“About half an hour,” she whispered. “It was like lightning out of the blue. We were up the river a couple of miles. He had separated from me to look at some cattle around the bend. I heard a shot—just one. I didn’t think anything of that until he came back to me, holding himself on his horse by main strength, dying in his saddle. He couldn’t talk. He never did speak again. I got him home. He died in a little while.”
“Where are the other men?” Rock asked.
“There are no other men.”
“Any neighbors?”
“Not near. There is the Maltese Cross on the river, seven miles below, and the Seventy Seven about the same distance above.”
“The Seventy Seven? Texas outfit? Pull in here last fall? Fellow name of Duffy run it?”
She nodded.
A curious conviction, based on less than nothing, arose in Rock’s mind. It couldn’t be—and still—— Absurd—of course.
“And you don’t know who shot him nor why? Well, I suppose it isn’t my business. Only he might be my twin. He isn’t, but——” Rock stopped. He had very nearly spoken what was in his mind.
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “I only suspect.”