“That’s tall talk, young feller,” Mayne growled. “Maybe. But I’ve said it. If it worries you I won’t talk no more. But you know what I think. Yes, it sure makes it different,” Robin muttered. “I’ll go see Ivy an’ ride on.” “You better----” Mayne began, but Robin had turned his back and was striding toward the house. The old man stood leaning against the stable wall, twisting his scraggly mustache, poking absently at the soft earth with the toe of his boot. His expression was not precisely a happy one. Robin stalked through the kitchen. Whether driven by eagerness or anxiety he did not consider. Of old Ivy would have run across the yard to meet him. He found her in the living room sitting beside a window which commanded the yard. He knew she had seen him. She rose as he entered but there was no welcome in her eyes. They were darkly sullen, a little frightened. Robin didn’t speak. He came up to her, put his hands on her shoulders, looked searchingly into her face. What he saw there troubled him with a sudden heart heaviness. To be near her stirred him deeply. Yet as he looked at her he knew that something which had linked them close was gone, extinguished like a burned-out candle. “You don’t seem noway glad to see me,” he said gently. “Did you expect me to be?” she returned. “You never wrote.” “How could I, the way things were?” he asked. “You know I would have sent word. It never struck you I’d either do that or come back because I couldn’t stay away from--from everybody and everything?” “You ran like a scared coyote,” she said tensely. “An’ you didn’t shoot Mark, after all. He shot himself with his own gun. You were just scared of him.” “Yes? Well?” Robin paused on the interrogation. He shook her gently. “Are you goin’ to bust everythin’ up between us?” he asked quietly. “Is _that_ the way you feel? Did I have to camp right on your trail to hold you?” “It’s already busted,” Ivy snapped. She shook herself free of his hands, backed away a step or two, looking at Robin with a dumb implacable resentment smoldering in her eyes. She turned to a shelf on the wall, took something out of a box and handed it to Robin without a word. It was the little diamond he had given her--their engagement ring. Robin held it in the palm of his hand. A pang of sadness, mingled with a touch of anger stabbed him. “Maybe it’ll do for another girl,” Ivy said spitefully. “I don’t need it no more.” “Neither do I,” he said hotly, and flung the ring into the dead ash of the fireplace. For a moment they stared at the puff of ashes where it fell, at each other. The girl’s lips quivered. Robin turned on his heel and walked out of the house. Old Mayne still leaned against the stable wall. Robin gathered up his reins, turned to ask a question. “Ivy goin’ to marry Steele?” He shot the words at Mayne with a harshness that made the old man start. “I reckon so,” he said apologetically. “_I_ kain’t help it.”