“Even if Block S calves should happen to grow a T Bar S on their ribs?”
The Texan sat sidewise in his saddle and gazed at Robin with a faint uplift at one corner of his thin lips.
“Well,” he remarked with seeming irrelevance, “I reckon the Bar M Bar ‘rep’ don’t go to sleep at the switch. Say, did you ever know a man get ambitious and figure out wise little schemes to make him rich off his neighbors?”
“Seems like I’ve heard of such.”
“So’ve I. I have an idea somebody not a million miles away might know more about this T Bar S than we do. No, sir. I shouldn’t be surprised. Only,” he added thoughtfully, “you needn’t mention I said so.”
“I ain’t a great hand at mentionin’,” Robin grunted. “You know that.”
“Old Jim Bond, he’s supposed to turn a hundred and fifty head of stuff south of the Bear Paws a year ago last spring,” Matthews rambled on. “I guess a man don’t make no fortune out of a one-horse saloon in Helena. Now wouldn’t it be fine for old Jim if his stock doubled in a year, and kept on. At that rate in five years or so he’d be quite a cowman. Only I have a sort of hunch that in a good deal less’n five years somebody else’ll own the T Bar S.”
“Who’ll it be?” Robin asked idly.
They were sitting on a rise of ground that overlooked a southward bend of the Missouri, waiting for the last drive to come into the round-up.
“Well, I ain’t sure. But I could give a guess. So could you.”