“Do you reckon he means what he says?”
“He always does, so far as I know,” she told him shortly.
“Well, we might as well let it go at that,” Duffy finally said. “Sounds reasonable.”
“All right. Let her go as she lays.” Rock closed the conversation abruptly by turning on his heel. He walked back through the stable, into the larger corral, where he perched himself on the top rail. He looked down on the sleek backs of Nona Parke’s saddle stock, but his mind was wholly on the amazing fact that he had practically committed himself to a dead man’s identity.
He watched Duffy walk up to the house with Nona, carrying the two pails of milk, saw him stand at the door and talk for a minute. Then he came back, swung into his saddle, and rode around the stable end. Rock tightened up a little. The girl had been a restraining influence. Now, perhaps Duffy would have more to say or do. Long ago Rock had privately estimated Elmer Duffy as the most dangerous of the Duffy quartet, chiefly because he was tenacious of an idea or a grievance and inclined to be moody. But he only looked up at Rock and said:
“You kinda got me goin’. Martin. You’ve changed your tune a heap. You recollect what you told me last time we talked?”
Rock nodded, with only a hazy idea of what he was supposed to have said.
“Let’s get down to cases,” Duffy persisted. “Do I understand that you’ve changed your idea that you got a license to close-herd this girl of Parke’s, any time another man acts like he wanted to speak to her?”
Rock sifted tobacco into a paper.
“I don’t know as I like your way of putting it,” he said, with a pretense at being sullen. “But she’s convinced me she aims to be a free agent. It’s nothing to me who she talks to, from now on. I don’t claim no special privileges no more. She’s made it clear that she’s able to look out for herself, as far as men are concerned.”