At no time did Robin see anything of the Block S riders, except one or two casual meetings. Sutherland had a winter line camp, fifty miles or more east, deep in the Bad Lands, another twenty miles southward of Cold Spring in the mouth of Birch Creek. While a range boss did in winter occasionally drift about the various camps belonging to his outfit, Robin neither met, saw nor heard of Shining Mark. It seemed indeed as if Christmas might come and go and spring flowers bloom again before the normal round would bring him face to face with his enemy—if the enemy did not take up his trail.
Then one day, Robin, who occasionally spent an afternoon or night at his own homestead, met Tex Matthews leading a pack horse with bed lashed on, just by his own claim. They stabled their horses, carried the Texan’s bed inside, lit a fire in the stove, and sat down to warm their feet.
“Well, kid, how’s tricks—the tricks of the trade?” Tex smiled.
“So, so,” Robin said. “Nothin’ to write home about.”
“Thatcher’s back,” Tex informed him. “I hear him and Steele is down at the Cow Creek camp. Better keep your eye pealed.”
“Has he made any cracks?”
“Heard none. But he’ll have it in for you. That’s a cinch. By the way,” Matthews abruptly changed the subject. “I wonder if old Dan wants another rider?”
“He might,” Robin answered. “You ain’t quit the Block S?”
“The Block S quit me,” Matthews grinned. “Mark let me out a week ago.”
“What’d the old man say?” Robin pricked up his ears. Tex had ridden for Sutherland long before Shining Mark joined the outfit.