Steele made no comment. There was a funny little quirk about the Texan’s mouth when he made that answer, and he looked straight at Shining Mark. For some reason there was a brief silence, and after that there was no more mention of May Sutherland. Presently they stirred up their horses and tore down into a creek bottom where the wagons were to stop for noon.
That night they camped under Shadow Butte again. The following day took them far east of Birch Creek, east of the Bar M Bar. The Little Rockies loomed blue on the horizon beyond the broad reach of the Gros Ventre Reservation. On their first ride they picked up a fair sprinkling of beef cattle and Robin cut a score of Bar M Bars into the day herd to throw back on his home range. After that the routine of each day followed its usual order of saddling at dawn, riding circle, bunching the gathered cattle in a compact mass near the camp while they cut out the prime beef and branded such calves as had been missed on the spring round-up. Each day they moved a few miles back toward Big Sandy, working the range on either side of the wagons as far as they could reach in one ride.
Robin noted a T Bar S here and there. Some of the riders knew a Helena man owned that brand. None of them cared about the question of ownership. They were not owners. There were other brands on the range with absentee owners. Somehow, because a generous honesty was the accepted range standard the calves of such got branded with the mark their mothers bore, and the steers got shipped to market. If no special arrangement was made for looking after such cattle the big outfits looked after them anyhow. It kept the range in order. Unbranded stock at large was a temptation to men anxious to build up a big herd off a shoestring foundation. If a rustler could get away with stuff from a little owner he soon extended his operations to the big outfit. To the big cattleman a cow thief was an affront to his jealous sense of property rights—to the man with only a few head the same thief was a poisonous sneak who took the bread out of his mouth while he slept.
Robin went about with his keen eyes wide open. He saw nothing suspicious nor did he expect to see such except by chance. For that chance he was always alert. And within a week, when the Block S worked certain ridges east of Birch Creek chance came his way.
He had noted one thing. Invariably when Mark Steele led his riders on circle and scattered them by twos and threes to make a sweeping drive back toward the wagon, he kept Tommy Thatcher with him. That might have been accident or inclination. Every man has his preferences. If Mark preferred Thatcher’s company there was no one to gainsay his choice. For whatever reason, Thatcher and Steele were Siamese twins when it came to riding the outside. The odd fancy that the T Bar S spelled Thatcher & Steele took hold of Robin’s mind. He knew better. The T Bar S was an old brand. It had changed hands many a time. Still the idea lingered with Robin.
On a certain afternoon the riders finished working a gathered herd. Every outfit, on its home range, took the first cut. When they had finished with the round-up the “reps” could ride in to see if anything of theirs had been overlooked.
Steele waved to Robin.
“Look ’em over,” he invited. “I cut a couple of your cows with unbranded calves.”
Robin had seen that. It was his business to see such things. But he had spotted another cow with a calf well-grown in that milling mass and he knew other men must have seen them also. None of them would mention the fact, unless he asked. A “rep” was supposed to know his business. He turned and twisted in that jumble of moving beasts until he found what he looked for, and cut them into the bunch being held. He knew precisely how many unbranded calves with Mayne mothers were in that cut. While four riders threw the beef into the day herd the rest built a fire, put in the irons. There were perhaps forty calves to be branded. Robin was delegated to run an iron. As each calf came dragging to the fire the roper called the brand of his mother cow. With a dozen men on the job it was soon done.
“’At’s all.” Thatcher stopped and coiled his rope.