When George and his companions had ridden away out of sight, and Uncle John and the herdsman had gone back into the hall, Philip softly opened the kitchen door and stepped upon the porch. Almost at the same instant the door which gave entrance into the hall, was cautiously opened and Uncle John came in. He looked all around the room as if he was searching for somebody, and went out upon the porch. He pronounced the Mexican’s name two or three times, in a low tone of voice, and walked around the building, looking everywhere for him; but he could neither hear nor see anything of him, and finally he gave up the search, and went back to the office again.
Philip, in the meantime, having caught up a saddle and bridle, belonging to one of the herdsmen, ran to the corral, opened the gate with the key which he had taken from its nail in the kitchen, and hurried in. When he came out, he was leading a horse, which was soon saddled and bridled, and carrying the Mexican at a full gallop away from the rancho. The rider directed his course down the trail, and had gone about half a mile, when he heard the sound of voices away off to his right. It was so dark that he could not see anybody, but Philip, being confident that he knew whom the voices belonged to, checked his horse and rode just fast enough to intercept the horsemen, who were coming along one of the side-trails. In a few minutes a hail came through the darkness, telling him that he had been discovered.
“Hallo, there!” cried a voice.
“Hallo yourself!” replied Philip, stopping his horse and turning him around, so that his head pointed toward the rancho, instead of away from it.
“O, now you’re all right,” said another voice. “That’s one of Ackerman’s men. He’ll show you the way, an’ I’ll go hum. I’m sorry I lost the trail, an’ tuk you so fur outen your way—I am so; but it’s powerful dark, an’ my eyes ain’t none of the best.”
“Well, I should think a ten-year-old boy ought to know the trails in his own neighborhood,” growled the man who had shouted out the hail. “You have delayed us more than half an hour.”
“And he did it on purpose, too,” thought Philip. “That’s Gilbert’s man, and he knows the country like a book for two hundred miles around.”
“Hallo, there!” came the hail again.
“Hallo yourself!” was Philip’s answer.
“Can you show us the way to Ackerman’s?”