Shining Mark looked him coldly in the eye.
“Maybe I will,” said he. “What’ll you do then?”
“Whatever I do everybody’ll know you got it in for me and forced the play,” Robin told him. “You’ll never start me smokin’ you up by whispering nasty remarks in my ear. I don’t give a damn what you say to me under your breath. Sabe?”
Steele sidled his horse up close beside Robin. He leaned forward.
“You’re yellow,” he said, with a sneer. “Yellow clear through. You know you are. I can take your girl away from you, spit in your face, and you’re afraid to make a break. When I get through with you a sheep herder could make you step sideways every time he blatted at you. I’ll make you jump at your own shadow.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I was you,” Robin drawled. A most unnatural calm seemed to possess him. He felt rather indifferent to Steele’s venomous abuse. Any feeling Shining Mark betrayed was mere simulation. Every move he made, every word he uttered was calculated, part of a design. Its effect on Robin was to make him wary, watchful. If there had been any real passion in Steele’s attitude some spark in Robin would have matched it in spite of himself.
“Talk’s cheap,” Robin continued. “You’re pretty small potatoes, it strikes me, to shoot off your face the way you do when you’ve got a gun on your hip and I haven’t. You’re the yellow dog, it strikes me.”
“You can always heel yourself,” Mark suggested.
“Why are you so keen to have me make a break at you?” Robin asked.
“So I can kill you,” Mark returned. “I don’t like you.”