CHAPTER VIII.

NED’S NEW HORSE.

“Now, I’ll just tell you what’s a fact, father,” said Ned, who stood on the porch with Uncle John, watching George as he galloped away, “if you are going to do anything you must come out and make a square stand. You don’t want George here any more than I do.”

“Be careful, Ned,” said Uncle John, in a suppressed whisper, looking anxiously around. “Some one might hear you.”

“I don’t care who hears me. I don’t see any sense in being so sly. George will hang about here just as long as he has that herd of cattle to take care of. Take that away from him and perhaps he will clear out.”

“But I don’t know how to do it,” said Uncle John.

“Why, it is easy enough. Send some men out there with orders to drive the herd in.”

“That would only bring on a fight; for George and Zeke would resist. Besides, you must remember that all the herdsmen on the place are friendly to George, and I don’t believe they would obey such an order.”

“Then discharge them and hire others who will do as they are told,” exclaimed Ned, impatiently. “What’s the use of your trying to run the ranche if you can’t do as you please?”

“But there’s one thing you don’t seem to understand. George has rights——”

“Don’t he wish he may get them, though?” interrupted Ned, snapping his fingers in the air.

“He can get them. If I go too far, he can appeal to the courts, and have me put out and a new guardian of his own choosing appointed in my place.”

“Whew!” exclaimed Ned, opening his eyes in great amazement. “Does George know that?”

“I don’t know whether he does or not; but _I_ know it; and I know, too, that there are plenty in the neighborhood who will tell him of it; so you see I must be careful and not let him get a good hold on me. You wouldn’t like to go back to Foxboro’ and work for your bread and clothes, after living at your ease, as you have ever since you have been here.”

“No, I wouldn’t; and what’s more, I never will do it,” replied Ned, walking up and down the porch with his hands behind his back. “I’ll tell you what to do,” he added, suddenly, while a smile of triumph lighted up his face, “take his money away from him. He keeps a lot of it in a box in his room. I saw it there.”

“What good will that do?”

“Why, how is he going to keep a herdsman unless he has money to pay him?”

“O, that would never do. He’d raise an awful row about it, and then go off and sell some of his cattle and get more money.”

“That’s so,” replied Ned, the triumphant smile disappearing as quickly as it had come. “He’s got luck on his side, hasn’t he? I wish the raiders would jump down on him and take the last steer he’s got. I’d be glad to see some of them long enough to tell them where to find him. I’d tell them to catch George too and hold fast to him,” added Ned, under his breath, as his father turned and walked into the house. “I never can carry out my scheme while he owns those cattle; I can see that very plainly. If I could only make him lose them some way, I should have things just as I want them. But how can I do it? I must keep my mind on it until I hit upon something.”

This conversation and Ned’s soliloquy will serve to show that certain plans calculated to work serious injury to the young herdsman had been laid by the new occupants of the ranche, and that one of them, at least, was ready to resort to desperate measures in order to carry those plans into execution. Ned had set himself deliberately to work to drive his cousin away from his home. One would suppose that if he had any affection for him, or had possessed the least spark of honor, he would have been above such a thing; but the truth was, Ned was not above doing anything that he thought would advance his own interests. He never forgot that clause in his uncle’s will, which provided that in a certain contingency all the immense property, of which his father now had control, was to fall to himself. It was the last thought he dwelt upon at night when he went to bed and the first that passed through his mind when he awoke in the morning. George was very much in the way there. Ned thought so, and he knew that his father thought so, too. They could not do as they pleased while he was about, for George knew everything that was going on in the ranche. He knew just what the expenses amounted to every month, could tell how many cattle had been sold, the price they brought, and how much money his uncle ought to have put into the bank.

