But the German patience that characterized him caused him to stick to the work, even though at times he went so slowly that it seemed he was not progressing at all. When he was a mile from the town, Schnitzenhauser suddenly doubled up, and fell on his stomach, in such haste that it jarred the breath out of him. “Ouch!” he breathed, as soon as he could breathe at all. “Dot iss too kvick vork for oldt Schnitzenhauser. I am vondering dit he see me?” He had sighted Jackson Dane, whom he had been so long following, and he could not be sure that Dane had not reciprocated. For a time the baron lay flat on the ground; the only movement he made was to put back his hand to his hip holster, and get out his reliable forty-five. “Der hartvare is der pitzness, uff he dries too choomp me,” he thought. “Aber I tond’t apsoludely knowed idt, I am gonwinced now dot dhis Shackson Dane is one willain.” When he began to feel safe, the baron lifted his head and took a look. Jackson Dane had scooped out a hole beneath a stone on a hillside, and was burying buckskin bags. Even as he looked, the baron saw him open one of the bags, put in his hand, and let a shower of gold nuggets slide through his fingers. The baron was tremendously excited by that. “Yiminy!” he gasped, lifting himself higher. Jackson Dane did not turn round, nor indicate in any way that he caught that unwise exclamation; though after events indicated that he must have heard it. He went on quietly with his work of cacheing the bags of nuggets. When he had finished, having been watched throughout by the baron with deep interest, Dane covered the cache, taking apparent care to obliterate all traces of what he had done; then he walked straight away, into the bushes growing beyond. “Py yiminy, dhis iss a luckiness vor me!” gasped the baron. “I haf fint vhere he iss hide some goldt unt I vandt to know vot iss der meanness uff idt. Meppy I vill resurrecdion idt unt took idt in to Puffalo Pill. Yaw! Dot vouldt make his eyes standt oudt so beeg pesite his noses dot he couldn’t see.” He was quivering with the excitement of his discovery. He crawled from behind the bush which had covered him; then in a stooping position hurried up to the cache. As he bent over it there was a flash and a report and the baron pitched forward on his face. Jackson Dane had not only discovered him but had laid a trap for him and had shot him, discharging his revolver from a nest of bushes twenty yards away. The baron came to himself by and by, feeling very dizzy at first and without knowledge of what had happened. But when he beheld the hole where the bags had been cached it brought him to full recollection. “Yoompin’ yack rappits!” he gasped. “I am shodt--huh? Vale tond’t idt beat der Dutch? Yoost vhen I am t’inking I am so smartness dot nopody couldn’t pe eeny smardter I am shodt into sixdeen bieces.” His head ached terrifically. When he put up his hand to it there came away a trickle of blood on his fingers.