“I make no promises,” Robin said slowly. “It wouldn’t be no use. I don’t think you know your range boss as well as you think you do. He couldn’t pass me up if he wanted to.” “You mean you wouldn’t let him?” Sutherland interpreted. “You can ask him what I mean. Maybe he’ll tell you. Maybe he won’t.” “Why in hell don’t you say what you mean, out loud?” Sutherland demanded. “Seems to me I said what I mean right out loud and plain to the party concerned this afternoon,” Robin answered. “I’m not swallowin’ anything just so your range boss won’t have to be mixed up in a fuss.” “He’ll kill you sure, if you stack up against him,” Sutherland grumbled. “I don’t like the way you talk, Tyler. I’d hate to see a kid like you get his light put out by one of my men. But, darn it, you can’t call a man like Mark Steele a cow thief just because you’re sore at him over a girl. That ain’t reasonable, now is it? Mark hasn’t put on his war-paint. You’re the one that’s lookin’ for trouble.” “It looks that way,” Robin conceded, “but things ain’t always what they look.” “What was in the back of your mind to call Mark a cow thief, anyway?” Sutherland asked bluntly. “You can ask him that, too,” Robin said. “Here he comes.” Steele walked the length of the store as jauntily as if he had no care in the world, as if each stride were bringing him near a man with whom he would have been glad to shake hands instead of to kill. “You ain’t got no gun, have you?” Sutherland half-rose from his chair. Robin shook his head. “If I had it would be smokin’ now,” he muttered. Steele came up to Sutherland and Robin. He was smiling. That is, his face and lips smiled, but his eyes were like gray agates, hard and cold and watchful. “Hello, kid,” he said evenly. “Hope you got over bein’ hostile. You don’t really aim to kill me, now do you?” “No. I’ve changed my mind,” Robin answered quietly. “I’m goin’ to put you in the penitentiary instead.” With that he walked unconcernedly past Steele and out of the store. CHAPTER XI--A BREATHING SPACE Robin walked to where his horse stood, mounted and rode to camp. In half an hour he was jogging out the south trail behind his thirteen loose horses. Dark overtook him twenty miles from town. He penned his string in the corral of an abandoned horse ranch, spread his bed in an old cabin and slept, supperless. At dawn he tightened his belt a hole and rode again. At ten-thirty his horses ran nickering down the bank into the Mayne yard. A ranch hand working on a woodpile sauntered over to the corral. Robin saw Ivy come to the kitchen door and draw back. “The old man around?” he inquired as the ranch hand helped him strip the gear off the pack horse. “Uh-uh. Makin’ a ride somewheres,” the man said.