"If fortune will favor me as well to-morrow as it did to-day," Ross thought as he listened to the sheriff's first snores, "I'll be next to Jones by this time to-morrow night and try to do some talking for Leslie!" He knew that his roommate was no wiser concerning him than when they started from Meadow Creek, and he most heartily desired a continuation of that ignorance. In the morning the two were up early and down to breakfast. Ross looked about apprehensively for some one who had seen him on his way into the mountains. He slunk into the dining-room in the wake of the bulkier sheriff and pushing himself unobtrusively into a corner seat bent low over his plate as befitted a young man under arrest. But no sooner was he seated than the proprietor of the house spied him from the other end of the dining-room, and with never a suspicion that he was talking to the sheriff's prisoner, strode across the room. He slapped the sheriff familiarly on the shoulder: "What the dickens are you doing up this way? Why don't ye stay in Basin where ye belong?" Then he grasped Ross's hand cordially: "Bless us if here ain't Doc back again. Got them claims cleaned up yet, Doc?" Ross, encountering the puzzled eyes of the sheriff, quaked. "No, we haven't yet," he muttered and glancing toward the dining-room door, exclaimed in sudden inspiration, "Wonder if that man is motioning to you?" The proprietor looked around. Several men were in the hall outside the dining-room. "I'll go and see," he exclaimed. The sheriff continued to look at Ross. "Bluff!" he announced briefly and understandingly. The blood flooded Ross's face guiltily. "It was," he confessed, adding quickly, "Say, don't give my arrest away where I'm known, will you?" His request and confusion satisfied the sheriff. The puzzled expression died out of his face. "All right," he assented and fell on his breakfast. The proprietor did not see Ross again until he was riding away. Then he ran out of the barroom bareheaded and called, "Steele's in Cody, Doc. He said you was pannin' out more like an old prospector than a tenderfoot." The sheriff rode up beside his prisoner with a quick inquiry: "How long have ye worked for Weimer?" "Long enough to be sick of it and want to quit," returned Ross gruffly, giving his horse a quick slap that set the animal to loping. It was no part of his plan to hold any unnecessary conversation with the sheriff that day. "I guess," the latter called as he came galloping after, "that you'll quit now all right, all right!" Ross made no reply, but took care to keep well in advance of his captor. Although his plan had, so far, succeeded, he was far from feeling triumphant because of a distressing sense of guilt at the deception he was obliged to practice. Nor was he able to dispel this sense by the knowledge that he was acting for the good of all concerned.