"So do I, but I don't remember to have seen you there, and so I shall have to ask you to give an account of yourself. Dismount."
"I shall do as I please about that," replied the stranger, who had all the while been staring very hard at Bob.
"Well, you won't do as you please about it," returned the corporal, while Carey walked up and took the stranger's horse by the bit. "You will do as I please. If you belong at Fort Lamoine you will go there with me in the morning, and then I shall be sure you get there. I am acting under orders."
The horseman thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket, and pulling out a bill-book took from it a paper which he opened and handed to Bob to read.
"If you are acting under orders I have no more to say," said he, "but there is something which I think will see me through until day after to-morrow. It is my furlough. Look here, partner," he added suddenly, "isn't your name Bob Owens?"
The latter started as if he had been shot, his under jaw dropped down, and for a few seconds he stood looking at the speaker as if he could hardly believe his ears. Then a light seemed to break in upon him, and springing forward he grasped the horseman by the arm and fairly pulled him out of the saddle. After that he shook one of his hands with both his own and executed a sort of war-dance around him, while the troopers stood and looked on in speechless amazement.
"George Ackerman, I am delighted to see you again," cried Bob as soon as he could speak. "I take it all back, George: I didn't mean to insult you."
"It's Owens, isn't it?" said George, for it was he.
"Of course it is; and if you hadn't been blind you would have known it as soon as you saw me," replied Bob.
"I don't think my eyesight is any worse than your own, for you didn't know me until I called you by name," retorted George. "Your uniform tells me where you have been and what you have been doing since I last saw you, but it doesn't tell me how I came to lose you in Galveston so suddenly and mysteriously. If we had kept together a little while longer we should have been all right, for I had scarcely missed you before I ran against Mr. Gilbert—the friend to whom I wrote for money, you know. If you belong at Fort Lamoine, what are you doing here?"