Uncle John did not like to be watched so closely, and Ned didn’t like it either, for the reason that his father could not give him as much money as he wanted. Ned would have cut a fine dash if he had possessed the necessary funds, and Uncle John would have been only too glad to furnish him with all the cash he demanded if he could have done so without George’s knowledge. All Uncle John wanted was to fill his pockets and Ned’s; and the latter, to assist him in accomplishing his object, set himself to work to make the house so unpleasant for George that he would not stay there. He had determined upon this before he had been two days at the ranche, and he had succeeded beyond his expectations. George seemed to think a great deal more of Zeke’s company than he did of Uncle John’s and Ned’s, and often said that he preferred a blanket at night and a life in the saddle to his room at home and the lonely existence he led while he was there. He spent more than half his time in camp, but came home whenever he wanted supplies for himself and herdsman, and spent three or four days in riding about taking note of things. Ned always dreaded these visits, and wished he could hit upon some plan to put a stop to them.

“I thought I had hit upon something,” said Ned, to himself, as he jumped down the steps and walked toward the corral, which was the name given to the enclosure in which the riding-horses belonging to the ranche were kept. “And I believe yet that if father would only take his herd away from him he would be too discouraged to start another. He would have to do something, of course—George isn’t the one to remain long idle—and as there is no other business he can go into in this country, perhaps he would go off somewhere to seek his fortune and leave us a clear field. I wish Gus Robbins was here now. Two heads are better than one, and perhaps he could suggest something.”

Ned was looking for his friend Gus every day, although how the latter was going to find his way over the hundred and fifty miles of wilderness that lay between Palos, which was the end of the stage route, and the rancho, Ned didn’t know. If Gus could have told him when he expected to reach Palos, the case would have been different. Ned could have sent one of the herdsmen down there to meet him and show him the way home; but, as it was, Gus would have to take his chances. He would have to wait at Palos until he fell in with some of the neighbors who might happen to go there on business, as some of them did nearly every month. But a month was a long time to wait. He wished his friend was with him now, for he was growing more lonely every day. He ought to be on the way by this time, Ned often told himself, and of late he had fallen into the habit of riding to the top of a high swell about five miles from the rancho, and spending the most of the day there waiting for Gus. When he came he would pass along the trail leading over the top of that swell, and Ned could see him while he was yet a long distance away.

When Ned was mounted and fully equipped for a gallop, a stranger would have taken him for a masquerader on his way to a ball. If he had sported a big mustache and had a few more years on his shoulders, he might have easily passed for the leader of a band of brigands. He always wore a Mexican sombrero, buckskin coat, fawnskin vest, corduroy trowsers, and high top-boots, the heels of which were armed with huge silver-plated spurs. These was intended for ornament and not for use, for Ned could not have been hired to touch his horse with them. He had tried it once. The animal was as steady an old cob as Uncle John could find in the settlement, but he did not like spurs, and on one occasion he had convinced his rider of the fact by throwing him head over heels into a ditch. That was when Ned first purchased him, and before he knew anything about riding on horseback. He was growing somewhat accustomed to the saddle now, and was beginning to look about him for a better mount. There were plenty of horses on the ranche—fleet, hardy animals they were, too—but Ned wanted a thorough-bred, such as some of the settlers were purchasing in Kentucky.

Besides his spurs Ned carried three other ornaments—an ivory-handled riding-whip, a breech-loading rifle and a silver-mounted hunting-knife. He expected with that rifle to make sad havoc among the big game which was so abundant in some parts of Texas, but thus far he had not shot a single thing with it. He knew nothing about rifles, and besides the weapon threw a bullet that was altogether too small to possess any killing power. His cousin had told him that it might answer for shooting hummingbirds and ground-squirrels, but that nothing larger need be afraid of it. George had knocked over a jack-rabbit with it, and the rabbit had jumped up and made off as though there was nothing the matter with him, carrying the bullet somewhere in his body. The elegant hunting-knife was intended for skinning the game that fell to his rifle, but up to this time Ned had found no use for it.

Ned looked as formidable as usual when he mounted his horse that morning and rode away to meet the first adventure that had befallen him in Texas—the first one worthy of record of which he had ever been the hero. He made his way directly to the top of the swell of which we have spoken, and after staking out his horse threw himself on his blanket under the shade of the solitary oak that grew beside the trail, and comfortably settled himself to idle away the time and watch for his long-expected friend.

