“Well, if I do, I know where I can get another one,” Rock said lightly. “But I aim to be on time.”
“Him lose his job!” the TL rider scoffed. “You couldn’t pry him lose from that job with a crowbar. Now don’t shoot,” he begged in mock fear. “You know you got a snap, compared to ridin’ round-up with the Maltese Cross—or any other gosh-danged cow outfit. I’m goin’ to put up a powerful strong talk to Nona to send you on beef round-up this fall an’ let me be ranch boss for a rest.”
“You got my permission,” Rock said a little tartly. These personalities irked him. “I’ll be tickled to death if you do.”
He didn’t know what there was in his words, or tone, perhaps, to make the boy stare at him doubtfully, and the yellow-haired girl to smile with a knowing twinkle in her eyes, as if she shared some secret understanding with him.
By then they were loping swiftly into a saucerlike depression in the plains, in the midst of which a large day herd grazed under the eye of four riders, and the saddle bunch was a compact mass by the round-up tents.
Rock left his horse standing on the reins. The others turned their mounts loose. The Cross riders were squatted about the chuck wagon in tailor-fashion attitudes, loaded plates in their laps. Rock followed the other three to the pile of dishes beside the row of Dutch ovens in the cook’s domain. Some of the men looked up, nodded and called him by name. And, as Rock turned the end of the wagon, he came face to face with a man holding a cup of coffee in one hand—a man who stared at him with a queer, bright glint in a pair of agate-gray eyes, a look on his face which Rock interpreted as sheer incredulity.
He was a tall man, a well-built, good-looking individual, somewhat past thirty, Rock guessed. His clothing was rather better than the average range man wore. Neither his size nor his looks nor his dress escaped Rock’s scrutiny, but he was chiefly struck by that momentary expression.
And the fellow knew Rock. He grunted: “Hello, Martin.”
“Hello,” Rock said indifferently. Then, as much on impulse as with a definite purpose, he continued with a slight grin: “You seem kinda surprised to see me.”
Again that bright glint in the eyes, and a flash of color surged up under the tan, as if the words stirred him. Rock didn’t stop to pry into that peculiar manifestation of a disturbed ego. He was hungry. Also, he was sensible and reasonably cautious. He felt some undercurrent of feeling that had to do with Doc Martin. Between the vivacious blonde and this brow-wrinkling stockman, Rock surmised that posing as Doc could easily involve him in far more than he had bargained for.