"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 from being so long restrained.
"Do you mean to tell us that we can place no dependence upon our senses?" demanded Mr. Lowry, while an ominous light shone in his eyes.
"No, sir; I mean to tell you that you are mistaken as to my identity. On the night you got those fresh horses I was at Catfish Falls, watching my cattle which had been stolen from me, as I told you."