“If he ever reaches Palos he will have no difficulty in coming the rest of the way,” thought Ned. “The people from this part of the country always put up at one hotel, and the landlord will know whether or not there are any of our herdsmen or neighbors in the town. It is the fear that Gus may not be able to leave Foxboro’ that troubles me just at present. If anything should happen to keep him at home, wouldn’t we be a couple of disappointed boys, though? I don’t believe I could stand it. Hallo! What’s that?”

Just then a moving object in the horizon caught Ned’s eye. He straightened up and looked at it, and presently made out that the moving object was a horseman. He was coming along the trail toward the swell, and coming rapidly, too. Ned looked at him for a few minutes and then settled back on his elbow with an exclamation indicative of great disappointment.

“It can’t be Gus,” said he to himself, “for Gus could never find his way here from Palos alone. It is one of the settlers, probably. I hope he has brought some mail for us.”

Ned placed his hands under his head and watched the horseman’s movements, without feeling any particular interest in them, until he saw him draw rein and come to a sudden stand-still. He had just caught sight of Ned’s horse. He sat motionless in his saddle, gazing earnestly toward the top of the swell and evidently undecided whether to advance or retreat.

“I wonder if he takes me for an Indian or a Greaser!” thought Ned, and to show the horseman that he was neither, he picked up his sombrero, which lay beside him on his blanket, and waved it over his head. The horseman saw the motion and must have taken it for a friendly one, for he once more put his horse into a gallop and came toward the swell. He rode up within a few feet of Ned before he stopped again, and the two took a good look at each other before either of them spoke.

The newcomer was a stranger in that part of the country; Ned knew that the instant he put his eyes on him. He was a gentleman, if clothes make the gentleman, and was the first one Ned, had seen in long months. He was dressed in broadcloth, wore fine boots on his feet, rings on his fingers and a breastpin in his white shirt-front. He was a good-looking man, too, and rode a horse that attracted Ned’s attention at once. He was a perfect beauty—slender and clean-limbed, with a long, arching neck, well-shaped head and flowing mane and tail, and although his sides were heaving and his glossy breast was flecked with the foam that had flown from his month during the long and rapid journey he had evidently made, his eye was bright, and the tight rein his rider was obliged to keep upon him showed that there was plenty of spirit left in him. The saddle and bridle he wore were made after the Mexican pattern, and were both gaudily ornamented.

“How do you do, sir?” said the stranger, after he had looked at Ned and run his eye over the boy’s horse, which had advanced to meet him as far as the length of his lariat would permit. “Can you tell me whereabouts in the world I am—I mean how far from the Rio Grande?”

“Yes, sir; you will have to ride twenty-five miles in a straight line to reach it,” replied Ned. “By the trail, which leads to the nearest ford, and takes in all the ranches, it is more than twice as far.”

“Twenty-five miles!” repeated the stranger, turning about in his saddle and looking back over the way he had come. “That’s a long pull for a tired horse!”

“Hadn’t you better stop and take a rest?” asked Ned, who had learned how to be hospitable since he came to Texas. “My father’s rancho is only five miles from here, and every house is a hotel in this country.”

“I am obliged to you, but I can’t stop,” replied the stranger, quickly. “I am in a great hurry. I must take the straightest course for the river, and I don’t want to go by any ranchos. When night overtakes me I can camp on the prairie. I am used to it. But I wish I had a fresh horse: How will you trade?”

“Trade!” cried Ned, jumping to his feet, and looking first at the stranger’s fine animal and then at his own homely beast. “I’ll trade; but you’ll have to go home with me to get the boot you want.”

“I can’t stop for that, and besides, I may not ask any boot. All I want is a fresh horse and a fast one.”

“O, mine is fast and as fresh as a daisy!” exclaimed Ned, highly elated over the prospect of becoming the owner of the handsomest horse he had ever seen. “And he can stand the pace, too. The man I bought him of says there’s no tire out to him.”

