CHAPTER XA WORD AND A BLOWNo 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. Theremudawas 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 doneenmasse, 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 aman.”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—Idon’t see where I’m to blame because your girl asksmeto 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.Whenyou’re ready. Go heel yourself if that’s how you feel. You can always findme.”“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 gethim. 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 therecouldbe 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 mandoessay 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.
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. Theremudawas 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 doneenmasse, 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 aman.”
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—Idon’t see where I’m to blame because your girl asksmeto 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.Whenyou’re ready. Go heel yourself if that’s how you feel. You can always findme.”
“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 gethim. 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 therecouldbe 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 mandoessay 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.