NED’S NEW HORSE.
“Now, I’ll just tell you what’s a fact, father,” said Ned, who stood on
the porch with Uncle John, watching George as he galloped away, “if you
are going to do anything you must come out and make a square stand. You
don’t want George here any more than I do.”
“Be careful, Ned,” said Uncle John, in a suppressed whisper, looking
anxiously around. “Some one might hear you.”
“I don’t care who hears me. I don’t see any sense in being so sly.
George will hang about here just as long as he has that herd of cattle
to take care of. Take that away from him and perhaps he will clear out.”
“But I don’t know how to do it,” said Uncle John.
“Why, it is easy enough. Send some men out there with orders to drive
the herd in.”
“That would only bring on a fight; for George and Zeke would resist.
Besides, you must remember that all the herdsmen on the place are
friendly to George, and I don’t believe they would obey such an order.”
“Then discharge them and hire others who will do as they are told,”
exclaimed Ned, impatiently. “What’s the use of your trying to run the
ranche if you can’t do as you please?”
“But there’s one thing you don’t seem to understand. George has
rights——”
“Don’t he wish he may get them, though?” interrupted Ned, snapping his
fingers in the air.
“He can get them. If I go too far, he can appeal to the courts, and have
me put out and a new guardian of his own choosing appointed in my
place.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Ned, opening his eyes in great amazement. “Does George
know that?”
“I don’t know whether he does or not; but _I_ know it; and I know, too,
that there are plenty in the neighborhood who will tell him of it; so
you see I must be careful and not let him get a good hold on me. You
wouldn’t like to go back to Foxboro’ and work for your bread and
clothes, after living at your ease, as you have ever since you have been
here.”
“No, I wouldn’t; and what’s more, I never will do it,” replied Ned,
walking up and down the porch with his hands behind his back. “I’ll tell
you what to do,” he added, suddenly, while a smile of triumph lighted up
his face, “take his money away from him. He keeps a lot of it in a box
in his room. I saw it there.”
“What good will that do?”
“Why, how is he going to keep a herdsman unless he has money to pay
him?”
“O, that would never do. He’d raise an awful row about it, and then go
off and sell some of his cattle and get more money.”
“That’s so,” replied Ned, the triumphant smile disappearing as quickly
as it had come. “He’s got luck on his side, hasn’t he? I wish the
raiders would jump down on him and take the last steer he’s got. I’d be
glad to see some of them long enough to tell them where to find him. I’d
tell them to catch George too and hold fast to him,” added Ned, under
his breath, as his father turned and walked into the house. “I never can
carry out my scheme while he owns those cattle; I can see that very
plainly. If I could only make him lose them some way, I should have
things just as I want them. But how can I do it? I must keep my mind on
it until I hit upon something.”
This conversation and Ned’s soliloquy will serve to show that certain
plans calculated to work serious injury to the young herdsman had been
laid by the new occupants of the ranche, and that one of them, at least,
was ready to resort to desperate measures in order to carry those plans
into execution. Ned had set himself deliberately to work to drive his
cousin away from his home. One would suppose that if he had any
affection for him, or had possessed the least spark of honor, he would
have been above such a thing; but the truth was, Ned was not above doing
anything that he thought would advance his own interests. He never
forgot that clause in his uncle’s will, which provided that in a certain
contingency all the immense property, of which his father now had
control, was to fall to himself. It was the last thought he dwelt upon
at night when he went to bed and the first that passed through his mind
when he awoke in the morning. George was very much in the way there. Ned
thought so, and he knew that his father thought so, too. They could not
do as they pleased while he was about, for George knew everything that
was going on in the ranche. He knew just what the expenses amounted to
every month, could tell how many cattle had been sold, the price they
brought, and how much money his uncle ought to have put into the bank.
