George was so utterly confounded that he could not say a word. He sat looking from one to the other of the ranchemen, who fortunately did not notice the expression of astonishment that settled on his face. One of them sat on the opposite side of the fire, where he could not see the boy, and the other was stretched out on his blanket, with his hands clasped under his head, watching the clouds of smoke that arose from his pipe. “It’s a little the strangest piece of business I ever heard of,” said the latter, “and it doesn’t seem to me that anybody of ordinary common sense could do such a thing. The thief told us that he traded Silk Stocking to a young fellow who looked as though he might be going to a fancy-dress ball somewhere, for he sported a buckskin coat with silver buttons, high patent-leather boots, and so on, and we saw just such a fellow as that at Ackerman’s rancho. We stopped there and got fresh horses—those nags out there belong to Ackerman—and took supper; and when we came out on the porch Silk Stocking called to us. He was hitched under an open shed a short distance from the house. I recognised the call and so did Joe; but we never suspected anything, and so we didn’t look into the matter as we ought to have done.” George had never been more astonished in his life. He was greatly alarmed too, for he knew that his cousin had got himself into serious trouble. The man on the blanket, who told the story, looked like one who could smash things if he once set about it, and the tone of his voice and the decided manner in which he puffed at his pipe, indicated that he had fully made up his mind to do it. He and his companion would certainly make it warm for somebody when they reached the rancho. Was there any way in which he could save Ned from the consequences of his folly? George did not believe there was, for he knew too well the estimation in which horse-thieves and everybody connected with them were held in that country; but still he determined to make the attempt. Ned was his cousin, the only one he had in the world, and it was plainly his duty to stand by him. Controlling himself as well as he could, he said: “You told me, I believe, that this boy, whoever he is, traded his horse for yours: Perhaps he didn’t know it was stolen!” “Probably he didn’t at the time he made the trade,” replied the man; “but he knew it when Joe and I stopped at his father’s rancho, for he heard us tell the story. Why did he not give him up?” “No doubt he was so badly frightened that he dared not do it,” answered George. “This boy, I believe, has not been long in Texas, and he don’t know much about the customs of the country.” “Now just see here, stranger!” said the rancheman, taking his pipe out of his mouth and looking steadily at George. “If he knows anything he’d ought to know that it is a dangerous piece of business for a man to have stolen property in his possession, knowing it to be stolen, hadn’t he?”