Robin crossed the Big Muddy on a steel bridge at Fort Benton to take
his first look at the J7. He found the camp on a river flat,
introduced himself to a lean, dark-faced youth in charge, counted
his saddle stock and began to reorganize. Being short-handed his
first task was to engage more riders. Luck came his way. In a week
the J7 was cap-a-pie--fourteen cow-punchers, two horse wranglers, a
capable cook, wagons stocked with grub. Then the J7 round-up
vanished into the heart of the Arrow Creek country and Robin flung
his men on circle as he moved from creek to creek.
He rode out of Fort Benton on May the tenth. By the middle of June
he was combing the Bad Lands opposite the mouth of Cow Creek. Two
days before the Fourth of July dawned he was lying on a bench across
from Birch. For all practical purposes the spring round-up of the J7
was over. He had covered the range.
He sat now in the burning sunshine on earth so parched that it was
hot to the bare hand, looking over the J7 day herd--thinking. The
herd had watered, and taken to its noonday siesta. Two riders lolled
in their saddles on watch, striving to keep awake in that hot noon
silence.
The “reps” who had worked with Robin’s crew all spring had cut their
horses and cattle and gone home. In that herd under his eye only a
few Block S cattle showed, a few strays of other northern brands.
The bulk of those grazing or resting cattle bore the T Bar S and the
bulk of those T Bar S’s were yearlings and two-year-olds--the ripe
harvest of two seasons’ industrious stealing. There was not among
them, Robin surmised, thirty head of the original T Bar S cattle
which had been turned loose south of the Bear Paws. Decidedly Jim
Bond’s herd had shown a miraculous increase.
Robin looked them over and smiled--smiled and went on thinking. For
two months he had played a lone hand. Sutherland had given him the
briefest outline of work to be performed and left him alone. Robin
had done his work. He knew he had done it well. And in addition to
legitimate range work the gathering of this T Bar S stuff had
exceeded his expectations. He grinned when he thought of what his
spring gathering might mean to Shining Mark.
Off in the north the Bear Paws loomed blue out of the heat haze that
shimmered on the plains. Robin gazed longingly at those distant
mountains. He was hungry for a sight of May. He wanted to talk with
Adam Sutherland. He had a crew of lusty, eager youths who had served
him faithfully and he wanted them to celebrate the Fourth. He had a
fancy for riding into Big Sandy with those fourteen sunburned riders
at his back.
The fruit of his reflection ripened speedily to action. He rode into
camp, bade the horse wrangler bunch the _remuda_ and catch him a
certain horse. He drew aside Tom Hayes, the hawk-faced rider who had
proved himself a capable second in command.
“I’m going for a little _pasear_ by myself,” he said. “You move up
to the Judith in the cool of evenin’. To-morrow shove on to the
mouth of Eagle Creek. If we can cross this stuff there maybe we’ll
ride into Big Sandy for the Fourth. I’ll be back sometime to-morrow.
If I don’t,” he added as an afterthought, “you hold camp opposite
Eagle Creek till I do come.”
An hour later Robin was breasting the Missouri river. He had picked
a good water horse. He went in naked, holding his clothes in a dry
bundle above his head while his mount traversed that half-mile
breadth of swimming water.
He loped past the empty line camp where he had left Mark Steele
sprawled on the dirt floor that cold December afternoon. It was hot
in that sage-floored canyon. Robin took to the benchland, where
cooler airs blew.
In all the broad sweep of Chase Hill and upper Birch he saw no sign
of the Block S round-up. With the Bar M Bar two miles on his right
he bore up into the Bear Paws and rode a sweat-lathered horse into
the Sutherland ranch at sundown. A stable hand told him Sutherland
was at home. Robin stalked over to the house. When his spurs clinked
on the first front step a yellow head raised out of a hammock and
May came with outstretched hands and shining eyes to meet him.
“It’s been a long spring,” she whispered. “I’m a patient creature,
Robin, but the time has seemed so long, so long!”
