“So all the young stuff that’s been branded T Bar S and thrown over the river on the ice I’ve got in my day herd,” Robin concluded. “There is a little over three hundred head. I expect a round-up of T Bar S’s on the home range would show a lot more. Short of killin’ Mark Steele if he jumps me--and I suppose he will jump me if he gets a chance because he knows he isn’t safe with me on this range--I don’t know as I can do any more single-handed. I see no way of provin’ Mark owns the T Bar S or any interest in it. I do know that he and Thatcher rustled those calves. I’ve told you how. The increase in young T Bar S stuff proves it. I’m just as sure they shot Tex and tried to get me as I am that you’re settin’ in your chair. But I don’t know whether what I know and have guessed would convict ’em in court. There it is. What do you think? And what do you want me to do with those T Bar S’s?” Sutherland rose. “Come on in where there’s a light,” he invited. He led the way into a room originally built of logs and now paneled to the ceiling with oak. Robin had never been inside the Sutherland house before. There was a homelike air of comfort in this room, a peculiarly satisfying atmosphere that Robin could feel even if he did not understand how it was attained. Soft thick rugs lay underfoot. There were deep, upholstered chairs, a few pictures on the walls, trophies of Sutherland’s rifle in the way of deer and elk antlers, and a great bearskin spread before a yawning fireplace. An oil lamp burned at each end of the room. Sutherland motioned Robin to a chair, shoved a box of cigars across an oaken table, sat down himself and frowned at the floor. “This ain’t so new to me,” he said at last. “Only it comes a lot straighter than I expected. Tex Matthews was my man. I sent him to work for Mayne on purpose. A man with cows scattered over a hundred miles square can’t afford to sleep. If you’ve got anything there’s always some smart feller layin’ awake nights figurin’ how he can take it away from you. A thief _will_ steal. Men you trust _will_ go wrong. It seems like----” He fell silent for a minute. “I hate it!” he began again presently. “For three years I trusted him like he was my son. He’s aggressive and he’s got brains. But I guess it’s the wrong kind of brains--the fox kind. He _is_ foxy. If he has laid off rustlin’ this spring, he’s pretty well in the clear. I can’t touch him on suspicion. Unless----” He sat tugging at his drooped mustache. “Like havin’ a skunk under your house where you can’t get at him, and you can’t hardly stand the smell,” he said. “No wonder he wanted to kill you.” “And you never suspected him?” Robin asked. “If Tex was your man didn’t he tell you anything? He knew. And why did you send him to work for Dan Mayne?”