“You’ll do it by yourself, then,” said Robin. He swung his horse about. The pack animal grazed a hundred yards distant. Robin rode straight to him. Mayne sat still a second, then followed. “What you goin’ to do?” he demanded harshly. “Take my blankets and some grub and hit the trail,” Robin said. “When it comes to makin’ a common thief outa myself, I quit before I begin.” “Aw, hell, kid!” Mayne changed his tone. He began to expostulate. In the end they rode out of that bottom together taking only Bar M Bar stock. The unbranded T Bar S calves remained with the wild bunch. Mayne grudgingly promised that he would kill no more cows. He was full of vindictive resentment against everything and everybody. But he didn’t want to lose Robin. “You’re so damned straight you lean over backward, kid,” he said grudgingly. “_I_ don’t feel like I was a thief. Maybe you’re right, but I sure don’t reckon it no sin to play even thataway when I think of what Mark Steele’s doin’ to me.” That was Mayne’s last long ride. He had grown old in the saddle. He could not face the weariness and discomfort of riding and lying out in bitter weather as lightly as Robin could. “I guess we got most of mine, anyway,” Mayne said. “You can circulate around, if you like. I can’t stand this no more.” Robin meant to circulate, as Mayne graphically put it. There were plenty of Block S calves in places he knew. Robin meant to ride and watch. In the back of his mind was a pretty definite idea of what he would do if he ever caught Steele and Thatcher at work. His purpose was hardening. He didn’t really expect such luck. They would probably see him first. But there was always the chance. At no time did Robin see anything of the Block S riders, except one or two casual meetings. Sutherland had a winter line camp, fifty miles or more east, deep in the Bad Lands, another twenty miles southward of Cold Spring in the mouth of Birch Creek. While a range boss did in winter occasionally drift about the various camps belonging to his outfit, Robin neither met, saw nor heard of Shining Mark. It seemed indeed as if Christmas might come and go and spring flowers bloom again before the normal round would bring him face to face with his enemy--if the enemy did not take up his trail. Then one day, Robin, who occasionally spent an afternoon or night at his own homestead, met Tex Matthews leading a pack horse with bed lashed on, just by his own claim. They stabled their horses, carried the Texan’s bed inside, lit a fire in the stove, and sat down to warm their feet. “Well, kid, how’s tricks--the tricks of the trade?” Tex smiled. “So, so,” Robin said. “Nothin’ to write home about.” “Thatcher’s back,” Tex informed him. “I hear him and Steele is down at the Cow Creek camp. Better keep your eye pealed.” “Has he made any cracks?” “Heard none. But he’ll have it in for you. That’s a cinch. By the way,” Matthews abruptly changed the subject. “I wonder if old Dan wants another rider?”