The music within ceased and Lucy's voice rippled out in girlish laughter. His heart sank as he seemed to hear again her hot denunciation of Baxter's loan and mortgage operations. "I'll sell out to Dell and she'll never know I've had anything to do with it," he thought. Then there came ringing through his memory, as he had heard them so many times since they rode home from the Socorro Springs ranch, her passionate words, "He must have been a wicked man," and "I should hate him, with all my strength," and again his longing face turned impulsively toward the plain. "I'd kill him myself, rather than let her find out," he whispered, with teeth set. "And a man has got to protect himself out here!" his urgent thought went on. "I'll be a fool if I don't stop him before he gets his chance at me!" With a sudden stirring of conscience he remembered that this man whose death he was so ardently desiring was his friend and trusted his friendship. "I--I don't want him stuck in the back," he muttered. "I might warn him. He may not have started yet." He walked uncertainly toward the veranda steps. There was a flutter of white drapery and Lucy was laying an affectionate hand on his arm. "Oh, daddy dear," she coaxed, "won't you come in and try this duet with us? Dearie will play the accompaniment for us to sing. She brought it to me, and I'm dying to try it." "Yes, if you wish it, daughter," the banker replied, hesitation in his voice, "but I was thinking of going down town." He saw the shade of disappointment that crossed her face, and drew her hand into his arm. "It doesn't matter," he went on, "and I would rather stay at home." To himself he said as they moved to the door, "Conrad has gone by this time, and, anyway, I've no reason to think this Mexican intends to do him any harm." CHAPTER VIII SPECTRES OF THE PAST Restless was the night that followed for Alexander Bancroft; his sleep was troubled by many a dream in which one friend after another moved swiftly on to violent death. With the coming of dawn he arose to look out from the eastern windows of his room. The sky was a dome of rosy light and below lay the vast plain, dim but colorful, its gray-green mottled with vague bands and patches of opalescent lights and shadows and dotted with little islands of vivid green. His eyes clung to these darker spots, which he knew to be thickets of mesquite; piercing their shade his inner vision showed him the still body of his friend. So real was the mental picture that he turned pale about the lips and abruptly left the window.