It was a new day for Bandolero. The sun was sort of up, struggling against the clouds that settled on the prairie from afar, or so it seemed, as they almost touched the horizon, leaving a tiny gap of what might have been blue sky although it was hard to tell because it might have been a different shade of gray that looked blue against the gray of the clouds. You just never knew for sure, especially when wearing shades, as Bandolero frequently did in order to protect his eyes from the glaring sun, even when it wasn’t glaring, but almost always when it was glaring. So far, on this new day, the sun wasn’t glaring very much, but Bandolero’s eyes were glaring as he anticipated the battle he expected to begin as soon as the sun got a little higher in the sky, or so one might assume, despite the clouds that obscured it.

Bandolero waited and glared and sweated while he waited and glared, and time marched on. As it turned out, the sun never did glare the whole day, although the heat from it might be said to have glared, if heat could be said to glare. Bandolero pondered this as well as other questions while he ate supper and watched the sun set which, he thought, could well be another matter to ponder but, perhaps, on another day although, it occurred to him, if he didn’t survive the battle he might well regret that he hadn’t gone ahead and pondered it today even though he didn’t really feel like doing so. This was, indeed, a dilemma but, in any event, the battle was going to wait, which was probably a good thing although, on the other hand, sometimes it was best to just get battles over with.