“And maybe my time with you will be short,” he answered tenderly.
“It all depends. Where’s your dad?”
“He took his rod and went up the creek to catch some trout for
breakfast,” May said. “He’ll be back soon, I think. Has anything new
cropped up? Where have you been all these weeks, and what have you
been doing, Robin Hood? You vanished so quickly. What happened? I
ask dad, and he merely grins.”
“You got my letters, didn’t you?” Robin asked. “I wrote twice. I
told you I’d gone to run a round-up south of the river. I didn’t
have much chance to send mail. I’ve been in the Judith Basin and the
Bad Lands all spring.”
“You write dear letters,” she smiled. “But you don’t give much
information about what you’re doing--only about how you feel.”
“Well, isn’t that what you mostly want to know?” he teased. “Don’t
you like me to say I love you in as many different ways as I can set
it down in black and white?”
“Of course, silly,” she reproved. “But why didn’t you stay here and
run our round-up instead of Mark Steele?”
“Did your dad tell you?”
“He’s like you,” she murmured. “He thinks and looks and acts more
than he talks. There he is now.”
Adam Sutherland came ambling slowly across the yard bearing a rod
and reel. He nodded to Robin, opened his basket to show them half a
dozen glistening fish; then he shouted through an open window. A
Chinese house boy came to bear away tackle and trophies. Sutherland
lit a cigar.
“Well, Tyler,” he said. “I expect you want to see me about
something, eh?”
May rose and withdrew, stopping behind her father’s chair to pat his
head with one hand while she blew Robin a kiss off the other. When
they had the porch to themselves Sutherland turned an impassive eye
on Robin.
“I was sort of expectin’ you’d turn up,” said he. “How’d you get
along with the spring work?”
“All right. I’m through except for a day herd we’re holdin’. The
outfit’s movin’ in opposite Eagle Creek ford to-morrow,” Robin told
him. “We’ve covered the range. Branded out a tally of seventeen
hundred calves. Beef stock is shaping up pretty good in the Basin.
Feed’s good. Looks like it might be a little overstocked, though, on
a dry year. Too many sheep outfits over there.”
Sutherland nodded.
“I’ll move that J7 stuff north next year,” he remarked absently.
Robin sat silent a moment.
“Look,” he said abruptly. “I’ve got to stir up somethin’. You asked
me twice why I called Mark Steele a thief. I’m goin’ to tell you
why, now.”
Sutherland took the cigar out of his mouth, inspected critically the
ash.
“Shoot,” he said casually. “I’m listenin’.”
Robin began at the beginning, the day he lamed Stormy, the gray
horse, by Cold Spring. He spared nothing, no one, himself, Mayne,
Ivy, Mark Steele. All that had grown out of Shining Mark’s
depredations had burned in Robin’s breast so long it was a relief to
speak freely. Sutherland sat staring at the porch floor, frowning a
little, forgetting to puff at his cigar. Once or twice he shifted
abruptly in his chair. Once or twice he stared at Robin with
narrowed eyes. Dusk deepened into dark while Robin talked. The
crickets chirped in the dry grass. Stars twinkled above.
“So all the young stuff that’s been branded T Bar S and thrown over
the river on the ice I’ve got in my day herd,” Robin concluded.
“There is a little over three hundred head. I expect a round-up of T
Bar S’s on the home range would show a lot more. Short of killin’
Mark Steele if he jumps me--and I suppose he will jump me if he gets
a chance because he knows he isn’t safe with me on this range--I
don’t know as I can do any more single-handed. I see no way of
provin’ Mark owns the T Bar S or any interest in it. I do know that
he and Thatcher rustled those calves. I’ve told you how. The
increase in young T Bar S stuff proves it. I’m just as sure they
shot Tex and tried to get me as I am that you’re settin’ in your
chair. But I don’t know whether what I know and have guessed would
convict ’em in court. There it is. What do you think? And what do
you want me to do with those T Bar S’s?”