Uncle John did not like to be watched so closely, and Ned didn’t like it
either, for the reason that his father could not give him as much money
as he wanted. Ned would have cut a fine dash if he had possessed the
necessary funds, and Uncle John would have been only too glad to furnish
him with all the cash he demanded if he could have done so without
George’s knowledge. All Uncle John wanted was to fill his pockets and
Ned’s; and the latter, to assist him in accomplishing his object, set
himself to work to make the house so unpleasant for George that he would
not stay there. He had determined upon this before he had been two days
at the ranche, and he had succeeded beyond his expectations. George
seemed to think a great deal more of Zeke’s company than he did of Uncle
John’s and Ned’s, and often said that he preferred a blanket at night
and a life in the saddle to his room at home and the lonely existence he
led while he was there. He spent more than half his time in camp, but
came home whenever he wanted supplies for himself and herdsman, and
spent three or four days in riding about taking note of things. Ned
always dreaded these visits, and wished he could hit upon some plan to
put a stop to them.
“I thought I had hit upon something,” said Ned, to himself, as he jumped
down the steps and walked toward the corral, which was the name given to
the enclosure in which the riding-horses belonging to the ranche were
kept. “And I believe yet that if father would only take his herd away
from him he would be too discouraged to start another. He would have to
do something, of course—George isn’t the one to remain long idle—and as
there is no other business he can go into in this country, perhaps he
would go off somewhere to seek his fortune and leave us a clear field. I
wish Gus Robbins was here now. Two heads are better than one, and
perhaps he could suggest something.”
Ned was looking for his friend Gus every day, although how the latter
was going to find his way over the hundred and fifty miles of wilderness
that lay between Palos, which was the end of the stage route, and the
rancho, Ned didn’t know. If Gus could have told him when he expected to
reach Palos, the case would have been different. Ned could have sent one
of the herdsmen down there to meet him and show him the way home; but,
as it was, Gus would have to take his chances. He would have to wait at
Palos until he fell in with some of the neighbors who might happen to go
there on business, as some of them did nearly every month. But a month
was a long time to wait. He wished his friend was with him now, for he
was growing more lonely every day. He ought to be on the way by this
time, Ned often told himself, and of late he had fallen into the habit
of riding to the top of a high swell about five miles from the rancho,
and spending the most of the day there waiting for Gus. When he came he
would pass along the trail leading over the top of that swell, and Ned
could see him while he was yet a long distance away.
When Ned was mounted and fully equipped for a gallop, a stranger would
have taken him for a masquerader on his way to a ball. If he had sported
a big mustache and had a few more years on his shoulders, he might have
easily passed for the leader of a band of brigands. He always wore a
Mexican sombrero, buckskin coat, fawnskin vest, corduroy trowsers, and
high top-boots, the heels of which were armed with huge silver-plated
spurs. These was intended for ornament and not for use, for Ned could
not have been hired to touch his horse with them. He had tried it once.
The animal was as steady an old cob as Uncle John could find in the
settlement, but he did not like spurs, and on one occasion he had
convinced his rider of the fact by throwing him head over heels into a
ditch. That was when Ned first purchased him, and before he knew
anything about riding on horseback. He was growing somewhat accustomed
to the saddle now, and was beginning to look about him for a better
mount. There were plenty of horses on the ranche—fleet, hardy animals
they were, too—but Ned wanted a thorough-bred, such as some of the
settlers were purchasing in Kentucky.
Besides his spurs Ned carried three other ornaments—an ivory-handled
riding-whip, a breech-loading rifle and a silver-mounted hunting-knife.
He expected with that rifle to make sad havoc among the big game which
was so abundant in some parts of Texas, but thus far he had not shot a
single thing with it. He knew nothing about rifles, and besides the
weapon threw a bullet that was altogether too small to possess any
killing power. His cousin had told him that it might answer for shooting
hummingbirds and ground-squirrels, but that nothing larger need be
afraid of it. George had knocked over a jack-rabbit with it, and the
rabbit had jumped up and made off as though there was nothing the matter
with him, carrying the bullet somewhere in his body. The elegant
hunting-knife was intended for skinning the game that fell to his rifle,
but up to this time Ned had found no use for it.
Ned looked as formidable as usual when he mounted his horse that morning
and rode away to meet the first adventure that had befallen him in
Texas—the first one worthy of record of which he had ever been the hero.
He made his way directly to the top of the swell of which we have
spoken, and after staking out his horse threw himself on his blanket
under the shade of the solitary oak that grew beside the trail, and
comfortably settled himself to idle away the time and watch for his
long-expected friend.
