He always felt a queer flutter inside him when he was away from her and came back. He felt it now as she looked over her shoulder at his step.
“Did you ride clean out of the country?” she asked. “Everybody’s gone to bed. I’ve been keepin’ your supper warm, but you’d ’a’ eaten cold stuff in another half hour, Mister Man. Hungry? Or did you strike some place to eat?”
“Uh-uh. I’m starved.” Robin never wasted words.
“Where’d you go?”
He told her briefly of his mishap with the badger hole, and his snaring of Red Mike at Cold Spring. Her eyes danced.
“You sure do go into jack-pots and out of them oftener than any rider in this country.”
Robin smiled. It was true. Old man Mayne had once irritably told him that if he didn’t go around dreaming he’d save himself a lot of trouble.
“Mark Steele and another fellow stopped in for supper,” Ivy remarked presently.
Robin halted his coffee cup in mid-air.
“What for?” he inquired mildly. “Thought Shining would be at the Block S getting organized for beef-gathering.”