“I know a good animal when I see him,” answered the man, with a smile. “I’ll trade my horse, saddle and bridle, even for yours. What do you say?”

“I say, I’ll do it!” said Ned, who was so delighted that he could scarcely speak.

“All right!” said the man, as he dismounted. “Catch up!”

Ned lost no time in putting the saddle and bridle on his own nag, and while he was doing it, the stranger stood, holding his horse by the bridle and looking back over the way he had come. When Ned brought up his horse, the man said:

“You’re sure this nag belongs to you, are you? I run no risk of being stopped by anybody, who will lay claim to him, do I?”

“No, sir,” replied Ned, “he’s mine; and if you will go to our rancho with me, I will show you a bill of sale of him.”

“I asked the question because there are such things in the world as horse-thieves, you know!” said the stranger, as he placed his own bridle in the boy’s hand and seized Ned’s horse by the bit.

“There are no such things in this country, I can tell you,” replied Ned, with a knowing shake of his head. “The settlers would turn out to hunt down a horse-thief as readily as they would to hunt down a grizzly bear. It wouldn’t even be safe for a man to be found here with a stolen horse in his possession, no matter whether he was the thief or not!”

Why was it that Ned did not ask the man the same question which the latter had just propounded to him? Perhaps it was because he did not wish to detain him. The stranger seemed very impatient to mount and resume his journey, and Ned was impatient to have him do so, for when the two horses were brought closer together, anybody could see that there was a vast difference between them. No sane man would have proposed such an exchange, and just then it occurred to the amateur horse-trader that there might be something wrong with the animal. Perhaps he wasn’t quite safe for so inexperienced a person as himself.

“Is he perfectly gentle?” asked Ned. “He won’t kick or bite or throw a fellow off, will he?”

“O no! he’s as quiet as an old cow. A child can manage him.”

“What’s his name?”

“I call him Silk Stocking—sometimes Socks, for short.”

As the stranger said this, he sprang upon Ned’s horse, looked behind him once more as if to make sure that there was no one following him, and then waved his hand to the boy and galloped away. Ned stood looking first at him and then at his new horse, fully expecting to see the man turn about and come back to trade over again. But he did nothing of the kind. He kept straight ahead (Ned had no idea that his old horse could travel as fast as he did), turning in his saddle now and then to look behind him, and at last he disappeared over a swell. Then Ned, with a long breath of relief, turned to give his new horse another good looking over.

The animal’s name—Silk Stocking—suited him exactly. His color was a very dark chestnut; but his mane and tail were as white as snow, and so were his feet and his legs, too, as high up as his knees, and he had a white star in his forehead. The longer his delighted owner looked at him the handsomer he seemed to grow.

“That man, whoever he may be, is a born dunce,” was Ned’s mental comment. “He says he knows a good horse when he sees one, but I don’t believe it. Why, I know more than he does. I’d never trade a horse like this for an old crowbait like mine. I’d take a day longer for my journey, no matter how great the hurry I might be in.”

Ned chuckling to himself over his good fortune, fastened his horse to a swinging branch of the oak, and proceeded to bundle up his blanket and poncho which he tied behind his saddle. While he was pulling up the picket-pin and curling his lasso, a startling suspicion suddenly sprung up in his mind. He stopped his work and looked at his horse and then at the ridge over which he had seen the stranger disappear.

“I wonder why I didn’t think of that before!” said Ned, to himself. “He was very careful to inquire if I owned the horse I traded to him, but it never occurred to me to ask him how he came by this one. Well, I don’t know that it makes so very much difference after all,” he added, after a moment’s reflection. “If he stole the horse—and if he didn’t steal him why was he so anxious to trade?—he could have told a lie about it very easily, and no doubt he would.”

Ned was not at all pleased with the thought, which now kept forcing itself upon him, that perhaps he had not made so fine a bargain after all. If the horse was a stolen one, and the lawful owner should succeed in tracing him, he could demand his property, and Ned would have to give it up. This was something he did not want to do. He had already taken a great liking to his new horse, and could not bear the thought of parting with him.

