“It looks that way,” Robin conceded, “but things ain’t always what they look.”
“What was in the back of your mind to call Mark a cow thief, anyway?” Sutherland asked bluntly.
“You can ask him that, too,” Robin said. “Here he comes.”
Steele walked the length of the store as jauntily as if he had no care in the world, as if each stride were bringing him near a man with whom he would have been glad to shake hands instead of to kill.
“You ain’t got no gun, have you?” Sutherland half-rose from his chair.
Robin shook his head.
“If I had it would be smokin’ now,” he muttered.
Steele came up to Sutherland and Robin. He was smiling. That is, his face and lips smiled, but his eyes were like gray agates, hard and cold and watchful.
“Hello, kid,” he said evenly. “Hope you got over bein’ hostile. You don’t really aim to kill me, now do you?”
“No. I’ve changed my mind,” Robin answered quietly. “I’m goin’ to put you in the penitentiary instead.”