Sutherland rose.
“Come on in where there’s a light,” he invited.
He led the way into a room originally built of logs and now paneled
to the ceiling with oak. Robin had never been inside the Sutherland
house before. There was a homelike air of comfort in this room, a
peculiarly satisfying atmosphere that Robin could feel even if he
did not understand how it was attained. Soft thick rugs lay
underfoot. There were deep, upholstered chairs, a few pictures on
the walls, trophies of Sutherland’s rifle in the way of deer and elk
antlers, and a great bearskin spread before a yawning fireplace. An
oil lamp burned at each end of the room. Sutherland motioned Robin
to a chair, shoved a box of cigars across an oaken table, sat down
himself and frowned at the floor.
“This ain’t so new to me,” he said at last. “Only it comes a lot
straighter than I expected. Tex Matthews was my man. I sent him to
work for Mayne on purpose. A man with cows scattered over a hundred
miles square can’t afford to sleep. If you’ve got anything there’s
always some smart feller layin’ awake nights figurin’ how he can
take it away from you. A thief _will_ steal. Men you trust _will_ go
wrong. It seems like----”
He fell silent for a minute.
“I hate it!” he began again presently. “For three years I trusted
him like he was my son. He’s aggressive and he’s got brains. But I
guess it’s the wrong kind of brains--the fox kind. He _is_ foxy. If
he has laid off rustlin’ this spring, he’s pretty well in the clear.
I can’t touch him on suspicion. Unless----”
He sat tugging at his drooped mustache.
“Like havin’ a skunk under your house where you can’t get at him,
and you can’t hardly stand the smell,” he said. “No wonder he wanted
to kill you.”
“And you never suspected him?” Robin asked. “If Tex was your man
didn’t he tell you anything? He knew. And why did you send him to
work for Dan Mayne?”
“I wasn’t really suspicious of Mark till this winter, not till after
he was supposed to have shot himself, an’ you jumped the country. I
had nothin’ but a hunch last year that somebody was rustlin’. Tex
Matthews was on the lookout with the round-up. Another man worked on
the outside. I got a notion Mayne might be draggin’ his rope. That’s
why I had Tex edge in there. Tex told me straight he thought Mark
was usin’ the T Bar S for a blind. I didn’t believe him. Not till he
was dead. I felt kinda bad about that. There’s a big bill for those
two to pay, Tyler. But it’s got to be collected legal. I don’t want
no strangler work on this range, nor shootin’--unless deputy
sheriffs do the shootin’. The gun fighter’s day ought to be over. We
got organized law an’ law officers. You keep that in mind when your
trigger finger itches for Mark Steele.”
“My gun hand don’t ever itch,” Robin answered slowly. “Only if he
jumps me, or even acts like he might jump me, I got a lot of things
to remember that don’t incline me to be peaceful.”
“A man has a right to defend himself,” Sutherland admitted. “But you
have too much chalked up against Steele to stop at defendin’
yourself. You burn inside when you face him. I’ve seen it in your
eye twice now. An’ I want him alive,” he finished grimly. “I want to
make him a shinin’ example to cow thieves an’ murderers.”
“Meantime you keep him in charge of your outfit where he’s got all
the chance in the world to do most anything he wants to do,” Robin
said tartly. “I don’t _sabe_ the play.”
Sutherland smiled faintly.
“I want him where I can keep cases on him,” he said. “Suppose he
does get away with a few calves. What’s a few hundred calves more or
less? I’d lose a thousand head of stock cheerful, to catch a cow
thief out of my own outfit. I’ll get them cattle all back anyway,
sometime. The only question is: How can we nail him an’ Thatcher
dead right?”
An idea which had lurked nebulously in Robin’s mind for days took
definite form in that instant.
“Look,” said he, “you spoke rather peevish a while ago about
trustin’ men. Do you reckon you can trust me?”
Sutherland looked at him thoughtfully.
