"Oh! Allowing for him getting on to us pulling out, even the day after we left, and allowing for him starting out right then, he can’t be nigher here than a day’s journey, coming in to the country the way he would do it—over the shoulder of Mount Baker and in that ways." "He ’ll be over behind there, then," said Apache, pointing; "right over that ridge, sitting by his lonesome camp and perhaps half a dozen fellows dogging him up too, eh?" "Like enough," said Donoghue; "but he’s accustomed to bein’ dogged up." "Those who live in glass houses..." remarked Apache Kid, with a laugh that had no real merriment in the ring of it. Donoghue raised his eyes to Apache’s across the fire and laughed back. And they both seemed to fall into a reverie after these words. From their remarks I gathered that they believed that Canlan really knew the location of the mine. He had been simply waiting in Baker City, then, for fear of my two partners. So I sat silent and pondering. Presently Apache Kid snorted and seemed to fling the thoughts aside that had been occupying him. But anon he fell brooding again, biting on his lip and closing an eye to the glow. It was after one such long, meditative gazing into the glowing and leaping embers that he spoke to me, and with such a ring in his voice as caused me to look upon him with a new interest. The tone of the voice, it seemed to me, hinted at some deep thought. "Where do you come from, Francis?" he asked. "What is your nationality?" "Why, I’m a Cosmopolitan," said I, half smiling, as one is prone to do when a man asks him some trivial matter with a voice as serious as though he spoke of strange things. "Yes; we all are," said Apache Kid, putting aside my lightness. "But is n’t it Edinburgh you come from?" "Yes," said I. He mused again at my reply, plucking his finger-knuckles, and then turned an eye to Donoghue, who was already surveying him under his watchful brows. "Shall I tell him?" he asked. "Tell him what?" said Donoghue, looking uncomfortable, I thought, as though this mood of his partner’s was one he did not relish. "Tell him what we are—how we live—all that?" From Apache to me and back again Donoghue glanced, and then: "Oh! tell, if you like," said he. "There won’t no harm come from telling him. He’s safe. He ’s all right, is Francis." Again there was a pause. "Well," said Apache Kid, finally, ending his reverie. "The fact is that we—Donoghue and I—except upon occasion, when we want to make some sort of a character for ourselves, to show a visible means of support,—the fact is, we are——" "Spit it out," said Donoghue. "Spit it out. It ain’t everybody has the courage to be." I considered what was coming. "The fact is," said Apache Kid, "we are what they call in this country road-agents—make our living by holding up stage-coaches and——" "By gum! we ’ve held up more nor stage-coaches," cried Donoghue, and began fumbling in an inner pocket with eager fingers.