"As you told us!" echoed Joe. "Great Moses! Are you the scamp that sent us to Dickerman's when we wanted to go to Ackerman's?"
"Hold on, Joe!" said Mr. Lowry, extending his arm to interrupt the riding-whip which was brandished threateningly in the air. "He can't get out of this scrape by pretending to be somebody else. We saw him standing on his father's porch, and he had these same clothes on, too."
"These are not my clothes."
"Whose are they then, and what are you doing in them?"
"They belong to my cousin, Ned Ackerman, who, if he has had good luck, is safe in Brownsville by this time. He was the one who traded for Silk Stocking, and the reason why he would not give him up, was because he was afraid that you would lay violent hands upon him. I exchanged my clothes for his at the time I was captured by the Greasers, and I did it for his protection, little dreaming that I should get myself into trouble by it. I knew that you would follow him, and that if you came up with him you would recognise him by his dress."
"What do you mean by saying that you were captured by Greasers?" asked Joe, whose anger seemed to have given away to astonishment.
"I mean just what I say. I have been a prisoner on the other side of the river since last Thursday, and it was there I found Silk Stocking."
The ranchmen looked at each other for a moment, and then broke out into loud peals of laughter. George's story was too ridiculous for belief.