“If I didn’t know you, kid, I might think maybe you were asleep. There’s awful good care took in this country to see that all Jim Bond’s calves get branded.” There was a slight emphasis on the “all.” “You don’t reckon he gets branded for him more’n the law allows?” Robin hazarded. The Texan looked hard at him for a second. Then he smiled. “If it was anything to me; if I had stock in these parts, I’d be mighty curious about this T Bar S,” he drawled. “I sure would. As it is, it ain’t a Block S man’s business to be curious about anything but Block S stuff.” “Even if Block S calves should happen to grow a T Bar S on their ribs?” The Texan sat sidewise in his saddle and gazed at Robin with a faint uplift at one corner of his thin lips. “Well,” he remarked with seeming irrelevance, “I reckon the Bar M Bar ‘rep’ don’t go to sleep at the switch. Say, did you ever know a man get ambitious and figure out wise little schemes to make him rich off his neighbors?” “Seems like I’ve heard of such.” “So’ve I. I have an idea somebody not a million miles away might know more about this T Bar S than we do. No, sir. I shouldn’t be surprised. Only,” he added thoughtfully, “you needn’t mention I said so.” “I ain’t a great hand at mentionin’,” Robin grunted. “You know that.” “Old Jim Bond, he’s supposed to turn a hundred and fifty head of stuff south of the Bear Paws a year ago last spring,” Matthews rambled on. “I guess a man don’t make no fortune out of a one-horse saloon in Helena. Now wouldn’t it be fine for old Jim if his stock doubled in a year, and kept on. At that rate in five years or so he’d be quite a cowman. Only I have a sort of hunch that in a good deal less’n five years somebody else’ll own the T Bar S.” “Who’ll it be?” Robin asked idly. They were sitting on a rise of ground that overlooked a southward bend of the Missouri, waiting for the last drive to come into the round-up. “Well, I ain’t sure. But I could give a guess. So could you.” “In five years,” Robin prophesied, “Adam Sutherland’ll own the T Bar S--or it won’t be used on cows.” “Maybe so, maybe so,” Tex said. “I expect somebody’ll be surprised when old Adam decides to own the T Bar S, though.” “What you gettin’ at, Tex?” Robin demanded bluntly. “Just passin’ the time in talk,” Matthews drawled. “Say, did you never pack a six-gun.” Robin shook his head. “I never even owned one.” “How come you never did? First kid I ever saw on the range that didn’t like to play with a pistol.”