Burton awoke the next morning with a consuming desire to go at once and look at Selby. If it really had been he who had been guilty of that midnight attack, was it in human power for him to conceal all trace of his consciousness? Burton recalled the note of warning which had been left for him at the clerk\'s desk, and afterwards abstracted from his room. Selby lodged in the hotel, and had therefore the advantage of position. He could have come and gone without attracting attention. A stranger could not. Certainly he must take a look at Selby.

He found him at his desk in the rear of a large and crowded room which appeared to be a combined office and workroom. He looked up as Burton entered, but scowled instead of nodding, and went on talking to a workman who was receiving instructions. Burton merely nodded and took a chair to wait. Selby gave him plenty of time for it. Burton could not help feeling, after awhile, that he was being ignored for the express purpose of insult, and to remove the sting of the enforced waiting he got up and sauntered across the room to look at a collection of Indian baskets, moccasins, and pipes, fastened against the wall. The specimens were of little intrinsic beauty and less commercial value, but Burton knew something about Indian basketry, and these examples of the common work of the mid-continent tribes interested him. More, they stirred some pulse of thought deep down in his mind. There was some connection,--something,--of which those baskets were trying to remind him. He stared at them so intently that he did not notice that the workman had finally departed, until Selby pushed back his chair, rose, and grudgingly came over to where he stood.

"Looking at my Indian things?" he asked, with an uneasy assumption of civility.

"Yes, they interest me. Where did you get hold of them?"

"Oh, just picked them up. I\'ve been about among the Indians a good deal."

"I\'ve made a collection myself of the work of the Aleutians," said Burton, glad to find some abstract topic which would serve as a springboard for the intercourse which he meant to establish with Mr. Selby. "So naturally these things catch my eye. From the artistic standpoint they don\'t compare, of course, with the work of the Alaskan Indians, but they are good indications of the tribal development." As he talked he remembered suddenly the old Indian woman at the station, and Selby\'s rudeness. How he and Selby had clashed at every meeting!

"Where did you know the Indians?"

"Hereabouts. In the early days."

"Right here? In High Ridge?"

"High Ridge wasn\'t on the map then. The Indians lived all over this part of the country before the settlers came."

"And you really remember back to those days? It sounds very far back."

"Twenty-five years will cover a good deal of history in this part of the country. High Ridge has grown up inside of that time, and most of the people here don\'t know any more about Indians than you do." The words were innocent enough, but there was an insolence in the tone that made Burton feel that the ice of courtesy between them was thin as well as cool. He turned from the baskets and said abruptly:

"I suppose you heard that Henry Underwood\'s knife was found near the Sprigg house."

"Yes," said Selby, looking at Burton defensively under his eyebrows.

"It was the same knife you used to pry up the hearthstone with, the evening that your comrades(??) called on the doctor. You broke the point off you know. Do you remember whether you gave the knife to Henry or to the doctor when you left?" He tried to make his question sound casual.

"I gave it to Henry," said Selby deliberately.

"D............