The sales of Government land commenced the following day, and Horton was present with his receivable funds. He bought no land, but his money was in immediate and continuous demand. Many times during the sale he retired to replenish his bank stock by exchanging bank notes with numerous parties according to previous arrangement. The enterprise was a financial success. Here his quick perception did him good service, for he was marked as a prize by a thieving gang. One of them formed his acquaintance on the evening of a profitable day, and tried to learn his intended movements. Yes, he would soon go to his lodging-place; but that night he concluded it would be best _for him_ to remain where he was, and he did so. But another young man, about his age, and similarly dressed, was waylaid on the very route Horton was expected to travel, caught, gagged and carried off to a safe place for robbery. In the dark they had captured the wrong man, as his empty pockets and the cut of his coat proved on careful examination. Thinking the country a safer place, he went out three miles, to where his uncle, Dwight Foster, was superintending one of the first saw-mills built in Wisconsin. While there another attempt was made to entrap him. One, Robinson, came from town to inform him that a man named Johnson would take a named sum for some land which he had talked of buying. He must be sharp if the trade was secured, and should take his money with him for that reason. Horton promptly decided to take _more_, and quietly deposited a loaded pistol in each pocket of his hunter's coat. His caller carried a suspicious-looking hickory cudgel, altogether too cumbersome for a cane, and explained that he had been tracking a wild animal, which he hoped they could identify by the marks. In a low, marshy place, a little off their road, its tracks were most clearly made. Descending to the spot indicated, he urged Horton to follow him, and determine what sort of creature had crossed there. Instead of complying Horton presented a pistol, told his man if he found no tracks there as described, he would shoot him without further notice. The villain was outwitted, and preferred returning to town a short distance in advance of the ready weapons of his captor. It was ascertained that Johnson knew nothing of the fellow's errand, and that the only foot-prints about the miry trap in which Robinson had hoped to catch his game, were made by himself. He was next heard of, a few years afterwards, in the Iowa penitentiary, committed for horse-stealing.