From the high level of the plain above the Judith River Robin looked
back, gazing on the scene below and reflecting on the ease with
which a range boss could arrange things to suit his own convenience,
his own purposes. He knew now why Shining Mark had dared so much and
felt so safe until the simple accident of a horse lamed and his
rider set afoot had betrayed him. If Steele and Thatcher had not
been emboldened by Shining Mark’s absolute control of the Block S
range, they would never have shot those Bar M Bar cows in order to
steal their calves within twenty miles of home. If they had felt
less secure and been a little more discreet Robin would never have
dreamed the Block S round-up was run by a thief in his own interest.
It was easy to take advantage of the wide trust and power a cow
outfit must necessarily repose in men.
Adam Sutherland didn’t know what he, Robin, was doing, what he might
do if given full opportunity. It rested solely on the personal
integrity of the man trusted. The response to that unqualified trust
bred at once the peculiar devotion of the cow-puncher to his salt
and by contrast gave rise to the sweeping depredations that once in
a blue moon shook some individual cattle owner’s faith in men.
“Here am I,” thought Robin, as his eye dwelt on the Judith looping
silver through a sage-gray and meadow-green valley in which the PN
ranch buildings and the white tents of the J7 were mere specks,
“here am I with the old man’s check for five thousand in my pocket,
another five or six thousand to my order in a Fort Benton Bank, and
me hellin’ off on a pure gamble--and the old man don’t know anything
about it.”
He smiled soberly. His day herd of T Bar S’s pastured under fence at
the PN by special arrangement. His riders were off in a body to
celebrate the Fourth in Big Sandy. Robin himself had a destination
one hundred and fifty miles to the west, on a project of his own. He
might fail or he might succeed. Whether he failed or succeeded, Adam
Sutherland would pay the freight. It was a matter undertaken largely
in the interest of his employer--but there was also a touch of the
very human motive of helping the piper present a peremptory bill to
the sinister figure whose shadow had been lying more or less across
Robin’s path for a long year.
Robin rode west. In the middle of the afternoon he dropped into the
valley of the Missouri river, clattered across the bridge and
stabled his horse in Fort Benton. Once his hunger was satisfied he
went straight to the sheriff’s office. A Montana sheriff might be
anywhere in his county at any moment, but luckily Robin found Tom
Coats holding down a chair in his own sanctum. Robin’s business was
simple, requiring only certain explanations which made Coats open
his eyes and readily promise secrecy and coöperation. When Robin
departed he went as a duly sworn deputy of the Sheriff of Chouteau
county, in the State of Montana, with certain papers in his pocket
and a nickel-plated star to pin on his breast if he chose to so
ornament himself.
For several hours thereafter he cooled his heels in that little cow
town awaiting a west-bound train which landed him in Helena shortly
before midnight.
The hour suited his purpose. Ordinary business flourishes by day but
the busiest and most profitable period of a saloon keeper’s
operations is--or was--likely to occur in the middle of the night.
Like any other sound merchant a saloon man might be expected to
attend his affairs in person during the peak--so Robin expected to
find Jim Bond behind his own bar at that hour.
Bond, who proved to be elderly, stooped and rather saturnine in
countenance, was totaling up figures at a desk behind the bar while
a white-aproned employee waited on the customers. He rose to face
Robin across the polished wood.
“Got a back room where we can talk?” Robin inquired.
“What kind of proposition you got that you have to talk private?”
Bond asked. He seemed both doubtful and ill-humored.
Robin looked him coldly in the eye.
“One you might be inclined to listen to, if you got any interest in
money--or cattle,” he said slowly. “I’m from Chouteau county.”
Bond led the way to a partitioned-off space in the rear. In one
small room five men in shirt sleeves sat around a green covered
table, fingering chips in a stud poker game. In another two painted
women and a man had their heads together over a round of drinks.
Bond found an empty cubicle and motioned Robin to a seat.
“What is it?” he asked curtly.
“You own the T Bar S brand, and you put a hundred and fifty head of
stock on the range south of the Bear Paws two years ago, didn’t
you?”
Bond nodded.
“How many cattle you reckon you got down there now?”
“I don’t know as that’s any of your affair,” Bond said disagreeably.
“I ain’t exactly sure, and I can’t see why I should tell you if I
was.”
“Well, you don’t have to, of course, right now anyway,” Robin
grinned. “Probably I know better than you do. It struck me that
ownin’ this brand ain’t makin’ you rich. I’d kinda like to buy that
bunch of cattle.”
“Ain’t for sale,” the man growled.
“Cattle are always for sale if the price is right,” Robin answered
equably. “You put in a hundred and fifty head. Your natural increase
would be about eighty. On that basis, which is a fair percentage,
you’d have about two hundred and thirty head. I’ll buy the T Bar S
on that estimate, at twenty dollars a head--let’s see, that’s
forty-six hundred dollars--cash down.”
“You’re wastin’ time,” Bond made a move to rise.
“Sit down,” Robin said peremptorily. “I ain’t through.”
Bond settled back in his seat. His expression was not altogether one
of ease.
“Look here, Bond,” Robin didn’t like the man’s shifty eye and it was
easy for him to be harsh, “you’re a saloon man. You never were
anything else--not in Montana. You own a registered brand. You send
a bunch of stock into the heart of a big cow-outfit’s range. You
never show up there yourself. You never had a man ride for you. You
don’t know how your calves get branded, nor how many. Maybe you
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.