“Well, if a cow horse tries to throw me and can’t do it, it don’t make me sad,” Robin admitted.
The gray woke up. He plunged twice, swapped ends once in the air, stopped as unexpectedly as he began, and stood fretfully shaking his head. Robin laughed. No horse ever caught him off guard. The gray sidestepped, turned so that he exposed the brand on his shoulder.
“Oh. You ride for Dan Mayne, do you?” the girl said. “I’m May Sutherland.”
“Robin Tyler’s my name,” he exchanged the courtesy. He was not surprised. He had surmised at first glance that this was Adam Sutherland’s daughter.
“So you’re just riding,” she continued in a friendly tone. “I do that myself sometimes—just ride. I thought cow-punchers always rode for a purpose, not just for fun. You certainly can ride.”
May Sutherland’s voice was a rather wonderful thing, it suddenly dawned upon Robin—and not because she praised his horsemanship. From that slender figure, pliant as a willow, a man somehow expected to hear a sweet, shrill tone, like a canary twittering. May’s voice was not so much deep, as throaty, liquid. It was like a caress. It stirred Robin curiously. There rose beside this very fair, frank-speaking daughter of a cattle king the image of Ivy Mayne. They were a direct contrast, in looks, manner, speech, in everything—and both alluring. If a man had to choose between them? That vagrant thought startled Robin. Indeed impressions flashed through his mind with such speed that those queer speculations were come and gone without his losing the point of her words or hesitating for an answer. He was reminded by her words that he had a very definite purpose in riding that evening.
“I guess a man generally has something on his mind, even when he rides for fun,” Robin told her.
He explained briefly why he was riding the gray horse in the cool of evening, all by himself in that lonely bottom, and where he was bound. They rode back to the corral. Stormy was docile now, a very model of high-spirited gentleness. Robin took the lead rope of his other pony. They crossed the creek and rode up on the opposite bank and the range opened before them. The Sutherland ranch lay in a hollow of the hills, masked by pine timber. The Bar M Bar was seven miles south, nestled in Little Birch. Robin could see the contour of the rolling ground behind his own place.
Away on the farther edge of the westward plains the sun dipped below the horizon. The Bear Paws loomed over them on the north, a cluster of high peaks notching the sky line like the teeth of a huge saw. The canyons between the mountains were filled with a pearly tinge slowly turning into the first night shadows. All about them a great stillness in which crickets chirped—over them a sapphire sky with streaks of red and touches of pale gold in the west.
“Which way you riding?” Robin asked.