“Are you not yet satisfied that I am White-horse Fred?” asked Julian in reply. “Perhaps you want me to prove it.”
Julian’s terror had all passed away now, and he was in his right mind again. There was still a chance of escape. Although he had not the remotest idea who the new-comer was, he had heard and seen enough to satisfy him that he was a stranger in that wilderness as well as himself, and that he was not White-horse Fred, consequently he ran no risk in continuing to personate the character he had been compelled to assume. Indeed, it was the only thing he could do. He was impatient to be off, too, for the real White-horse Fred might arrive at any moment, and then something would certainly happen.
“There’s a mystery at the bottom of this, and I’ll bet a horse on it,” said Smirker, shaking his fists in the air, and striding up and down the stable. “I know you are White-horse Fred,” he added, addressing himself to our hero, “but—but—what’s the rest of your name? Fred what?”
“Fred nothing. That’s all the name I’ve got. I never had any other.”
“Well, you have got another, and if it is the one I think it is, I don’t see how in the world you come to be riding about here. You had ought to be at the bottom of the lake. I’ll see the fellows below this very night, and have a new runner put on this route, or I’ll give up the station. I ain’t a going to have no such fellow as you coming about me. You can’t get out of here any too sudden.”
This speech was all Greek to Julian, except the last sentence. That he understood perfectly, and was quite ready to act upon the suggestion it contained. The moment Smirker opened the door of the stable he dashed the spurs into his horse, which sprung forward like an arrow from a bow, and tore down the path with the speed of the wind, the bay following. In a few seconds he was out of sight.
Scarcely waiting for Julian to get fairly out of the stable, Smirker slammed the door and locked it, and turning fiercely upon his new prisoner disarmed him by jerking off the belt which contained his knife and revolver. Having thus put it out of the boy’s power to do any mischief, Smirker suddenly seemed to become unconscious of his presence. He had much to think about, and for the next quarter of an hour he gave himself up entirely to his reflections, never once casting a single glance toward his companion. He paced up and down the stable with long strides, shaking his head and muttering, and trying in vain to find some explanation for the strange, and to him bewildering, incidents that had just occurred. They were more than bewildering—they were absolutely terrifying, as the expression on his face and his whole bearing and manner abundantly proved. He walked with a very unsteady step, his burly frame trembled like an oak in a storm, and now and then he raised his hand to dash away the perspiration which stood on his forehead like drops of rain.