“If you ain’t a _little_ ahead of all the fools I ever saw in all my born days my name ain’t Bob Smirker, and never was,” exclaimed the owner of the rancho fiercely. “That’s the second time I have come within an inch of shooting you. Come back here now, and let’s have no more fooling.”
Julian, not daring to attempt to continue his retreat on his unwilling steed, was compelled to obey. Calling all his courage to his aid, he turned about and rode back to the cabin. Smirker looked sharply at him as he came up, but Julian met his gaze without flinching, and even succeeded in calling a smile to his face. Believing that he had nothing to gain by deception, he began to explain who he was and how he came to be there; but the man interrupted him, and Julian was afterward glad that he had done so.
“I hope I am not intruding, sir,” he began. “I was out for a breath of fresh air——”
“Oh, hush your nonsense!” cried the owner of the rancho angrily. “You’re always ’out for a breath of fresh air’ when you are doing something you’ve no business to do. That was what you said to me on the day you found my secret passage-way which leads down from the top of the cliff. I didn’t want anybody but myself to know about that passage-way, and when I found that you had discovered it I was mad enough to shoot you. You’re eternally up to some foolishness, and it’s the greatest wonder in the world you haven’t been killed a thousand times. Everybody says so. Now, Fred, if you should come here every hour in the day for the next ten years, don’t ever ride up without giving the signal, and don’t try to run away when I open the door. This ain’t boy’s play we’re at, as you would soon find out if them soldiers or some of the settlers should get hold of you. You hadn’t ought to done it, ’cause I didn’t know you in that Mexican rig. Come in. I’ve got something for you.”
While the man was speaking he was looking squarely into Julian’s face, and the latter was waiting in an agony of suspense to see what he would do when he discovered that he had mistaken the identity of his visitor. But Smirker did not seem to think he had made a mistake. Having delivered his lecture and thus worked off a little of his indignation, he returned his revolver to his belt and led the way into the stable, closely followed by Julian’s horse, which moved after him without waiting for the word from her rider. Julian drew a long breath of relief, and told himself that the danger for the present was past. The difficulty now was to personate the boy whom Smirker believed him to be.