“Quite a lot like. That resemblance got me into a heap of trouble.”
“Maybe you could console Alice,” Uncle Bill suggested hopefully. “She’s a mighty fine girl, and she is going to be a mighty rich girl.”
“No, thank you, kind sir. I ain’t marrying for either good looks or riches,” Rock murmured. “Let’s get that buggy hitched and be on our way, Uncle Bill.”
Sayre, grinning, went to call a man.
“I think them boys around the ranch are all right,” he confided to Rock, as they went rolling across the river flats. “I don’t think they are the sort Buck would mix into his nefarious schemes. Swear they didn’t know he was crooked, anyhow. So I expect we got to give ’em the benefit of the doubt.”
“Probably,” Rock agreed, with more or less indifference. He had done his job, and he was ill at ease in mind and body for the doing. Let Uncle Bill or some one else fret about the welfare of the Maltese Cross and the loyalty of its riders. He had other things on his mind just then.
“Say, Uncle Bill, although there was not much mixed stock among these stolen cattle, there was some,” Rock said, after a long time. “And this girl I’ve been working for is shy sixty or seventy calves this spring.”
“We’ll brand a hundred for her on fall round-up,” Sayre said largely. “A couple of hundred, if you say so. We’ll treat our friends right and give our enemies their due. I listened to that towhead boy rave about Nona Parke this morning. Always did admire a woman with brains to undertake things and the spunk to see ’em through. You tell her I said so.”
They fell silent. A breeze from the west played on their faces, killing the sweltering heat in that valley. A little bunch of Nona Parke’s horses tore out of a low place, snorted, and wheeled to stand, with heads high, watching them pass. The river sang its ancient crooning song, white on the riffles, dark and still in the pools that mirrored overhanging willows. Beautiful, Rock thought, peaceful, tranquil beyond words. The last time he had crossed that flat—— It made him shiver a little to remember. He was still sick from building a fire at Stack’s feet, and his head swam sometimes from pain. But that was past. The bushwhackers and hanging squads would ride no more. There had been close shaves. Yes. Perhaps the gods had flung a protecting mantle about him so that he could come back and enjoy this in restful security. He had no great pride or joy in his success; only a mild satisfaction, a relief that it was over. And he found himself afflicted with a strange mixture of eagerness and nervousness, as they drove in to the TL.