"Yes," said Apache Kid. "I have a name for being very serious. Perhaps I did answer your question at too great length, however." He turned for another scrutiny of his man, and broke out with such a peal of laughter, as he looked at him, that every one else followed suit; and the "josher," with a crestfallen look, rose and went indoors. I was still smiling when Apache Kid came over to me. "Could you be ready to go out to-morrow at noon on the Kettle River Gap stage?" he asked quietly. "Certainly," said I. "We don’t start from here, then?" "No. That’s to say, we don’t leave the haunts of men here. It is better not, for our purpose. Have you seen Canlan to-night?" I told him no, but that I had been out for my evening constitutional and not near the city. "He does n’t seem to be at this hotel to-night. I must go out and try to rub shoulders with him if he’s in town. If I see him anywhere around town, I may not come back here to-night. If I don’t see him, I ’ll look in here later in the hope of rubbing against him. So if you don’t see me again to-night, you ’ll understand. To-morrow at noon, the Kettle River Gap stage." But neither Apache Kid nor Canlan put in an appearance all evening, and so I judged that elsewhere my friend had "rubbed against" Canlan. I was astonished to find on the morrow that I had, somewhere within me, a touch of fondness for Baker City, after all, despitefully though it had used me. "You should stay on a bit yet," said Mrs. Laughlin, when I told her I was going. "You can’t expect just to fall into a good job right away on striking a new town." "I should never have come here," I explained, "had it not been that I had a letter to a gentleman who was once in the city. The fact is, my people at home did not like the thought of me going out on speck, and the only man in the country I knew was in Baker City. But he had moved on before I arrived." "And where do you think of going now?" she asked. I evaded a direct answer, and yet answered truthfully: "Where I wanted to go was into a ranching country. Mining never took my fancy. I believe there are some ranches on the Kettle River."