robin’s old humor flashed once
through the cloud of gloom. “I’d be tickled to death to have him on
the inside looking out. Maybe you will.”
“Dad is in the store. He told me to tell you he wanted to speak to
you,” May said abruptly. “Good-by--and good luck.”
“Same to you,” Robin returned. “Only you don’t need no luck wish.
You got all there is.”
“Perhaps my luck doesn’t take in as much territory as you think,”
May said over her shoulder as she walked away.
Robin watched her pass through the picket fence that enclosed the
white cottage and its square of green and he wondered idly what she
meant. Then he remembered Sutherland wanted to speak to him. About
what? When Adam Sutherland expressed a desire to speak to a
cow-puncher it was in the nature of a royal command. Robin was no
subject of this cattle king’s, but he had sufficient respect for
Sutherland to heed the request--as a matter of courtesy, if nothing
more.
Sutherland still occupied his big armchair.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yeah. Sit down.” Sutherland indicated another chair. “I want to
give you some advice.”
“Seems like I’m gettin’ a heap of advice, one way and another, this
afternoon,” Robin observed dryly.
“Mine won’t do you no harm,” Sutherland rumbled. “You’re young and
by all accounts you sure got a temper. I don’t criticize you for
that. I was that way myself once. But it ain’t healthy, no more. Now
about this trouble between you and Mark Steele--forget it. There’s
no sense in you two shootin’ each other up. You said a lot of nasty
things down in Monty’s place. You made a bad break when you promised
to kill Mark. You won’t want to, once you’ve slept on that. Nobody’s
goin’ to question your nerve. I knew your father by reputation, and
your folks in the South. Blood counts in men same as it does in
stock. You don’t have to feel you got to shoot it out. Mark’ll drop
it if you will.”
“Has he said so?” Robin asked.
“No,” Sutherland admitted. “But I know he will.”
“I make no promises,” Robin said slowly. “It wouldn’t be no use. I
don’t think you know your range boss as well as you think you do. He
couldn’t pass me up if he wanted to.”
“You mean you wouldn’t let him?” Sutherland interpreted.
“You can ask him what I mean. Maybe he’ll tell you. Maybe he won’t.”
“Why in hell don’t you say what you mean, out loud?” Sutherland
demanded.
“Seems to me I said what I mean right out loud and plain to the
party concerned this afternoon,” Robin answered. “I’m not swallowin’
anything just so your range boss won’t have to be mixed up in a
fuss.”
“He’ll kill you sure, if you stack up against him,” Sutherland
grumbled. “I don’t like the way you talk, Tyler. I’d hate to see a
kid like you get his light put out by one of my men. But, darn it,
you can’t call a man like Mark Steele a cow thief just because
you’re sore at him over a girl. That ain’t reasonable, now is it?
Mark hasn’t put on his war-paint. You’re the one that’s lookin’ for
trouble.”
“It looks that way,” Robin conceded, “but things ain’t always what
they look.”
“What was in the back of your mind to call Mark a cow thief,
anyway?” Sutherland asked bluntly.
“You can ask him that, too,” Robin said. “Here he comes.”
Steele walked the length of the store as jauntily as if he had no
care in the world, as if each stride were bringing him near a man
with whom he would have been glad to shake hands instead of to kill.
“You ain’t got no gun, have you?” Sutherland half-rose from his
chair.
Robin shook his head.
“If I had it would be smokin’ now,” he muttered.
Steele came up to Sutherland and Robin. He was smiling. That is, his
face and lips smiled, but his eyes were like gray agates, hard and
cold and watchful.
“Hello, kid,” he said evenly. “Hope you got over bein’ hostile. You
don’t really aim to kill me, now do you?”
“No. I’ve changed my mind,” Robin answered quietly. “I’m goin’ to
put you in the penitentiary instead.”
With that he walked unconcernedly past Steele and out of the store.