“That’s very strange,” said the voice. “They must have come this way, for they are going to Brownsville. The fellow who rode this horse wore a sombrero, high patent leather boots and a buckskin coat with silver buttons. He carried an ivory-handled riding-whip, had silver-plated spurs on his heels, and the horse wore a gold-mounted saddle and bridle.”
“Ain’t seed no sich,” repeated the squatter, while Ned wondered where the man had obtained so accurate a description of him.
“They couldn’t have gone by without attracting your attention, could they?”
“Nary time. I see everybody who goes along this trail by daylight. Come in, gentlemen. The ole woman’ll cook you a bite of something an’ I’ll look arter your critters.”
The listening boys knew when the unwelcome visitors dismounted and entered the house, and Gus, who sat where he could look through one of the widest cracks into the living-room, the interior of which was now brightly lighted up by the fire on the hearth, noticed that the squatter’s wife motioned to them with a case-knife, to sit down on the chest by the side of the door. After Gus had taken a good look at them, he did not wonder that their appearance frightened Ned so badly that he dared not confess that the stolen horse was in his possession. Ned could not see the men, but he knew they were in the next room, and not more than twelve or fifteen feet from him. What would become of him when they discovered that he was in the house? He would certainly meet them the next morning at the breakfast table, and if they recognised him, it would be all over with Ned Ackerman.
“I wonder why father didn’t settle the matter with them, as George told him to do!” thought Ned, who always blamed somebody beside himself for the trouble he got into. “He had the money, he ought to have done it, and he has got me into a pretty mess by not doing it. If I ever see him again, I’ll give him a piece of my mind, I bet you.”
Another thing that aroused the boy’s anger, was the manner in which Gus conducted himself. While Ned was sitting upon his blanket, trembling in every muscle and living in momentary expectation of discovery, Gus had the impudence to lie down and roll over on his side with his hand under his cheek, as if he were trying to go to sleep. Ned could see it all by the aid of the light which streamed in through the cracks in the partition.
“Say, Gus,” he whispered, shaking his companion as roughly as he dared, “what am I to do? Get up and suggest something.”
“I don’t care what you do,” answered Gus, who thought this a good time to pay Ned for what he had said the night before. “It is none of my funeral. I didn’t steal the horse.”
“Neither did I,” said Ned, who was so angry that it was all he could do to control himself. “Shall I creep out of the house, if I can get out, or shall I stay here and take my chances?”