In five minutes Mr. Long was enjoying the calm and restful sleep of fatigued innocence; but his poor captain was doomed to have a bad night of it, with two Bransfords on his hands--one in the Basin and one in the bed beside him. His head was dizzy with the vicious circle. Like the gentlewoman of the nursery rhyme, he was tempted to cry: "Lawk 'a' mercy on me, this is none of I!" If he haled his bedmate to justice and the real Bransford got away--that would be a nice predicament for an ambitious young man! He was sensitive to ridicule, and he saw here such an opportunity to earn it as knocks but once at any man's door. If, on the other hand, while he held Bransford cooped tightly in the Basin, this thrice-accursed Long should escape him and there should be no Bransford in the Basin----What nonsense! What utter twaddle! Bransford was in the Basin. He had found his horse and saddle, his tracks; no tracks had come out of the Basin. Immediately on the discovery of the outlaw's horse, Gurd had ridden back posthaste and held the pass while he, the captain, had gone to the mouth of the southern canyon and posted his friends. He had watched for tracks of a footman every step of the way, going and coming; there had been no tracks. Bransford was in the Basin. He watched the face of the sleeping man. But, by Heaven, this was Bransford! Was ever a poor captain in such a predicament? A moment before he had fully and definitely decided once for all that this man was not Bransford, could not be Bransford; that it was not possible! His reason unwaveringly told him one thing, his eyesight the other!... Yet Bransford, or an unfortunate twin of his, lay now beside him--and, for further mockery, slept peacefully, serene, untroubled.... He looked upon the elusive Mr. Long with a species of horror! The face was drawn and lined. Yet, but forty-eight hours of tension would have left Bransford's face not otherwise. He had noticed Bransford's hands in the courtroom--noticed their well-kept whiteness, due, as he had decided, to the perennial cowboy glove. This man's hands, as he had seen by the campfire, were blistered and calloused! Callouses were not made in a day. He took another look at Long. Oh, thunder! He crept from bed. He whispered a word to sentry Steele; not to outline the distressing state of his own mind, but merely to request Steele not to shoot him, as he was going up to the mine. He climbed up the trail, chewing the unpalatable thought that Gurdon had seen nothing amiss--yet Gurd had been at the trial! The captain began to wish he had never gone on that deerhunt.