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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Frances of the Ranges, by Amy Bell Marlowe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Frances of the Ranges
+       The Old Ranchman's Treasure
+
+Author: Amy Bell Marlowe
+
+Release Date: April 3, 2010 [EBook #31870]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANCES OF THE RANGES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.fadedpage.com
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FRANCES PULLED BACK ON MOLLY'S BRIDLE REINS. Frontispiece
+(Page 125).]
+
+
+
+
+FRANCES OF THE RANGES
+
+OR
+
+THE OLD RANCHMAN'S TREASURE
+
+BY
+
+AMY BELL MARLOWE
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+THE OLDEST OF FOUR, THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM, WYN'S CAMPING
+DAYS, ETC.
+
+NEW YORK
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+PUBLISHERS
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1915, by
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP
+
+Frances of the Ranges
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  Chapter                                                     Page
+       I. THE ADVENTURE IN THE COULIE                            1
+      II. "FRANCES OF THE RANGES"                               11
+     III. THE OLD SPANISH CHEST                                 19
+      IV. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT                            34
+       V. THE SHADOW IN THE COURT                               41
+      VI. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION                               49
+     VII. THE STAMPEDE                                          57
+    VIII. IN PERIL AND OUT                                      65
+      IX. SURPRISING NEWS                                       75
+       X. THE MAN FROM BYLITTLE                                 87
+      XI. FRANCES ACTS                                          98
+     XII. MOLLY                                                109
+    XIII. THE GIRL FROM BOSTON                                 115
+     XIV. THE CONTRAST                                         125
+      XV. IN THE FACE OF DANGER                                131
+     XVI. A FRIEND INSISTENT                                   140
+    XVII. AN ACCIDENT                                          151
+   XVIII. THE WAVE OF FLAME                                    160
+     XIX. MOST ASTONISHING!                                    171
+      XX. THE BOSTON GIRL AGAIN                                182
+     XXI. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY                            192
+    XXII. WHAT PRATT THOUGHT                                   204
+   XXIII. A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER                         212
+    XXIV. A GOOD DEAL OF EXCITEMENT                            223
+     XXV. A PLOT THAT FAILED                                   229
+    XXVI. FRANCES IN SOFTER MOOD                               242
+   XXVII. A DINNER DANCE IN PROSPECT                           253
+  XXVIII. THE BURSTING OF THE CHRYSALIS                        271
+    XXIX. "THE PANHANDLE--PAST AND PRESENT"                    283
+     XXX. A REUNION                                            295
+
+
+
+
+FRANCES OF THE RANGES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE ADVENTURE IN THE COULIE
+
+
+The report of a bird gun made the single rider in sight upon the
+short-grassed plain pull in her pinto and gaze westerly toward the
+setting sun, now going down in a field of golden glory.
+
+The pinto stood like a statue, and its rider seemed a part of the steed,
+so well did she sit in her saddle. She gazed steadily under her
+hand--gazed and listened.
+
+Finally, she murmured: "That's the snarl of a lion--sure. Get up,
+Molly!"
+
+The pinto sprang forward. There was a deep coulie ahead, with a low
+range of grass-covered hills beyond. Through those hills the lions often
+came down onto the grazing plains. It was behind these hills that the
+sun was going down, for the hour was early.
+
+As she rode, the girl loosened the gun she carried in the holster slung
+at her hip. On her saddle horn was coiled a hair rope.
+
+She was dressed in olive green--her blouse, open at the throat, divided
+skirts, leggings, and broad-brimmed hat of one hue. Two thick plaits of
+sunburned brown hair hung over her shoulders, and to her waist. Her grey
+eyes were keen and rather solemn. Although the girl on the pinto could
+not have been far from sixteen, her face seemed to express a serious
+mind.
+
+The scream of that bane of the cattlemen--the mountain lion--rang out
+from the coulie again. The girl clapped her tiny spurs against the
+pinto's flanks, and that little animal doubled her pace. In a minute
+they were at the head of the slope and the girl could see down into the
+coulie, where low mesquite shrubs masked the bottom and the little
+spring that bubbled there.
