“How would I know?” Ivy replied. “They said they were just ridin’ around. They come in from the south. I saw ’em a long way off. Mark asked where you were.”
“You tell him?”
Robin knew neither Ivy nor any one else could guess where he rode to look for Red Mike that day. He hadn’t known himself where he would go when he started.
“Dad said you were huntin’ horses.”
“Don’t you tell nobody, not a soul, not even the old man, what I just told you about lamin’ the gray and catching Red Mike by Cold Spring,” Robin warned. “Keep that to yourself, Ivy. Will you? Forget it.”
“Why?” she demanded instantly.
“Nothing a-tall,” he parried. “Well, I have got a reason.”
“All right, Robin, I won’t tell,” she agreed. Then, laughingly: “You haven’t started draggin’ the long rope, have you, that you don’t want nobody to know where you rode to-day?”
“Dragging the long rope”, is a range euphemism for stealing other men’s cattle, specifically unbranded calves.
“No,” Robin said shortly. “But somebody else is. Sabe?”