The pain in his shoulder brought his mind back to the conviction that Baxter had instigated the assault upon him, and he began searching for the motive. Did the Congressman think his political opposition important enough to make his taking off desirable? Suddenly he slapped his thigh and broke out aloud: "Lord! what if Baxter should be Delafield! He sure ought to be if there's anything in the eternal fitness of things. If he should be--ah-h," and he broke off with a hard, unmirthful laugh. Ransacking his memory for all he knew of Baxter's life he presently shook his head regretfully. "No; the facts are against it. There's nothing in that lead. It's a pity, though, for it would be a satisfaction--to say nothing of the public benefit--to knock 'em both off the roost at one pop." His mind busied itself with conjectures about Delafield's identity, as he considered first one and then another of the more prominent men in the Territory. He was silent so long that the mare tossed her head impatiently and whinnied. Curtis smiled and stroked her mane. "Hello, old girl!" he said aloud, "getting lonesome, are you, and you want to be talked to. Oh, you're spoiled, Betty B., that's what you are. We'll go up the hill and see Miss Bancroft, won't we, Betty, while we're in Golden; and we'll take that cactus to her, and help her plant it. And she'll come out to the fence to see you, Betty; and she'll give you a lump of sugar, and pat your nose, and look as sweet as a pink rose with brown velvet eyes. She's a bully fine girl and we like her, don't we, Betty Brown? The way she sticks by her father is great; he couldn't help being a first-class fellow, could he, B. B., with such a daughter as that?" The red wall was rising in the sky, devouring its sunlit blue and spreading out into smoky-red, angry-looking clouds. A high wind, hot and dry, swept across the plain from the west. All the cattle within Conrad's range of vision had turned their heads to the east and, although they were still grazing, moved only in that direction. Seeing a herd of antelope headed the same way, Curtis took the red bandanna from his neck and waved it toward them. As the bright signal floated in the wind their leader turned, stared, and began to walk back, the whole herd following with raised heads and gaze fixed in fascinated interest. He flaunted the red square and they came steadily on, until presently the warning of danger in the hot wind and the odor of the approaching storm overcame the compulsion of curiosity, and they wheeled again, away from the threatened peril.