“If he ever reaches Palos he will have no difficulty in coming the rest
of the way,” thought Ned. “The people from this part of the country
always put up at one hotel, and the landlord will know whether or not
there are any of our herdsmen or neighbors in the town. It is the fear
that Gus may not be able to leave Foxboro’ that troubles me just at
present. If anything should happen to keep him at home, wouldn’t we be a
couple of disappointed boys, though? I don’t believe I could stand it.
Hallo! What’s that?”
Just then a moving object in the horizon caught Ned’s eye. He
straightened up and looked at it, and presently made out that the moving
object was a horseman. He was coming along the trail toward the swell,
and coming rapidly, too. Ned looked at him for a few minutes and then
settled back on his elbow with an exclamation indicative of great
disappointment.
“It can’t be Gus,” said he to himself, “for Gus could never find his way
here from Palos alone. It is one of the settlers, probably. I hope he
has brought some mail for us.”
Ned placed his hands under his head and watched the horseman’s
movements, without feeling any particular interest in them, until he saw
him draw rein and come to a sudden stand-still. He had just caught sight
of Ned’s horse. He sat motionless in his saddle, gazing earnestly toward
the top of the swell and evidently undecided whether to advance or
retreat.
“I wonder if he takes me for an Indian or a Greaser!” thought Ned, and
to show the horseman that he was neither, he picked up his sombrero,
which lay beside him on his blanket, and waved it over his head. The
horseman saw the motion and must have taken it for a friendly one, for
he once more put his horse into a gallop and came toward the swell. He
rode up within a few feet of Ned before he stopped again, and the two
took a good look at each other before either of them spoke.
The newcomer was a stranger in that part of the country; Ned knew that
the instant he put his eyes on him. He was a gentleman, if clothes make
the gentleman, and was the first one Ned, had seen in long months. He
was dressed in broadcloth, wore fine boots on his feet, rings on his
fingers and a breastpin in his white shirt-front. He was a good-looking
man, too, and rode a horse that attracted Ned’s attention at once. He
was a perfect beauty—slender and clean-limbed, with a long, arching
neck, well-shaped head and flowing mane and tail, and although his sides
were heaving and his glossy breast was flecked with the foam that had
flown from his month during the long and rapid journey he had evidently
made, his eye was bright, and the tight rein his rider was obliged to
keep upon him showed that there was plenty of spirit left in him. The
saddle and bridle he wore were made after the Mexican pattern, and were
both gaudily ornamented.
“How do you do, sir?” said the stranger, after he had looked at Ned and
run his eye over the boy’s horse, which had advanced to meet him as far
as the length of his lariat would permit. “Can you tell me whereabouts
in the world I am—I mean how far from the Rio Grande?”
“Yes, sir; you will have to ride twenty-five miles in a straight line to
reach it,” replied Ned. “By the trail, which leads to the nearest ford,
and takes in all the ranches, it is more than twice as far.”
“Twenty-five miles!” repeated the stranger, turning about in his saddle
and looking back over the way he had come. “That’s a long pull for a
tired horse!”
“Hadn’t you better stop and take a rest?” asked Ned, who had learned how
to be hospitable since he came to Texas. “My father’s rancho is only
five miles from here, and every house is a hotel in this country.”
“I am obliged to you, but I can’t stop,” replied the stranger, quickly.
“I am in a great hurry. I must take the straightest course for the
river, and I don’t want to go by any ranchos. When night overtakes me I
can camp on the prairie. I am used to it. But I wish I had a fresh
horse: How will you trade?”
“Trade!” cried Ned, jumping to his feet, and looking first at the
stranger’s fine animal and then at his own homely beast. “I’ll trade;
but you’ll have to go home with me to get the boot you want.”
“I can’t stop for that, and besides, I may not ask any boot. All I want
is a fresh horse and a fast one.”
“O, mine is fast and as fresh as a daisy!” exclaimed Ned, highly elated
over the prospect of becoming the owner of the handsomest horse he had
ever seen. “And he can stand the pace, too. The man I bought him of says
there’s no tire out to him.”
[Illustration: THE UNLUCKY HORSE TRADE.]
