The answer to that, he decided at last, must be that one job was as good as another, and that somehow, for all her passionate independence, Nona Parke needed him. There was a peculiar persuasiveness about that imperious young woman. Rock could easily understand why men fell in love with her, desired her greatly, and were moved to serve her if they could. She seemed to generate that sort of impulse in a man’s breast. Rock felt it; knew he felt it, without any trace of sentimentalism involved. He could smile at the idea of being in love with her. Yet some time he might be. He was no different from other men. She had made a profound impression on him. He knew that and did not attempt to shut his eyes to the truth. All these things, sinister and puzzling, of which her dead rider seemed the focus, might be of little consequence, after all. As far as he was concerned, every one simply insisted on taking him for a man who was dead. That had a comical aspect to Rock. * * * * * He stared with a speculative interest at the Parke ranch lying in the sunlight beside that shining river. Nona Parke had the right idea. She had the pick of a beautiful valley, eight hundred cattle, and the brains and equipment to handle them. That outfit would make a fortune for her and Betty. Yet it was a man’s job. “She’s an up-and-coming little devil,” Rock said to himself. “Mind like a steel trap. Hard as nails. A man would never be anything more than an incident to her.” Thus Rock unconsciously safeguarded his emotions against disaster. He was neither a fool nor a fish. He liked Nona Parke. He had liked her the moment he looked into the gray pools of her troubled eyes. But he wouldn’t like her too well. No; that would be unwise. She had warned him. But he could work for her. Her wages were as good as any--better, indeed, by ten dollars a month. And if there should be trouble in the offing---- Rock shrugged his shoulders. Bridge crossing in due time. A moon-faced, dark-haired girl of sixteen was puttering around in the kitchen when Rock walked up to the house. Betty came flying to meet him, and Rock swung her to the ceiling two or three times, while she shrieked exultantly. “Where’s Miss Parke?” he asked the half-breed girl. “Workin’ in the garden.” “Where the dickens is the garden?” Rock thought, but he didn’t ask. He went forth to see. Ultimately he found it, by skirting the brushy bank of the river to the westward beyond the spring. Its overflow watered a plot of half an acre, fenced and cultivated. Rich black loam bore patches of vegetables, all the staple varieties, a few watermelon vines, and cornstalks as tall as a man. In the middle of this, Nona was on her knees, stripping green peas off a tangle of vines. “Did Mary give you your dinner?” she asked. “I struck the Maltese Cross round-up about eleven and ate with them,” he told her.