e to take David into his confidence he would have had the
names of one or two men to go to, but as things were he had nothing.

The almost morbid shrinking he felt from exposing his condition was
increased, rather than diminished, in the new surroundings. He would,
of course, go to the ranch at Dry River, and begin his inquiries from
there, but not until now had he realized what that would mean; his
recognition by people he could not remember, the questions he could not
answer.

He knew the letter to David from beginning to end, but he got it out and
read it again. Who was this Bassett, and what mischief was he up to? Why
should he himself be got out of town quickly and the warning burned? Who
was "G"? And why wouldn't the simplest thing be to locate this Bassett
himself?

The more he considered that the more obvious it seemed as a solution,
provided of course he could locate the man. Whether Bassett were
friendly or inimical, he was convinced that he knew or was finding out
something concerning himself which David was keeping from him.

He was relieved when he went down to the desk to find that his man was
registered there, although the clerk reported him out of town. But the
very fact that only a few hours or days separated him from a solution of
the mystery heartened him.

He ate his dinner alone, unnoticed, and after dinner, in the writing
room, with its mission furniture and its traveling men copying orders,
he wrote a letter to Elizabeth. Into it he put some of the things that
lay too deep for speech when he was with her, and because he had so much
to say and therefore wrote extremely fast, a considerable portion of
it was practically illegible. Then, as though he could hurry the trains
East, he put a special delivery stamp on it.

With that off his mind, and the need of exercise after the trip
insistent, he took his hat and wandered out into the town. The main
street was crowded; moving picture theaters were summoning their evening
audiences with bright lights and colored posters, and automobiles lined
the curb. But here and there an Indian with braids and a Stetson hat, or
a cowpuncher from a ranch in boots and spurs reminded him that after all
this was the West, the horse and cattle country. It was still twilight,
and when he had left the main street behind him he began to have a
sense of the familiar. Surely he had stood here before, had seen the
court-house on its low hill, the row of frame houses in sm