Robin stayed with the crowd for one round of elbow-crooking. Then he crossed to the hotel. The Maynes were still in town. He sought the store. As he clanked up the steps he passed Dan Mayne and Adam Sutherland perched on the planking, Mayne talking with emphatic motions of his hands and head, Sutherland big, fat, good-natured, placidly listening, chewing on a cigar. Robin nodded and went on in, looking for Ivy. But in that semi-public place he couldn’t talk to her nor she to him even if she had not been deep in purchases of dry goods aided and abetted by the blacksmith’s wife and the hotel keeper’s daughter. Out of their natural habitat both Robin and Ivy were shy, self-conscious. They exchanged greetings. Robin bought a pound of Bull Durham and took himself off.
Sutherland rose as he came out and ambled away toward his house. Robin sat down beside Mayne. The old man’s eyes were slightly reddened. Otherwise he showed no sign of his overnight tussle with John Barleycorn. His mind was still occupied with cows and cow thieves.
“Sutherland don’t take no stock in any rustlin’,” he complained. “He’s so gol darned sure nobody’s got the nerve to rustle stock on the Block S range. ’Course I couldn’t blat it all. I only told him what I seen myself, an’ not all that either. He just laughed. Said if some of my cows got shot it wasn’t because somebody was stealin’ their calves, but more likely some poison mean galoot had it in for me.”
“How’d he figure calves with no mothers and a T Bar S on their ribs?” Robin inquired.
“I didn’t go that far.” Mayne’s normal caution was to the fore, evidently. “I don’t want to start nothin’ I can’t finish. I got to know more before I go hollerin’ names and brands.”
“I guess that’s good policy,” Robin agreed. “Still, I don’t sabe the play. If it was Mark— Why’d he steal calves for a man in Helena?”
“Bond’s probably a stall. Mark’s either got an interest in that brand or owns it. Naturally he keeps that dark,” Mayne replied sourly. “If them calves had had a Block S on ’em I’d think my chances were slim to make any money in the cow business around here. I thought at first he was workin’ on me to make a good showin’ for the Block S. I never seen a big cow outfit yet that wouldn’t back a wagon boss in anything he did if he could show a good increase from year to year. But when I see that T Bar S I know he’s out for himself.”
“Maybe it ain’t Mark, after all,” Robin murmured. “I’m not dead sure, you know. I went mostly on the flash of silver.”
Robin didn’t say that he had been confirmed in his first impression largely by Mark’s behavior since.
Mayne looked at him peevishly.