"Yah," stolidly answered the German. "We go back. Dere iss no elephant. Now we go back again home quick. We haf met some men who haf told us." "Oh, pshaw!" uttered Harry. "You're half-way. Better go the rest of the way and see for yourself. You mustn't let a few wild rumors stop you." "Don't you intend to fill your sacks?" added Terry. "Dere iss no gold, so dey say; an' notting else," insisted the German. "Once you believed there was, and now you believe there isn't," laughed Harry. "You might as well believe the first as the second, as far as you know." "And there is gold, because we've got a mine," encouraged Terry. "Nein." And the German shook his head. "I set out to fill my sacks; dose men say I cannot fill dem. So I go home. I t'ink you better go home, too. You camp here with us, an' I fix my feet, an' we haf a goot supper, an' den in mornin' we travel togedder." "Nope, we're bound through," replied Harry. "This is no time of day for us to camp." And Terry was relieved to hear him say so, for the stagnant pool, with the German's feet in it, did not look very inviting. "What did you find ahead?" "Notting an' nobody," grumbled the German. "All joost like dis." And he swept his arm around to indicate the bare stretch of plains. "Purty soon you see where I turn to go home, an' den you be all by yourself. I do not like it. I like peoples. So I go home." "You didn't see any stake, did you?" queried Terry. "What stake?" "To mark the stage line." "What for would dey poot any stage line where dey ain't peoples?" demanded the German. "All right: how'll you sell your mining tools?" asked Harry, with alert mind. "You've no use for them." "Mebbe I dig garden. But I sell dem to you for one dollar an' half--de whole lot." "Done!" cried Harry. "And how about those sacks?" "Dey iss goot potato sacks. But what will you gif me for dose sacks?" "Four bits." "Well, I guess you take dem. You t'ink to poot potatoes in dem? Nein, nein; you iss crazy. It iss as crazy as to t'ink to poot gold in dem." When they left the German, who had resumed the soaking of his sore feet in the general pool, they were possessed of two new picks, two new spades, a cask of sauerkraut, and the bale of sacks. "What'll we ever do with the sacks?" inquired Terry. Harry scratched his long nose. "Blamed if I know, yet," he admitted. "But you never can tell." In about an hour they passed the place where the "Litening Express" had turned about. Now there was no trail at all, except the endless buffalo trails. Somewhere they had lost even the hoof-prints of the three horsemen. They made late and solitary evening camp on the farther side of a deep creek bed, whose banks had been broken down by crossing buffalo. There was so little water that Terry had to dig a hole, in order to get a pailful for supper and breakfast. But in wandering about searching for buffalo chips in the gloaming, he shouted gladly: "Here's a stake--a new one! It says: 'Station 11'!"