Robin walked out of the dive. It _was_ a dive, subsisting on the border of the underworld, betraying its character at a glance. Robin was glad to get away from the place. Nevertheless he was glad he had bearded Jim Bond in this den of iniquity--which differed from the average cow town saloon as the floor of a pigsty differs from a Wilton rug--because he had gleaned an important fact or two, and one harassed remark of Bond’s had suggested to him a plan which he thought worth trying. CHAPTER XXII--A NEAR SHOWDOWN Another rider jogged beside Robin Tyler when he rode out of Fort Benton the following day, a man about thirty, a typical cow hand one would say from a glance at his sunburned face, the easy effortless way he sat his horse, the completeness of his riding rig. Sam Connors was a cow-puncher, but he was also another of Tom Coats’ deputies, a dark horse on the county pay roll, his status as an officer of the law remaining under cover for purposes best known to a sheriff whose security in a political job rested on affording protection to cattlemen against the occasional marauder who looked too longingly on stock not his own. The J7 riders were all in camp. They had feasted, so to speak, won a roughriding contest in Big Sandy. They were very well pleased with themselves, with their wagon boss, with the world in general. They had rested for a couple of days and now with the impatience of youth they craved action. They got it speedily. Robin reached camp at three in the afternoon. Before sundown he had bunched his day herd out of the PN pastures and made it breast the Big Muddy. He threw his horse herd over the river on the heels of the cattle, ferried his wagons on a scow borrowed from the PN, and set up his camp on the north shore. At daybreak he led his riders on circle. For one week he shifted camp twice a day and swept the country for fifteen miles on either side as he moved, so that on the eighth day he had picked up every T Bar S ranging between lower Birch and Big Sandy Creek. He had by actual count over six hundred in his day herd and the scope of Shining Mark’s operations loomed bigger than ever. There might be a few more scattered here and there on the Block S range, but Robin had enough for his purpose. He reckoned that Shining Mark’s crew would be taking a lay-off before beef round-up somewhere near the home ranch. When the swing of his gathering brought the J7 under the south slope of Shadow Butte, Robin left Tom Hayes in charge and rode for the Block S. He wanted to see Adam Sutherland and he wanted to see Shining Mark--he wanted to get them together. He thought he would explode a sort of bomb and see what would follow. Mark might stand pat and say nothing--but he would do something, either at once or soon after. He might open war at sight. Robin didn’t know how his tactics would result. The uncertainty keyed him up a trifle.