Ivy went into the kitchen.
“Steele jumped me this afternoon down at the Birch Creek line camp. I killed him,” Robin said bluntly, as soon as they were alone.
Mayne took his pipe out of his mouth. For a second he looked incredulous. Then a shade of fear crossed his face.
“Good Lord!” he breathed. “The fat’ll be in the fire now. The Block S’ll be on us like a bunch of wolves.”
“On us?” Robin queried. “How? Where do you come in? I did the killin’.”
“How?” Mayne echoed. He rose to his feet, strode up and down the room. “How? Hell, I know Sutherland. He’ll make this range too hot to hold me. He’ll take this personal. He thought the sun rose an’ set around that —— —— ——!”
He spat a mouthful of epithets on the dead man. Robin stared at Mayne with a little heart sinking. This was the reward for loyalty. Mayne saw only his material interests further imperiled by the inevitable dénouement. The big fish, angered, would harry the little fish who had troubled the range waters. It came over Robin with a discouraging conviction that for all he was in a way of becoming Mayne’s son and right bower he could expect little backing, either moral or financial, in this crisis. Mayne had been furious at Shining Mark’s depredations, furious and afraid. Shining Mark would rustle no more Bar M Bar calves. But Mayne had a new fear—Sutherland’s anger. The Block S could blackball him, refuse to handle his stock, bar his riders from round-up, throttle him in a dozen ways.
Something like contempt stirred briefly in Robin.
“I don’t see where you need worry,” he said.
Perhaps his tone brought Mayne back to a consideration of immediate consequences.