“I’m gone to the wild bunch, hon,” he put his arms around her. Ivy sobbed afresh, repeating that senseless “Oh, it’s awful,” over and over until Robin stopped her mouth with a kiss that brought no answering pressure from her cold lips. “I’m gone,” he said briefly. “You want me to come back?” “I don’t want you to go,” she cried, “I don’t want you to go!” “I got to.” “I guess so. All right,” she seemed to collect herself. “Write to me Robin, an’ tell me how you make out.” “I’ll get word to you,” he promised. “Good-by.” Within ten minutes he drew up at his own door. He came near passing the dimly outlined cabin with a glance and a sigh, but he recalled some papers he thought wise to take and so dismounted. He struck a match, got what he wanted out of a tin box on a shelf, and rode on. The moon was still below the horizon. Robin pointed Red Mike’s nose straight for the Block S home ranch and rode fast. The point he bore for lay straight across the Bear Paws where the Montana Central branched off the main line of the Great Northern. He could go in three directions from there. He would be on a train before word of that killing reached the Block S. He had an idea that pursuit and search would be perfunctory until Adam Sutherland stirred up the county authorities, privately speeded up the mechanism of the sheriff’s office. Even if Thatcher or one of the others took horse and rode they could cover ground no faster than he. He would beat them to the railroad by hours. After that--well Robin knew the range men, banked for safety on that knowledge. They would look for him anywhere but on a train. And Robin meant in that hour to turn his back forever on the range and cattle and cow thieves--all that had been his life ever since he could remember. He rode over the high, moon-washed divide of the Bear Paws in snow three feet deep, with a maturing plan and a definite purpose and destination in mind. A clean break! A new country, a different country. Everything behind him severed. From the Bar M Bar to Havre Junction was a little over forty miles in an air line. Robin dismounted in the outskirts of the little town at three P.M., having ridden the distance in six hours. He stood patting Red Mike’s sweaty neck while the beast nuzzled him impatiently. “So long, old boy,” he whispered. “You’ll be free to roam now. I hope nobody grabs you just because they know I’ve quit the country.” Red Mike rolled in the snow, shook himself like a dog, ambled away, vanished in the dark. In three or four days he would be grazing with the wild horses on Chase Hill, or by Cold Spring, back in his old haunts. Robin watched him go with a little pang. Then he took his saddle on his shoulder and passed along a dark street until he found a livery stable with a sleepy hostler whom he roused off a cot in the office. “I want to leave this saddle here for a spell,” he said.