“More’n one way of killin’ a cat besides chokin’ it to death with butter,” Mayne drawled cryptically. As the Block S wagons, saddle bunch and riders traveled south the next forenoon they passed one equipage and were themselves passed by another on the trail that ran to the Sutherland ranch on Little Eagle. The first was Dan Mayne and Ivy rolling home with a team and wagon. Robin jogged beside them for a mile or so bantering Ivy. Then Mark Steele detached himself from the other riders and joined him, and somehow the light-hearted chaffering between Ivy and Robin ceased. Mark did the talking. He was as genial as the sun. Even old Mayne had to grin. But Robin didn’t. He kept pace and was casual, but he wasn’t happy. And when Mark said: “Well, kid, the outfit’s leavin’ us behind,” Robin lifted his hat and rode on with Steele, in spite of the fact that it was his privilege to join the outfit when he chose. He wasn’t a Block S man. He was a “rep.” But he went. Steele tightened up as soon as they were clear of the Maynes. It wasn’t anything he said because he didn’t open his mouth. It was his manner, a subtle something Robin could feel. Mark looked back at the team and wagon once. Then he looked searchingly at Robin and smiled--without a word. The mocking flicker in his eyes made Robin uneasy. It was not the first time Steele had manifested an interest in Ivy Mayne, although everybody within fifty miles knew she was Robin’s girl. “Maybe,” thought Robin, “he thinks he can get her the way he’s gettin’ the old man’s calves.” They joined the other riders. As they paced along the trail some one noticed a little banner of dust far behind. “Somebody’s foggin’ it on our track,” Tommy Thatcher remarked. The “somebody” turned out to be Adam Sutherland, in a fancy buggy, holding taut reins over a pair of standard-bred bays kicking the dust out from under them as if they were hitched to a racing sulky. The buggy passed like a rider at the gallop. Sutherland nodded. The cowboys lifted their hats when they saw a girl in the seat beside Sutherland. The shiny top was up and all they had was a glimpse. But that was sufficient, for some of them. “May’s back, eh?” one commented. Robin had a flash of a pale face, fair hair, bright blue eyes. He knew about Sutherland’s only daughter although he had never seen her until now. She was getting a formal education in the State capital, where Sutherland lived in the winter, and sometimes she came to the home ranch a few weeks in summer. She had been born on Little Eagle when the Block S cattle numbered hundreds instead of thousands. She was good-looking, the cowboys said, and she had been very pleasant to crippled riders laid up at the home ranch, but none of them knew her well. She rode about in the hills a little with her father, and a great deal more alone. The Sutherland riders discussed her freely as the buggy grew small on the trail ahead and disappeared at last over a rise.