Robin helped him get ready for bed, put his clothes away in a closet.
“I’ll be off my feet for a spell, I reckon,” Sutherland began to talk with something of his old vigor. “You’ll have to be a sort of general superintendent, Tyler. Pick a good man out of your crew to run the J7. Leave Boyd segundo on the home wagon till you can take it over yourself. Run the Block S on them cattle you got. We’ll keep ’em, every darned hoof. Well, I expect they stole quite a few from old Mayne, so you better mark, say, about a hundred head for him. I guess that’s all for just now. You’ll have to be in an’ out of here pretty frequent while I’m on my back.”
“Why did you tangle with Mark Steele?” Robin demanded. “Why didn’t you leave him to me? It was my job.”
“Mine too. He stole from me. He murdered a man I thought a lot of. He was a dirty dog all around. He give that fool girl of Mayne’s a raw deal. I felt kinda responsible, because I put him in a position to do some of them things. I been boilin’ inside the last two or three days. An’ he was makin’ breaks about you here in town. He was bad an’ he was game. I didn’t feel like lettin’ you take a chance.
“Gosh darn it, this hole in my ribs don’t amount to much, but it sure hurts,” he complained. “No, kid, I couldn’t let you go up against that hombre. I’ve lived my life an’ it don’t matter so much. This kid of mine thinks a heap of you. I couldn’t let you go against as hard a proposition as Mark Steele. An’ there was no time to wait for deputies. You would ’a’ gone after him in spite of hell an’ high water the minute you knew he was in town. So I went after him myself. I’ve stood out against gun play for years now. But you notice I ain’t sheddin’ no tears.”
“Nor me,” Robin replied. “Only I wish you hadn’t took him off my hands at your own risk.”
“Shucks,” Sutherland rumbled. “You take the runnin’ of the Block S off my hands an’ we’ll call it square. If there’s anything in what I’ve had to listen to from May the last few days it’s all in the family anyhow.”
“You mean that?” Robin asked.
“Yes. You’ll do,” Sutherland grinned. “I was only joshin’ you at the ranch last week. Wanted to see how you’d take it. I’d trust May’s judgment in a matter of that kind, even if I doubted my own—which I don’t. Hit the trail an’ tell her how the play come up with Mark—an’ tell Lum Yip to bring me some ice water.”
Robin delivered this order to the Chinese boy. Then he found May, told her briefly what had happened. She dashed off to her father’s room again. In a minute she came back, flushed, laughing.