“Buck Walters and Elmer Duffy, with all the boys, are coming to hang you! For God’s sake, Doc, get away from here before they come! I heard them talking it over, and I sneaked away from the ranch. They can’t be far behind me.”
So that was it. Rock’s lip curled. But a vigilance committee from two big outfits didn’t function without some excuse.
“What are they going to hang me for?” he asked.
Alice Snell put her hands on his arms, her white face turned up to his in a fever of anxiety.
“They say—they say,” she gulped, “you’re stealing cattle. They mean to hang you.”
Rock laughed.
“They won’t hang me,” he said lightly. “Thank you, just the same, for coming to tell me of their kind intentions.”
“Doc, please! There’s a lot of them. Elmer Duffy and his crew as well as the Maltese Cross riders. You can’t fight that bunch. Get a horse and ride fast.”
Rock smiled and put Alice Snell’s trembling, clutching hands off his own. But there was no mirth in that smile, for a squad of horsemen, a long line of them abreast, had swung around the point of brush, a quarter of a mile away. Nona Parke stared at the two of them in blank amazement. Alice didn’t seem to know that she was there. She had no thought for anything but this man she took for Doc Martin. But out of one corner of her eye she marked the approaching riders and began to babble incoherently.
“Take her into the kitchen,” Rock commanded Nona. “Stay in there. If she’s right, there’ll be a fuss. I can’t run. And neither Buck Walters nor anybody else is going to hang me.”