With those pictures blazing bright in his memory Robin had to laugh—or cry. He did laugh, looking straight into Steele’s burning eyes, but there was no mirth in the sound.
“I’ve said my say,” he kept his voice without passion. “If a gun under your arm isn’t good enough for you, go buckle one on your hip. I’m not even going to bother looking for you, Steele. That’s how much I think of you. I won’t waste no time nor talk on you after this. If you want my scalp—and you’ve been after it a long time—you’ll have to come after me. If you jump me you won’t be able to say it was an accident with your own gun a second time.”
Steele turned and walked away. Once he hesitated, seemed about to turn. Robin stood watching him, one hand resting on the desk, a half-smoked cigarette in his fingers. And when Steele passed through the swinging doors Robin followed, his thought and vision so concentrated on the man ahead that he did not hear Sutherland call after him:
“Hey, Tyler. Come back here. I want to talk to you.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE SEAT OF THE MIGHTY
About Shining Mark’s capacity for ruthless action Robin had no illusions whatever. He did not jump to the conclusion as a lesser man might have done that his open defiance of Steele had driven him to a cover from which he would not emerge. Mark was pretty deeply committed one way and another, and he was growing more cautious, that was all. Robin had simply put him on the defensive. Mark would get him when and where he could. After that exchange before Adam Sutherland, Shining Mark had to go through with it; he couldn’t hold up his head before his employer if he didn’t. Robin knew that when he deliberately called him “thief.” That was why he uttered the epithet. He meant to put the shoe on the other foot, make Mark the aggressor if war must ensue. And he had succeeded. The mere fact that certain fibers within him had hardened so that he neither feared Steele nor any other man did not lead Robin to underestimate his enemy. Shining Mark was more dangerous than ever, for all he had backed up from an insult with a gun hidden under his armpit.
So Robin took no foolhardy chances. He went to the hotel, lounged in the bar and the office, and kept his eyes about him. Two or three of the Block S riders wandered in. There was nothing to indicate that they had heard of any new clash. Robin chaffered with them, but he did not cross the street. He had said his say. The rest was up to Mark.
Watching idly through a window half an hour later Robin saw Mark mount his horse and ride to the store, emerge therefrom presently and jog down the street looking neither to right nor left, vanishing at last toward the round-up camp.
Robin ate supper, played cards until ten o’clock, went to bed. In the morning he saddled Red Mike and rode south a mile or two. The Block S outfit was gone. Robin rode west toward the mountains to see a rancher he knew. He had all the time in the world. He meant to stay around Big Sandy two or three days. He would sell that bit of land to Adam Sutherland if he could. Then he would drift. He would go on spring round-up with the YT or the Pool. One of the big outfits would make a place for him he knew. If later his trail crossed Mark Steele’s—well, he would never eat his words.
In the evening he went back to town. When he walked into the hotel the rotund host said: