"I really don't like to tell, Mr. George," said he, after making several ineffectual attempts to speak, "'cause, it's something I never did afore. But I s'pose I'll have to answer that question, won't I? Wal, the fact is, I never did like the way that chap Philip went snoopin' around while he was here. On the night these gents came to the rancho, I seed that he was riding about a good deal on hoss-back, an' that was something I never knowed him to do afore. I seed him when he came back an' put his hoss into the corral, an' I seed him, too, when he walked into the house, an' straight to the office whar Mr. Ackerman was. He went without bein' asked, an' that made me think that he was up to something pizen; so I crept along the hall, an' looked in at the key-hole. I didn't see nothing, though, for the cunnin' rascal had hung his hat over the key-hole; but I heard something an' I—I listened, I did, Mr. George. I never done it afore, an' I'll never do it agin, if you don't want me to."
"All is fair in war," exclaimed Mr. Lowry.
He and his companion were so deeply interested, and so utterly amazed at what they heard, that neither of them had spoken before. George had proved that he had uttered nothing but the truth when he told them that he could make them open their eyes.
"What did you hear?" added Mr. Lowry.
"Wal, gents, in the first place I heared something private, which I don't tell to nobody but Mr. George," said Jake; and this answer proved him to be a discreet as well as a faithful friend. "In the next place I heared him tell Mr. Ackerman that he had met you on the trail, an' sent you off towards Palos. In the next place, he said that the trail was watched, so't George couldn't never come home agin."
"Who were watching for him, and what was the reason they didn't want him to come home?" asked Joe.
"That was one of the private things you heard, I suppose?" remarked Mr. Lowry.
"Sartinly, it was. That's something I can't tell you, gents. After that Philip went on to tell that he had hunted up some Greasers an' put them on the trail of Mr. George, who had started to guide his cousin to Brownsville, an'—an' that's all."
Jake was about to add that Philip had suggested that his employer had better pasture a thousand head of cattle near the river, so that they could be easily captured by the raiders, as Uncle John had agreed to do in case George was got out of the way, so that Ned could claim the property; but he checked himself just in time.
"No, that ain't all neither," he added, after a moment's reflection. "I listened at that thar key-hole till Philip opened the door to come out, an' then I lifted him, I tell you. I knocked him clean acrost the room, just to let him an' Mr. Ackerman see that I knowed all about it. Then, thinkin' that two heads was better than one in a furse like that, I hunted up Bob, here, who had just happened to come into the kitchen. He listened to what I had to say, an' then he allowed that we had oughter gobble the varmint, 'cause most likely the settlers would want to see him in the mornin'; but when we went back arter him, we found that he had skipped. We ain't none of us seed him since."