Robin could easily guess the fury that raged in Steele once he had time to think, feeling himself checkmated, his liberty as well as the fruits of his crafty stealing endangered by Robin’s latest move. But that was no matter to be discussed with Ivy. He was sorry for her—but——She looked at him and her lips quivered. Then a curious gleam lit her dark eyes.
“If you hadn’t met that tow-headed Sutherland girl, this wouldn’t ’a’ happened,” she blazed out at him.
There was no dealing with that oblique reasoning. Robin knew Ivy’s wayward moods of old. He made a little impatient gesture. Ivy rose.
“I’m goin’ to the Block S one of these days an’ tear her eyes out,” she said passionately.
“Look,” Robin said sternly. “You had me. You could always have had me. I’d ’a’ stuck through anything. But he came along when I was hoein’ a hard row. You got to despisin’ me an’ admirin’ him. That’s all there is to it. When I came back after jumpin’ the country because I thought I’d killed him, you had dropped me like a hot potato. Don’t go blamin’ another woman for somethin’ you did yourself, because you wanted to.”
“Both of ’em.” Ivy gritted her white teeth. “I got it in for both of ’em, her an’ Mark. He could ’a’ left me alone, an’ she could ’a’ left you alone an’ it would ’a’ been all right. I hate them both. I have a mind to ride to the Block S and shame ’em before everybody. That’s what I started out to do this mornin’.”
“Better turn around an’ go home,” Robin counseled. “No good actin’ like a crazy woman. Go home an’ make a clean breast of it to the old man an’ let him deal with Shinin’ Mark.”
“He’s afraid. Everybody’s afraid of Mark Steele,” she sneered. “He’d say I was to blame for givin’ in, an’ he’d about kill me. All he thinks anything of is his cattle. He’s wild now because Mark backed out of the partnership. Says Mark’s a darned cheatin’ cow thief.”
“He is, too,” Robin said coldly. “Only he’s as bad as Mark because he knew that long ago.”
“Oh, I don’t care what he is,” she cried. “I don’t care. I’m so near crazy I don’t care who is what, or what happens.”