"I don't know what to do," thought the boy, after he had racked his brain in the unsuccessful effort to find a way out of the difficulty. "I must either come down on Uncle John, or stand quietly by and see him pocket all my money. I don't see why he and Ned can't behave themselves! They will make enough out of me in an honest way, according to the terms of father's will, to make them independent, and I do wish they would stop stealing from me and laying plans to get me out of the way. I'll speak to Mr. Gilbert about it."
Silk Stocking might have made quicker work of the eighteen miles that lay between the rancho and the river, if his rider had urged him to do it, but being allowed to choose his own gait, he accomplished it in about two hours and a half, so that it was about four o'clock in the morning when George crossed the ford and found himself again on Texas soil. Feeling perfectly safe from pursuit, he jogged along at a very easy pace, directing his course toward Mr. Gilbert's rancho. He did not know that Uncle John had followed Ned to Brownsville, or rather, he was not certain of it, and he did not want to see him again, until he had had an interview with the only man in the settlement who was unprejudiced enough to give him sensible advice.
It was twenty-five miles to his friend's rancho, and before he had gone half that distance, he was aroused from a reverie into which he had fallen by a quick movement on the part of his horse, which suddenly threw up his head, and after turning his ears back as if he were listening to some sound behind him, set off at the top of his speed. At the same moment George heard the muffled sound of horses' hoofs in the grass behind him. That was a most alarming sound, but it was accompanied by one that was still more alarming – the sharp crack of a revolver and the noise made by a bullet as it passed through the air close by his side.
"Hold up, there, Silver Buttons!" shouted a voice that sounded strangely familiar to the boy's ears. "That's only a warning! the next one will strike centre, sure!"
Believing that Fletcher and his men were upon him, and that the time had come for the exhibition of all the speed which Silk Stocking had thus far held in reserve, George threw himself flat upon his horse's neck, dug his heels into his side, and looking back over his shoulder, saw that he was pursued by two men, who, by keeping their nags in the long grass that grew on each side of the trail, had succeeded in coming quite close to him before their approach was discovered. But they were not Fletcher's men; they were Texans.
A single glance at them was enough for George, who, seeing one of the men raise his revolver and take a steady aim at his head, brought himself to an upright position, stopped his horse with a word and faced about. The man lowered his revolver, and he and his companion rode up and scowled fiercely at George, who knew who they were and whom they supposed him to be, before they said a word to him. One of them was the owner of Silk Stocking; and as George had his cousin's clothes on, of course they supposed him to be Ned Ackerman, the boy who had given them so much trouble. George remembered how savagely they had talked while they were smoking at his camp-fire, that they had threatened to snatch Ned so bald-headed that the next time he saw a stolen horse he would run from it, and he wondered what they would do to him, now that they had caught him with the stolen animal in his possession. Of course, it would be no trouble at all for him to prove that he wasn't Ned Ackerman, and that he had never had anything to do with the stolen horse, if they would only give him the opportunity; but the probability was that they would take vengeance on him first and listen to his explanation afterward, if there was life enough left in him to make it.
There was another disagreeable thought that came into George's mind while he was sitting there waiting for the men to approach (one thinks rapidly when he is in danger, you know), and it was this: If he proved that he wasn't Ned Ackerman, wouldn't it also be necessary for him to prove who he was? And while he was doing it, wouldn't the men learn that he had had something to do with Ned's escape? They would certainly be very angry at him for that. In fact, it will be remembered that while he was in Mr. Gilbert's library, he had over heard one of these same men say, as he and his companion passed through the hall, that he would like to get his hands on that rascally boy who had sent them so far out of their course. Taken altogether, it looked as though George was in a fair way to be punished both for what he did as well as for what he didn't do.
"Well, my young Silver Buttons, you stopped just in time," said one of the men, as he rode up and seized the lasso which served George for a bridle. "If I had sent one more bullet after you, it would have struck something, sure. Get off that horse before I knock you off. You have backed him for the last time!"
George lost not a moment in obeying this order. The man carried a loaded riding-whip, and as he uttered these words he wound the lash about his hand, in readiness to strike the boy with the heavy butt, if he did not move on the instant.
"A pretty chase you have led us," exclaimed the other horseman, whom we have heard addressed as "Joe." "How did you get back from Brownsville so quickly?"
"I haven't been to Brownsville yet," answered George, "but I hope to go there to-morrow or next day."
"Perhaps you will, and then again perhaps you won't," said the owner of the stolen horse, who answered to the name of Lowry. "It's my opinion, that when we are through with you, there won't be enough of you left to go any where."
"Very well," replied George, with a calmness that surprised himself. "If you have made up you minds to that, of course you can carry out your resolution, for I haven't the power to resist you. If I had, I should use it. I confess that appearances are against me – "
"Yes; I should say they were," interrupted Joe.
"But I can explain everything to your satisfaction," continued George, "and more than that, I can prove every statement I make."
"By whom will you prove it?"
"By people living right here in this settlement, who have known me ever since I was born."
"Wouldn't trust 'em," exclaimed Mr. Lowry, quickly. "We know, by experience, that the most of them are rascals who are in league with you. One night, when we were lost on the prairie, we camped with a cow-boy who told us a cock-and-a-bull story about having been robbed by the raiders, and who sent us thirty-five miles out of our way; Gilbert sent with us, as guide, a herdsman who lost us again on purpose; and finally, we were met by one of Ackerman's servants, who told us, that his employer had just started for Palos to be gone two or three weeks, and that his son went with him riding this very horse. We went in pursuit as soon as we got our own horses out of Ackerman's corral; and we might have been riding toward Palos yet, if we hadn't been set right by a man of the name of Cook. We knew that he wouldn't deceive us, for he was very angry at you for shooting some of his cattle. He's the only white man in the settlement."
"I am glad to know that you have confidence in somebody," answered George, wondering who that servant was who sent Mr. Lowry and his companion off toward Palos, "and I am perfectly willing to go to his rancho with you. When you know all the circumstances connected with this miserable business, you will not have so poor an opinion of the people living in this settlement."
"Well, I must say that you ring a pretty oily tongue," said Mr. Lowry, who was plainly surprised at the ease with which the boy expressed himself. "Go on now, and explain why you didn't give Silk Stocking up on the night Joe and I came to your father's rancho and got fresh horses there?"
"Because I wasn't at the rancho that night, and neither was the horse in my possession," answered George.
"You were there," exclaimed Joe, in angry tones, "and the horse was in your possession. You had him hitched under an open shed close by the house, and you heard us say that he had been stolen."
"I can prove that I never heard you speak that night. I couldn't, for I was miles away attending to my herd of cattle."
Joe seemed ready to boil over with rage when he heard this, and his companion turned white with anger. The former would at once have fallen upon the boy with his riding-whip if he had not been restrained by Mr. Lowry; but the latter's forced calmness was more alarming than Joe's belligerent demonstration, for it told George, as plainly as words, that when his anger broke forth, it would be all the more terrible