So we spent the night, only an occasional raindrop hissing in our little fire or blistering in the dust. But by morning the itching of the ants had us all early awake. It was in a pause in the breakfast preparations that Slim remarked: "Well, I guess anybody that wants that there ore now will find it in bits strewed about the valley. It won’t need no crushing before it gets smelted." "Yes," said the sheriff, "there’s abundance o’ ’floats’ lying in among that mud, but, now that I think on it, that was the tail end they were on, them three fellers. In the course o’ time yonder chunk was broken off and sagged away into yonder wedge-like place of mud. I bet you the lead is right in this hill to back of us. Suppose you was prospectin’ along through the woods up there now and found any of them floats, why, you ’d go up to look for the lead right there. It would n’t astonish me one little bit to find that with the mud sliding away there it would jest be a case o’ tunnelling straight in." Apache Kid became so interested in this suggestion that he wanted to go back there and then to see what the storm and the mud-slide had laid bare, but the sheriff broke in on him: "Sorry, sir; I understand your curiosity, and I ’m right curious myself; but I ’m sheriff first, and interested in mineral after:" and then the hard, callous side of the man peeped through, and yet with that whimsical look on his chubby face: "But after I ’ve seen you safely kickin’ I don’t know but what I might come along and have a study of the lay of the land now." "Well," said Apache Kid, lightly, "to a man in your position it would n’t matter so much, though the assay was nothing very great." "No, sir; that’s so," said the sheriff. "So you see that it’s advisable for a man to get a position in life. Sheriff Carson of Baker City has expressed in glowin’ terms his faith in the near future of the valley," he said, like a man reading. Apache Kid laughed. "I suppose Sheriff Carson’s expression of faith would soon enough get up a syndicate to work it!" "I would n’t just say no," said the sheriff. There was more of such banter passed, and suggestions as to where the city—Carson City—would be built; but when Apache Kid suggested the stagecoach route the sheriff scoffed. "Stage-route nothing!" he said. "Railroad you mean, spur-line clear to Carson City." "The country is sure opening up and developing to lick creation," said Slim; but at that the sheriff frowned. He might banter with his prisoner, but not with his subordinate. So we saddled up again, the sheriff looking with interest on the heavy gunny-bags that we stowed carefully away again among the blankets on our pack-horse, but making no comment on them. He must have known pretty well what they contained.