“And I never will part with him either, if I can help it,” declared Ned, after he had taken time to think over the situation. “I was going to show him to father as soon as I got home, but now I’ll just keep still about him. It isn’t likely that he was stolen anywhere in the county, and perhaps the owner will never be able to get on the track of him. I’ll hold fast to him as long as I can, at any rate, and keep his existence a profound secret, and if his owner ever finds him I can say——Well, what’s the use of thinking about that now? I can make up a story on the spur of the moment that will get me out of the tightest scrape a boy ever got into. At least I always have been able to do it!”

With this reflection to comfort and encourage him Ned hung his lasso upon the horn of his saddle, mounted his new horse and set out for home. The animal moved off at a free walk until Ned called on him to go faster, and then he broke into a rapid gallop; but his motions were so regular and easy that his rider was scarcely moved in the saddle. Ned was a little afraid of him at first, for he carried his head high and kept his ears thrown forward and his eyes roving about as if he were trying to find something to get frightened at; but he could be very easily controlled, and Ned could stop him while he was going at the top of his speed by a single word. He seemed perfectly willing to travel at his best speed all the time, but Ned, after enjoying the rapid motion for a few minutes, gently checked him, and then the animal settled down into an easy pace. He proved to be what the natives would have called a gated horse; that is, he had been broken to amble, fox-trot, pace, run or square trot, just as his rider desired. Ned knew that some of the ranchemen in the neighborhood had paid two thousand dollars apiece for just such horses.

“I declare it frightens me to think of it,” said Ned, and almost involuntarily he faced about in his saddle and looked behind him, just as the stranger had done, to see if there was any one following him.

“I wish he wasn’t worth so much money, for I shall live in constant fear that his owner will be along here some day hunting him up. I know that if he had been stolen from me I should never sleep soundly until I found him.”

During the ride to the rancho, Ned often looked behind him, fully expecting every time he did so to see a horseman or two galloping along the trail in pursuit; but he was alone on the prairie, and to his great relief there was no one about the house or yard to see him come home with his prize or to ask him questions that he did not want to answer. He hitched the horse under the shed and supplied him with a good feed of corn, and no one was the wiser for it.

While the horse was eating Ned stood by with his hands in his pockets admiring him, and it was with the greatest reluctance that he left him long enough to go into the house to get his own supper. He said nothing to his father regarding the events of the afternoon, for he had made up his mind that, for the present at least, he had better keep his own counsel.

It was customary for Ned and his father to start out every evening, as soon as it began to grow dark, for a short walk up and down the trail in front of the house, and on this particular evening they continued their agreeable exercise until a later hour than usual. As they were about to retrace their steps they heard the clatter of hoofs on the trail, and presently two horsemen dashed up to them and came to a full stop. They were rough-looking fellows and carried revolvers in their belts. Ned, believing that they were raiders, could hardly refrain from screaming at the sight of them, and even Uncle John acted as though he didn’t know whether to stand still or run away. The latter’s fears, however, if he had any, were speedily set at rest, while Ned’s were increased a thousand fold.

“Good-evening, gentlemen,” exclaimed one of the horsemen. “Do you live about here?”

“My rancho is about a quarter of a mile farther down the trail,” answered Uncle John.

“Have you lived here long enough to know all the people in the neighborhood?”

“I have lived here a little more than a year.”

“Have you seen a stranger pass through the settlement to-day, either of you?”

“I have seen no one; have you, Ned?”

Ned, who was trembling in every limb, controlled himself as well as he could and replied that he had not.

“There has been one along here,” continued the horseman, “for we have traced him, and we know that we are not very far behind him. He is making for the river. He is a stylish-looking fellow, well dressed, wears a good deal of jewelry, and rides a chestnut-colored horse, with white mane and tail, four white feet and a star in his forehead.”

“I haven’t seen any such man or horse,” said Uncle John.

“I haven’t either,” said Ned, faintly.

It was well for him that it was so dark.