“It isn’t your place to go after him if he is,” she demurred. “Let the county officers get him. He’ll try to kill you, if it’s the last thing he does.”
“By jiminy!” Robin put his hands on her shoulders and looked at her searchingly. “I believe he is in town an’ you know it. Your dad knows he’s here?”
May flushed.
“Steele is in Big Sandy,” she admitted. “He’s been here since yesterday drinking and—and——”
Robin turned. May caught him with both hands.
“Robin!” she cried. “No. You promised dad you’d stay here till he came back.”
“While I stand here talkin’ Steele may be ridin’,” Robin said. “Gettin’ him is my job. If I didn’t owe it to him, I’m an officer. I got myself deputized to have the law on my side. Even if I wasn’t I’d go after him anyway. He rode me rough. He murdered a good friend. He’s a thief. I will get him—alive if I can; but I’ll get him if he’s here.”
“I know, I know,” May pleaded. “I wouldn’t have you shirk. But wait till dad comes back. He’s old and very wise, Robin, and he likes you. If he says you should go ahead and arrest Mark Steele I won’t say another word.”
They stood for a second or two, clasped close. The blood leaped quicker in Robin’s veins. So Shining Mark was in town? Very soon now there would be an end to this coil in which he had been entangled so long. One way or the other it would be finished. If Mark opened war on sight it would be an even break—and Robin asked no more, wanted no more. And if Steele hesitated the fraction of a second then he would get the drop on him and Shining Mark would go to Fort Benton alive to answer before the law for his misdeeds. Even with his sweetheart in his arms Robin’s instinct was to seek Steele and get it over.
As he made a move to put May’s arms aside, distantly, as if muffled, faintly through the open door two shots sounded so close together that an untrained ear might have heard but one. Then another single report. After that dead silence, in which Robin, already on the top step, halted to listen.