“And maybe my time with you will be short,” he answered tenderly. “It all depends. Where’s your dad?”
“He took his rod and went up the creek to catch some trout for breakfast,” May said. “He’ll be back soon, I think. Has anything new cropped up? Where have you been all these weeks, and what have you been doing, Robin Hood? You vanished so quickly. What happened? I ask dad, and he merely grins.”
“You got my letters, didn’t you?” Robin asked. “I wrote twice. I told you I’d gone to run a round-up south of the river. I didn’t have much chance to send mail. I’ve been in the Judith Basin and the Bad Lands all spring.”
“You write dear letters,” she smiled. “But you don’t give much information about what you’re doing—only about how you feel.”
“Well, isn’t that what you mostly want to know?” he teased. “Don’t you like me to say I love you in as many different ways as I can set it down in black and white?”
“Of course, silly,” she reproved. “But why didn’t you stay here and run our round-up instead of Mark Steele?”
“Did your dad tell you?”
“He’s like you,” she murmured. “He thinks and looks and acts more than he talks. There he is now.”
Adam Sutherland came ambling slowly across the yard bearing a rod and reel. He nodded to Robin, opened his basket to show them half a dozen glistening fish; then he shouted through an open window. A Chinese house boy came to bear away tackle and trophies. Sutherland lit a cigar.
“Well, Tyler,” he said. “I expect you want to see me about something, eh?”