“I know a good animal when I see him,” answered the man, with a smile.
“I’ll trade my horse, saddle and bridle, even for yours. What do you
say?”
“I say, I’ll do it!” said Ned, who was so delighted that he could
scarcely speak.
“All right!” said the man, as he dismounted. “Catch up!”
Ned lost no time in putting the saddle and bridle on his own nag, and
while he was doing it, the stranger stood, holding his horse by the
bridle and looking back over the way he had come. When Ned brought up
his horse, the man said:
“You’re sure this nag belongs to you, are you? I run no risk of being
stopped by anybody, who will lay claim to him, do I?”
“No, sir,” replied Ned, “he’s mine; and if you will go to our rancho
with me, I will show you a bill of sale of him.”
“I asked the question because there are such things in the world as
horse-thieves, you know!” said the stranger, as he placed his own bridle
in the boy’s hand and seized Ned’s horse by the bit.
“There are no such things in this country, I can tell you,” replied Ned,
with a knowing shake of his head. “The settlers would turn out to hunt
down a horse-thief as readily as they would to hunt down a grizzly bear.
It wouldn’t even be safe for a man to be found here with a stolen horse
in his possession, no matter whether he was the thief or not!”
Why was it that Ned did not ask the man the same question which the
latter had just propounded to him? Perhaps it was because he did not
wish to detain him. The stranger seemed very impatient to mount and
resume his journey, and Ned was impatient to have him do so, for when
the two horses were brought closer together, anybody could see that
there was a vast difference between them. No sane man would have
proposed such an exchange, and just then it occurred to the amateur
horse-trader that there might be something wrong with the animal.
Perhaps he wasn’t quite safe for so inexperienced a person as himself.
“Is he perfectly gentle?” asked Ned. “He won’t kick or bite or throw a
fellow off, will he?”
“O no! he’s as quiet as an old cow. A child can manage him.”
“What’s his name?”
“I call him Silk Stocking—sometimes Socks, for short.”
As the stranger said this, he sprang upon Ned’s horse, looked behind him
once more as if to make sure that there was no one following him, and
then waved his hand to the boy and galloped away. Ned stood looking
first at him and then at his new horse, fully expecting to see the man
turn about and come back to trade over again. But he did nothing of the
kind. He kept straight ahead (Ned had no idea that his old horse could
travel as fast as he did), turning in his saddle now and then to look
behind him, and at last he disappeared over a swell. Then Ned, with a
long breath of relief, turned to give his new horse another good looking
over.
The animal’s name—Silk Stocking—suited him exactly. His color was a very
dark chestnut; but his mane and tail were as white as snow, and so were
his feet and his legs, too, as high up as his knees, and he had a white
star in his forehead. The longer his delighted owner looked at him the
handsomer he seemed to grow.
“That man, whoever he may be, is a born dunce,” was Ned’s mental
comment. “He says he knows a good horse when he sees one, but I don’t
believe it. Why, I know more than he does. I’d never trade a horse like
this for an old crowbait like mine. I’d take a day longer for my
journey, no matter how great the hurry I might be in.”
Ned chuckling to himself over his good fortune, fastened his horse to a
swinging branch of the oak, and proceeded to bundle up his blanket and
poncho which he tied behind his saddle. While he was pulling up the
picket-pin and curling his lasso, a startling suspicion suddenly sprung
up in his mind. He stopped his work and looked at his horse and then at
the ridge over which he had seen the stranger disappear.
“I wonder why I didn’t think of that before!” said Ned, to himself. “He
was very careful to inquire if I owned the horse I traded to him, but it
never occurred to me to ask him how he came by this one. Well, I don’t
know that it makes so very much difference after all,” he added, after a
moment’s reflection. “If he stole the horse—and if he didn’t steal him
why was he so anxious to trade?—he could have told a lie about it very
easily, and no doubt he would.”
Ned was not at all pleased with the thought, which now kept forcing
itself upon him, that perhaps he had not made so fine a bargain after
all. If the horse was a stolen one, and the lawful owner should succeed
in tracing him, he could demand his property, and Ned would have to give
it up. This was something he did not want to do. He had already taken a
great liking to his new horse, and could not bear the thought of parting
with him.
