“I guess that’s how you’re short on calves,” Robin continued. “Probably there’s quite a few Bar M Bar cows dyin’ of heart failure that way—when they happen to have big, unbranded calves that was missed on the spring round-up.”
“The shrinkage ain’t natural, that’s a fact,” Mayne grumbled. “We tallied a hundred less calves this year than last. Should ’a’ been a good increase. It wasn’t no hard winter.”
They sat wordless a minute.
“Somebody’s stealin’ you blind,” Robin asserted at last.
“I guess so,” Mayne admitted peevishly. He bent a shrewd eye on his man. “You got an idea who, ain’t you?”
“That’s all I have got, just an idea,” Robin declared. “And if I go bellerin’ that idea out loud I might get daylight let through me some day when I ain’t lookin’. I’d ride a lot, if I was you, with a Winchester handy.”
“You seen more’n a dead cow yesterday, kid,” Mayne challenged. “Spit it out. Where was you? What happened?”
Robin told him. But he stopped short of uttering his conviction that one of the riders was Mark Steele. The information he did divulge he cautioned Mayne about keeping to himself. That was as far as he dared go. If Mayne took two drinks too many some day and shot off his mouth about Mark Steele, Shining Mark would go gunning for him, Robin Tyler, not for Dan Mayne.
The old man scowled, tugging at his mustache.
“I’ve suspicioned somebody was workin’ on me,” he said irritably. “This cinches it. Keep your eye peeled for fresh iron-work while you’re with the Block S. I’ll get out and ride. By God!” he snarled in a sudden gust of resentment, “I sure do hate a cow thief. And you ain’t got no hunch who these two was?”