Basin as the headwaters of the drainage system from which Sycamore Creek drew, if not its source, at least its main volume of water.  He exclaimed aloud in disgust at his stupidity; which, nevertheless, as all students of psychology know, typified a very common though curious phenomenon in the mental world.  Suddenly he sat up straight in his saddle.  Here, should Baker and the Modoc Mining Company prove to be one and the same, was the evidence of fraudulent intent!  Would his word suffice?  Painfully reconstructing the half-forgotten picture, he finally placed the burly figure of Welton.  Welton was there too.  His corroboration would make the testimony irrefutable.

Certainties now rushed to Bob’s mind in flocks.  If he had been stupid in the matter, it was evident that Baker and Oldham had not.  The fight in Durham was now explained.  All the demagogic arousing of the populace, the heavy guns brought to bear in the newspaper world, the pressure exerted through political levers, even the concerted attacks on the Service from the floors of Congress traced, by no great stretch of probabilities, to the efforts of the Power Company to stop investigation before it should reach their stealings.  That, as California John had said, was the first defence.  If all investigation could be called off, naturally Baker was safe.  Now that he realized the investigation must, in the natural course of events, come to his holdings, what would be his second line?

Of course, he knew that Bob possessed the only testimony that could seriously damage him.  Even Thorne’s optimism had realized the difficulties of pressing to a conviction against such powerful interests without some evidence of a fraudulent intent.  Could it be that the presence of this Saleratus Bill in company with Oldham meant that Baker was contemplating so sinister a removal of damaging testimony?

A moment’s thought disabused him of this notion, however.  Baker was not the man to resort to violence of this sort; or at least he would not do so before exhausting all other means.  Bob had been, in a way, the capitalist’s friend.  Surely, before turning a gun man loose, Baker would have found out definitely whether, in the first place, Bob was inclined to push the case; and secondly, whether he could not be persuaded to refrain from introducing his personal testimony.  The longer Bob looked at the state of affairs, the more fantastic seemed the hypothesis that the gun man had been brought into the country for such a purpose.

“Why do you suppose Oldham is up there with this Saleratus Bill?” he asked Ware at length.

“Search me!”

“Is Bill good for anything beside gun work?”

“Well,” said Ware, judicially, “he sure drinks without an effort.”

“I don’t believe Oldham is interested in the liquor famine,” laughed Bob.  “Anything else?”

“They may be after deer,” acknowledged Ware, reluctantly, “though I hate to think that rattlesnake is out for anything legitimate.  I will say he’s a good hunter; and an A1 trailer.”