To keep this assignment a mystery, Rivera does not reveal to us what Diana spots in the photos. But some undercover work is now called for. Whew! This story seems to change every other day. But maybe that’s deliberate.

Let’s review: The initial point of this story was Bill Ellis assigning Mark to investigate rampaging wild around Salt Lake City. Bill went on to clarify that the assignment had to do with limited land resources under threat from growing numbers of invasive and hungry wild horses. Mark worried over moral and practical issues. Yet, it turned out that both Bill and Mark were misinformed.

Arriving on scene, Diana Daggers (Mark’s boss for this assignment) began revealing that the assignment was not investigating rampaging wild horses, but taking on greedy land entrepreneurs like Tad Crass—now head of a land development company—in cahoots with corrupt government agents to remove the mustangs from his properties. Mark was given to understand that his job was investigating corruption and unethical behavior.

Nevertheless, Diana and Mark spent time at a local wild horse rescue ranch to get informed about the plight of these mustangs. Was this to keep Mark misdirected? Who knows!?! Diana sent Mark to interview Tad Crass at his headquarters, but he was quickly chased off the property after things got violent. Mark’s subsequent meeting with Diana led to more revelations: She admitted to misleading Mark about the assignment and the purpose of the interview. Diana’s true mission seems to be to discover why Tad Crass wants wild horses removed from lands near or on his property. We also just learned that Daggers had Mark take photos of Crass’s building to see if something kept there that might explain what was going on.

And that brings us to today’s strip.

So, although the execution of this story might be criticized, the apparent confusion makes sense if the idea of keeping Mark—and us readers—off balance is deliberate. Drama often works better when readers have no more information than the story’s protagonist.