“I heard you,” Steele replied, making a visible effort at self-control, although his lean face was burning. “You don’t need to say anything to me at all. I’ll drop you in your tracks as soon as I get my hands on a gun, you mouthy pup. You sure do swell up when you happen to have a six-gun on your hip and catch me barehanded.” “I beat you barehanded once, and I can do it again,” Robin kept his voice low, his tone casual. “I don’t reckon you understand why I called you a liar. I know a Texas trick or two myself. You----” He darted a forefinger at Mark and the man jumped backward--but not so quickly that Robin’s fingers failed to tap smartly against something hard and outline it briefly under Steele’s coat. “You got a gun in a Texas holster under your arm,” Robin said contemptuously. “And you talk about being unarmed. As if anything you could say or do would throw me off my guard for a second. You swine! When I think that you put the fear of God in me once, I could laugh. _That’s_ how dangerous you look to me now.” Robin took off his soft Stetson and slapped Mark across the face. Mark put up his hand and backed away. Behind him Robin heard Adam Sutherland grunt, heard the scrape of his chair legs. Robin laughed again. He remembered the dead cows in Birch Creek. He remembered Tex Matthews’ stiffened body across a bloody saddle, borne by a tired horse, led by a tired rider through a long winter night. He remembered with a bitter clearness Steele swinging his spurred foot from a table in a line camp and saying cold-bloodedly, “I hate to muss up a perfectly good camp but you’ve bothered me long enough.” With those pictures blazing bright in his memory Robin had to laugh--or cry. He did laugh, looking straight into Steele’s burning eyes, but there was no mirth in the sound. “I’ve said my say,” he kept his voice without passion. “If a gun under your arm isn’t good enough for you, go buckle one on your hip. I’m not even going to bother looking for you, Steele. That’s how much I think of you. I won’t waste no time nor talk on you after this. If you want my scalp--and you’ve been after it a long time--you’ll have to come after me. If you jump me you won’t be able to say it was an accident with your own gun a second time.” Steele turned and walked away. Once he hesitated, seemed about to turn. Robin stood watching him, one hand resting on the desk, a half-smoked cigarette in his fingers. And when Steele passed through the swinging doors Robin followed, his thought and vision so concentrated on the man ahead that he did not hear Sutherland call after him: “Hey, Tyler. Come back here. I want to talk to you.” CHAPTER XVIII--THE SEAT OF THE MIGHTY