The fugitives were five miles from the rancho, and they had not consumed a great deal of time in accomplishing the distance, either. They had scarcely exchanged a dozen words since they began their flight, for George led the way at a pace so rapid that conversation was impossible. Ned and Gus had never travelled so fast on horseback before, and the former was obliged to confess to himself that he was by no means so fine a rider as he thought he was. It was comparatively easy to keep a firm and upright seat while his nag was ambling leisurely along a smooth trail, but it was not so easy when the horse was running at the top of his speed, over rough ground. His feet were out of the stirrups more than half the time, while Gus was jolted up and down and from side to side with such violence that it was a wonder he kept in his saddle at all. Fortunately, Ned’s departure from home had been so hurried that he had forgotten to take with him the ornaments he usually wore when he went riding. If he had had his spurs on while his heels were digging into his horse’s sides, he might not have kept his seat as well as he did. Both he and Gus were glad when George checked his horse and allowed him to settle down to a walk.
“Texas isn’t so dull a place to live in after all, is it?” said George, who knew he must say something to keep up the spirits of his companions. “One can get all the excitement he wants, without half trying, can’t he?”
“I never would have been in this scrape if it hadn’t been for Gus,” declared Ned, who, mean-spirited fellow that he was, always tried to shift the responsibility for any wrongdoing upon the shoulders of somebody else. “I wish I had never brought him here!”
“So do I,” replied Gus, who might, with just as much show of reason, have accused Ned of being the author of all his misfortunes. If Ned had not written him those letters and offered to pay his travelling expenses, he never would have been in Texas. “I don’t see how you can blame me for anything that has happened. Did I have a hand in stealing that horse?”
“You had just as much to do with it as I did. What I mean is, that if you had been at home, where I wish you were this very minute, those cattle never would have been shot.”
“That’s a pretty way for you to talk!” exclaimed Gus, angrily. “I hadn’t been in your house an hour before you told me that you intended to do that very thing, just to get up a breeze and show the neighbors that you had some pluck.”
“But I never would have done it if you hadn’t dared me. What are we going to do when we reach Brownsville, George?”
“We’ll put up at a hotel and wait for Uncle John,” was George’s answer. “When he comes we’ll talk the matter over and decide upon something. I think we had all better go off somewhere. I am going, for I don’t want to see anybody in our settlement until this trouble is forgotten.”
“You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of,” said Gus, who looked upon George as a hero. He had been perfectly cool and collected while everybody else was too badly frightened to talk plainly, and Gus greatly admired his courage. He told himself, too, that he had formed a wrong opinion of the boy from Ned’s description of him. He was not a boor by any means. He was more of a gentleman in appearance, in spite of his rough clothes, than his cousin was, and knew more in five minutes than Ned could ever hope to know.
“No; I have done nothing to be ashamed of, but I am taking you out of danger, and the people will think hard of me for it,” replied George. “Besides, I deceived the owner of the stolen horse, and that will raise a storm against me. The folks in these parts are down on anybody who befriends a horse-thief.”