“Don’t you, indeed!” replied his companion. “Have you forgotten how squarely you went back on me no longer ago than last night? You just as good as told me that you had seen enough of me. You could get along without me well enough while you had your cousin to lean on, but now that he is gone, I am a bully boy again. No, sir; you can’t throw me away and pick me up again when you please, now I tell you!” “O, don’t talk that way!” whined Ned, who knew that he was powerless, and that everything depended upon Gus. “I didn’t mean it. I was frightened out of my senses, and didn’t know what I was saying.” “No, you were not frightened. You had got all over it and were laughing about the ‘lark’ you had had. You said it, whether you meant it or not, and I shall take you at your word.” “You are not going to leave me?” Ned almost gasped. “Yes, I am. When we reach Brownsville, if we ever do, you will see the last of me.” “What are you going to do?” “I don’t know. I haven’t made up my mind yet. I know what I am going to do now: I am going to sleep.” Ned could not understand how Gus could take the matter so coolly. He was slumbering heavily in less than five minutes after he arranged his blankets, while Ned, whose excitement would not permit him to sleep, tossed uneasily about, thinking over the incidents of the last few hours, and trembling when he looked forward to the long journey before him and its possible ending. “I am not out of danger yet,” he kept saying to himself, “for if I were, George would not have traded clothes with me. He has been pretty good to me, I must say. It isn’t every fellow who would stand by a cousin as he has stood by me, and I almost wish I had treated him a little better. Perhaps I shall never see him again. Well, if I don’t——” Clasping his hands under his head Ned lay back on his blanket and proceeded to follow out the train of thought that had so suddenly suggested itself to him. The prospect of stepping into possession of a property worth forty thousand dollars a year was a pleasing one; and while he was wondering what he should do with so much money, and how he could spend it to the best advantage, his weariness overcame him, and he sank into a dreamless sleep. When he awoke the sun had climbed around to the other side of the woods, and the shadows of the trees were thrown far out on the plain, showing that the day was drawing to a close. Gus was already stirring. He had rolled up his blankets, and was just putting the saddle on his horse when Ned opened his eyes. “Where are you going?” demanded the latter, in some alarm. “I am going to start out and see if I can find a house,” replied Gus. “I have a little money in my pocket, and while it lasts I am not going to sleep out of doors or go hungry, either!” “You needn’t spend a cent of it,” said Ned, hastily jumping to his feet and folding his blankets. “I’ve got enough for both of us. You were not going away without me, were you?”