Robin shook off his spurs and chaps and went to the house. Ivy sat by the kitchen table, nursing her face in her hands. She looked up as Robin entered, in a way that gave him a pang. She seemed sad, even a little afraid of him, and although Robin had seen her in a temper, had seen her sulky, he had never known her to grieve, to look subdued and unhappy. He went up and put his arms about her. “Hello, hon,” he greeted. “How are you? What for you look like the blue devils had got you? Aren’t you glad to see me back?” For answer Ivy put her dark head against him and wept. She tried to speak and the words seemed to choke her. “I was scared,” she got out at last. “It’s all my fault. I was a darned fool, Robin. I’ve made all the trouble. My heart’s been in my mouth all day. I felt bad enough before--since that dance. But to-day.” She shuddered. “What’s worryin’ you now?” Robin asked. He did not see how news of his clash with Mark Steele could possibly have reached the Bar M Bar so soon. Therefore something else had cropped up to trouble Ivy. But he was wrong. “One of the Davis boys was in town yesterday,” Ivy told him. “He got home in the night. Dad was up there seein’ the kids. Sam told him about you and Mark and Thatcher lockin’ horns. Oh, Robin, I was lookin’ to hear you’d been killed. I was scared--scared and sorry.” “You got nothin’ to be sorry for about that,” Robin soothed her. “Didn’t I act like a fool at that dance and stir things up?” Ivy mourned. “I asked Mark to take me to Davis’s just to spite you. Ugh!” She peered up into Robin’s face. “Did you--did Mark?” She seemed unable to go farther. Robin shook his head. “I didn’t have a gun. I couldn’t get one in Big Sandy. Maybe he’d ’a’ got me if I’d been heeled. ’Tain’t finished.” Ivy’s sobs broke out afresh. She clung to Robin and would not be comforted. She felt that this clash had come about solely because of her. And Robin couldn’t enlighten her. Outside of himself and her father no one knew what happened that day below Cold Spring, no one knew the motive that was the mainspring of Shining Mark’s actions, nor Robin’s. Telling wouldn’t help. It might easily prove fatal. Let them all, including Ivy, think the trouble arose over her, until time and chance and effort proved Mark Steele a common thief--if he, Robin, lived that long. And he meant to live. “I hate him,” Ivy wailed. “I’m afraid of him. And still--oh, Robin, it’s awful. When I’m with him I feel--as if--as if--he could do what he liked with me. I wish he was dead! He’ll kill you. I know it. He’s a wolf--a wolf!” “Wolves get trapped now an’ then,” Robin muttered. “Don’t you worry about Mark Steele no more, hon. I don’t _sabe_ why he should make you feel that way if you really like me. Do you really, truly?” Ivy put her arms around his neck and held up her tear-wet face.