So he told her concisely why Elmer Duffy might think a feud with Rock Holloway a sacred duty to a dead brother. Nona looked at him with wondering eyes and an expression on her face that troubled Rock, and finally moved him to protest.
“Hang it,” he said irritably. “You needn’t look as if I’d confessed to some diabolical murder. Mark Duffy was as hard as they make ’em. He was running it rough on an inoffensive little man who happens to be my friend. I had to interfere. And Mark knew I’d interfere. He brought it on himself. If I hadn’t killed him he would have killed me. That’s what he was looking for.”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking that at all,” she said earnestly. “Of course, you were quite justified. I was just thinking that this explains why Elmer always hated Doc. Doc told me so. He felt it. I suppose it was the resemblance. I don’t see, now, so far as trouble with Elmer is concerned, that it matters much whether you pass as yourself or Doc Martin. You’d have to watch out for Elmer Duffy in either case. I couldn’t trust that man as far as I could throw a bull by the tail.”
“Nice estimate of a man that’s in love with you,” Rock chuckled. “You’re a little bit afraid of Elmer, aren’t you?”
“No,” she declared. “But he’s brutal at heart. He’s the kind that broods on little things till they get big in his own mind. He would do anything he wanted if he was sure he could get away with it. And he would like to run both me and my ranch.”
“Powerful description,” Rock commented. “Still it sort of fits Elmer—all the Duffys, more or less. They’re inclined to be more aggressive than they ought. Well, I guess it doesn’t make much difference if I do pass as Doc. I’m not trying to put anything over on anybody doing that. Now——”
He went on to tell her about meeting the girl at the Maltese Cross. He described the man who had glared at him and puzzled him by his attitude, but he didn’t tell Nona this latter detail. He merely wanted to know who was who.
“That was Buck Walters, range foreman of the Maltese Cross,” she confirmed Rock’s guess.
“Did Doc Martin ever have any sort of run-in with him?” he asked.