In prospecting for a favorable opening, they visited a number of places, going as far north as St. Paul and Minneapolis, and as far east as Red Wing. In each place they made a careful study of the chances for successful operations in their line and of routes of escape, visiting the banks on one pretext or another, and familiarizing themselves with all facts that had any bearing on their scheme. They took special pains to make themselves acquainted with such features of the country as would aid or hinder them in going and coming on their intended raid; as, for instance, the location of lakes, streams, swamps or forests, on the one hand, and that of roads, bridges and fords, on the other. The situation and the resources of villages, the extent of country population, and the nationality and character of the people also interested them. With the aid of maps, printed statements and minute inquiries, they succeeded in gaining a large amount of information, without betraying their purpose,—information which they found exceedingly convenient at a later day. They also had the advantage of being to a certain extent personally conducted. Stiles, one of their number, had formerly lived in Rice county, and was therefore able to act as a sort of guide for the expedition, if, indeed, he was not, as some think, its instigator. Their reliance upon him, however, proved in the end, as we shall see, a source of danger rather than of safety. Finding nothing to their mind in the great cities, they turned their attention to a group of country towns lying farther south, including St. Peter, Mankato, Lake Crystal, Madelia, St. James, Garden City, Janesville, Cordova, Waterville, Millersburg, Cannon City and Northfield. These, again, divide themselves into two smaller groups, having direct or indirect relation to the two points of attack selected by the robbers, and all of them being on or near a diagonal line, extending about thirty or forty miles southwest and about forty or fifty miles northeast of Mankato.