When the first snow whitened the range Robin and old Mayne were in a river bottom forty miles from the Bar M Bar with a pack outfit. Here they picked up a few head of Mayne stock. They drove them out of that bottom into another. In this second flat they rounded up a hundred head of wild cattle, getting a stand on the bunch against a steep earth wall. There was a sprinkling of unbranded Block S calves, fat sleek beasts still being suckled by their mothers. This was not the first time they had spotted unbranded Sutherland calves in out-of-the-way places.
“He ain’t playin’ no favorites, is he?” Mayne grunted. “Before spring every one uh these’ll be packin’ a T Bar S. I wonder if Adam Sutherland is asleep?”
The little herd stood quiet. Robin pointed silently, twice. Each time his finger marked something they had not yet encountered—a T Bar S cow with a big unbranded calf. This was a bunch the round-up had missed altogether. Old Mayne spotted the calves Robin indicated. He sat sidewise in his saddle, staring, scowling. Then he jerked the Winchester out from under his stirrup-leather and fired twice. The first T Bar S cow dropped like a stone. The second ran fifty yards and collapsed. Mayne thrust the rifle back into place, grinning wolfishly. The bunch scattered in a panic. He began to undo his rope.
“You get your twine on that other calf,” said he.
Robin rode up beside him.
“Do you know what you’re doin’, darn you?” he demanded hotly.
“’Course I know. I’m gittin’ back some of my own, by thunder,” the old man swore. “You git that calf.”
“No,” Robin said. “I’m no thief. If you’re goin’ to get down to Mark Steele’s level, I quit you right here and now.”
“Hell’s fire!” Mayne lifted both hands and cried aloud. “Ain’t he stole hundreds from me? Ain’t I a right to get even?”
“Not this way,” Robin persisted stubbornly. “I’ll back you in any legitimate play as far as you want to go. But not in this. You’ve killed those cows and that can’t be helped now. But if you mark those calves, I tell you I’m through with anything that has to do with the Bar M Bar.”