“You _got_ to trust men,” said he. “You wouldn’t be runnin’ the J7
if I didn’t have a certain amount of confidence in you.”
“Maybe you got better reasons for trustin’ me than you know,” Robin
observed. “Probably I hate a thief and a crook and a cold-blooded
killer worse than you do, even if I have no stock to be stolen.
Anyway, I have an idea. Will you stake me to about five thousand
dollars?”
Sutherland stared at him for a minute, reached into a drawer and
took out a check-book.
“I suppose,” he rumbled as he handed over the green slip, “it ain’t
any of my business what you aim to do with my money?”
“You’ll get good value for it or you’ll get it back.” Robin grinned.
“Now, about this T Bar S stuff? Will you leave me handle ’em my own
way for a while?”
Sutherland nodded.
“One other thing,” Robin continued. “Have you figured out any move
of your own about Shinin’ Mark? Because I’m apt to try something and
we don’t want to work at cross-purposes.”
“No,” Sutherland shook his head. “I’ve kept close tab on him an’
Thatcher all spring. They haven’t made a move except the old game of
throwin’ back unbranded calves, which ain’t criminal until they
start usin’ the iron. Ten years back I’d ’a’ picked my own men an’
treated Mark to a rawhide necktie or shot him like any other wolf.
But takin’ the law into your own hands ain’t either necessary nor
good policy no more. I’ll have to think over this a while. He’ll
keep. When I figure out a move, I’ll let you know. Meantime, go
ahead your own way.”
“The boys are kinda wishful to celebrate the Fourth,” Robin said. “I
might let ’em ride into Big Sandy. Where’s the Block S round-up?”
“Finishin’ up on the flats east of town,” Sutherland told him.
“They’ll be in for the Fourth. There’s to be some sports. I’d as
soon you weren’t there, kid. You’re hot-headed. You might run foul
of Mark. He _is_ bad. Don’t think he ain’t because you made him
weaken in the store that day. I wouldn’t want you to go to hell in a
fog of powder smoke from a cow thief’s gun.”
“I won’t make no such finish. You can gamble on that,” Robin
answered. “Anyway the J7 riders may be in Big Sandy for the Fourth
but I won’t be among those present. I’ve got a good _segundo_, Tom
Hayes by name. I’m goin’ to let him run the outfit for a few days.
Now, I’m goin’ to ride. I could use a fresh horse.”
“Tell the stableman to give you old Groaner,” Sutherland said. “Good
luck to you.”
Robin turned in his saddle when he was mounted on a strapping bay,
to look back at the house. A light glowed in the windows of a room
he knew was May’s. He hated to go without seeing her again. But
until the issue between himself and Shining Mark was settled for
good he could neither give himself up to love nor be easy in his
mind. One thing at a time.
Yet it pleased him to know that Adam Sutherland treated him without
question. Sutherland was right. Men had to be trusted. Life was
impossible without that faith. If here and there it was betrayed--no
matter. He hadn’t failed Mayne, for instance; old Dan had failed
him, and so had Ivy. He wouldn’t fail Sutherland. Riding alone in
that dark and silent night Robin wondered if old Adam or May would
draw back, lack confidence, grow cold, if some deadly pinch came.
There was an uncomfortable chill in the possibility. But it wasn’t
even a possibility, Robin assured himself. Such a thing was
unthinkable.
He shook off that slightly pessimistic mood and listened to the
crickets, marked a waning moon peep through crevices in the cloud
scud that wreathed the sky, as he covered mile after mile, riding
fast and unwearied in spite of fifteen hours in the saddle. He
wanted to catch his outfit at dawn, before the herd crossed the
Judith River. He knew a way to hold those T Bar S’s and yet free his
riders for a holiday in town. They were a mettlesome bunch and they
liked him; they would back him in anything. Robin valued that
unquestioning loyalty. He wanted to hold that crew intact for the
fall round-up, if--the ugly thought rose unbidden--he lived to boss
the J7 through the autumn months.