Robin looked at old Adam placidly rolling a cigar between his lips. For a second he had the impulse to show his hand, to tell Sutherland wherein the feud between himself and Mark Steele originated. Somehow, with Steele coming back to run the Block S he couldn’t quite. He had called Steele a thief to his face. He might have occasion to do so again. But accusation wasn’t proof. Robin hated empty words. There was proof in plenty across the Missouri. Consciously or unconsciously Sutherland was placing him in a position to accumulate that proof in substantial form, in the shape of T Bar S yearlings and two-year-olds beyond what the brand could possibly yield. “You’ll go back to town with me this afternoon,” Sutherland said. “Mark’s on his way out, an’ I’d as soon you two didn’t get together, though he promised he wouldn’t start no fuss. I didn’t want no gun play. Will you keep your mouth shut an’ your hands in your pockets if you should see him?” “If he keeps away from me, yes,” Robin agreed. “You seem darned anxious to keep peace between us two.” “Dead wagon bosses ain’t much good to me,” Sutherland drawled. “Dead wagon bosses an’ dead cows ain’t much good to anybody. You keep that in mind.” CHAPTER XX--SOUTH OF THE RIVER 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.