“And I never will part with him either, if I can help it,” declared Ned,
after he had taken time to think over the situation. “I was going to
show him to father as soon as I got home, but now I’ll just keep still
about him. It isn’t likely that he was stolen anywhere in the county,
and perhaps the owner will never be able to get on the track of him.
I’ll hold fast to him as long as I can, at any rate, and keep his
existence a profound secret, and if his owner ever finds him I can
say——Well, what’s the use of thinking about that now? I can make up a
story on the spur of the moment that will get me out of the tightest
scrape a boy ever got into. At least I always have been able to do it!”
With this reflection to comfort and encourage him Ned hung his lasso
upon the horn of his saddle, mounted his new horse and set out for home.
The animal moved off at a free walk until Ned called on him to go
faster, and then he broke into a rapid gallop; but his motions were so
regular and easy that his rider was scarcely moved in the saddle. Ned
was a little afraid of him at first, for he carried his head high and
kept his ears thrown forward and his eyes roving about as if he were
trying to find something to get frightened at; but he could be very
easily controlled, and Ned could stop him while he was going at the top
of his speed by a single word. He seemed perfectly willing to travel at
his best speed all the time, but Ned, after enjoying the rapid motion
for a few minutes, gently checked him, and then the animal settled down
into an easy pace. He proved to be what the natives would have called a
gated horse; that is, he had been broken to amble, fox-trot, pace, run
or square trot, just as his rider desired. Ned knew that some of the
ranchemen in the neighborhood had paid two thousand dollars apiece for
just such horses.
“I declare it frightens me to think of it,” said Ned, and almost
involuntarily he faced about in his saddle and looked behind him, just
as the stranger had done, to see if there was any one following him.
“I wish he wasn’t worth so much money, for I shall live in constant fear
that his owner will be along here some day hunting him up. I know that
if he had been stolen from me I should never sleep soundly until I found
him.”
During the ride to the rancho, Ned often looked behind him, fully
expecting every time he did so to see a horseman or two galloping along
the trail in pursuit; but he was alone on the prairie, and to his great
relief there was no one about the house or yard to see him come home
with his prize or to ask him questions that he did not want to answer.
He hitched the horse under the shed and supplied him with a good feed of
corn, and no one was the wiser for it.
While the horse was eating Ned stood by with his hands in his pockets
admiring him, and it was with the greatest reluctance that he left him
long enough to go into the house to get his own supper. He said nothing
to his father regarding the events of the afternoon, for he had made up
his mind that, for the present at least, he had better keep his own
counsel.
It was customary for Ned and his father to start out every evening, as
soon as it began to grow dark, for a short walk up and down the trail in
front of the house, and on this particular evening they continued their
agreeable exercise until a later hour than usual. As they were about to
retrace their steps they heard the clatter of hoofs on the trail, and
presently two horsemen dashed up to them and came to a full stop. They
were rough-looking fellows and carried revolvers in their belts. Ned,
believing that they were raiders, could hardly refrain from screaming at
the sight of them, and even Uncle John acted as though he didn’t know
whether to stand still or run away. The latter’s fears, however, if he
had any, were speedily set at rest, while Ned’s were increased a
thousand fold.
“Good-evening, gentlemen,” exclaimed one of the horsemen. “Do you live
about here?”
“My rancho is about a quarter of a mile farther down the trail,”
answered Uncle John.
“Have you lived here long enough to know all the people in the
neighborhood?”
“I have lived here a little more than a year.”
“Have you seen a stranger pass through the settlement to-day, either of
you?”
“I have seen no one; have you, Ned?”
Ned, who was trembling in every limb, controlled himself as well as he
could and replied that he had not.
“There has been one along here,” continued the horseman, “for we have
traced him, and we know that we are not very far behind him. He is
making for the river. He is a stylish-looking fellow, well dressed,
wears a good deal of jewelry, and rides a chestnut-colored horse, with
white mane and tail, four white feet and a star in his forehead.”
“I haven’t seen any such man or horse,” said Uncle John.
“I haven’t either,” said Ned, faintly.
It was well for him that it was so dark.