With intense satisfaction Conrad at last sat down to the letter in which he had all day been longing to express his feelings. “I wonder,” he thought, “if Dellmey Baxter did it because he don’t like the things I say about him. Well, he’ll have to get used to it, then, for I’m not going to quit.” There was a grim smile on his face as he wrote:
“I consider it the square thing to tell you that I am onto the game of your man, José Gonzalez. We had our first set-to this morning, in which he winged me, but I got the best of him. I could have killed him if I had wanted to, but he is such a good cowboy I hated to do him up. I am going to keep him in my employ, but I want you to understand, distinctly, that if he makes another crack at me I shall go to Santa Fe as quick as I can get there and make a Christmas gift of you to the devil before you know what’s happening.
“Yours truly,
“Curtis Conrad.
“P. S. I am still shouting for Johnny Martinez for Congress. C. C.”
“There!” he exclaimed, as he sealed the envelope and threw it down contemptuously; “I sure reckon he won’t be so anxious for me to turn up my toes with my boots on after he reads that.”
The pain in Conrad’s arm and shoulder had become so keen that he could not sleep. He lay in his bunk listening to the rattling of the door and the rage of the wind against the house, seeking to keep his mind from the stabbing pain long enough to sink into unconsciousness. But no sooner did his eyelids begin to close down heavily than a fresh throb made him start up again wide awake. This irritated him more than did the other suffering, and finally he jumped up angrily, found a copy of Lecky’s “History of European Morals,” and, with the muttered comment, “This is about what I need to-night,” settled himself on an empty cracker box and read the night away. Toward morning he became aware that the wind was abating, and a little later that less sand was drifting into his retreat.
Breakfast was eaten and Brown Betty cared for by lamplight and with the first dim rays of morning he set out once more upon the road. The bird was again in his bosom, and the cactus, wrapped in old newspapers, rested at the back of his saddle. The storm had passed, but the air was still full of dust particles through which the sun shone, red and smoky. Curtis knew that these would settle gradually with the passing hours and the sky become as clear as usual. Already he could see the road for several rods in front of him, and that was all he needed to keep it flying under Brown Betty’s feet.
At the ranch house Mrs. Peters told him that a man had been there looking for work and described his appearance. “Yes; he overtook us at Rock Springs, and I hired him,” Conrad said. Then, remembering the account Andy Miller had given of his previous situation, he asked her if the man had said where he came from.
“No,” she replied; “he didn’t say where he’d been working; but he came from toward Golden.”
The superintendent thought the discrepancy rather curious, but decided it was nothing more than a not unusual cowboy eccentricity of statement. He resumed his journey with no misgivings, and mid-afternoon found him arguing with the physician at Golden that he might just as well start back to the round-up that same night.