+
+Something was going on down in the coulie. The bushes waved; something
+rose and fell in their midst like a flail. There was a voice other than
+that of the raucous tones of the lion, and which squalled almost as
+loudly!
+
+A little to one side of the shrubs stood a quivering grey pony, its ears
+pointed toward the rumpus in the shrubs, blowing and snorting. The rider
+of that empty saddle was plainly in trouble with the snarling lion.
+
+The cattlemen of the Panhandle looked upon the lion as they did upon the
+coyote--save that the former did more damage to the herds. Roping the
+lion, or shooting it with the pistol, was a general sport. But caught in
+a corner, the beast--unlike the coyote--would fight desperately. Whoever
+had attacked this one had taken on a larger contract than he could
+handle. That was plain.
+
+Urged by the girl the pinto went down the slope of the hollow on a keen
+run. At the bottom she snorted and swerved from the mesquite clump. The
+smell of the lion was strong in Molly's nostrils.
+
+"Stand still, Molly!" commanded the girl, and was out of the saddle with
+an ease that seemed phenomenal. She ran straight toward the thrashing
+bushes, pistol in hand.
+
+The lion leaped, and the person who had been beating it off with the
+shotgun was borne down under the attack. Once those sabre-sharp claws
+got to work, the victim of the lion's charge would be viciously torn.
+
+The girl saw the gun fly out of his hands. The lion was too close upon
+its prey for her to use the pistol. She slipped the weapon back into its
+holster and picked up the shotgun. Plunging through the bushes she swung
+the gun and knocked the beast aside from its prey. The blow showed the
+power in her young arms and shoulders. The lion rolled over and over,
+half stunned.
+
+"Quick!" she advised the victim of the lion's attack. "He'll be back at
+us."
+
+Indeed, scarcely had she spoken when the brute scrambled to its feet.
+The girl shouldered the gun and pulled the other trigger as the beast
+leaped.
+
+There was no report. Either there was no shell in that barrel, or
+something had fouled the trigger. The lion, all four paws spread, and
+each claw displayed, sailed through the air like a bat, or a flying
+squirrel. Its jaws were wide open, its teeth bared, and the screech it
+emitted was, in truth, a terrifying sound.
+
+The girl realized that the original victim of the lion's attack was
+scrambling to his feet. She dropped to her knee and kept the muzzle of
+the gun pointed directly for the beast's breast. The empty gun was her
+only defense in that perilous moment.
+
+"Grab my gun! Here in the holster!" she panted.
+
+The lion struck against the muzzle of the shotgun, and the girl--in
+spite of the braced position she had taken--was thrown backward to the
+ground. As she fell the pistol was drawn from its holster.
+
+The empty shotgun had saved her from coming into the embrace of the
+angry lion, for while she fell one way, the animal went another. Then
+came three shots in rapid succession.
+
+She scrambled to her feet, half laughing, and dusting the palms of her
+gantlets. The lion was lying a dozen yards away, while the victim of its
+attack stood near, the blue smoke curling from the revolver.
+
+"My goodness!"
+
+After the excitement was all over that exclamation from the girl seemed
+unnecessary. But the fact that startled her was, that it was not a man
+at all to whose aid she had come. He was a youth little older than
+herself.
+
+"I say!" this young man exclaimed. "That was plucky of you,
+Miss--awfully plucky, don't you know! That creature would have torn me
+badly in another minute."
+
+The girl nodded, but seemed suddenly dumb. She was watching the youth
+keenly from under the longest, silkiest lashes, it seemed to Pratt
+Sanderson, he had ever seen.
+
+"I hope you're not hurt?" he said, shyly, extending the pistol toward
+the girl. She stood with her hands upon her hips, panting a little, and
+with plenty of color in her brown cheeks.
+
+"How about you?" she asked, shortly.
+
+It was true the young man appeared much the worse for the encounter. In
+the first place, he stood upon one foot, a good deal like a crane, for
+his left ankle had twisted when he fell. His left arm, too, was
+wrenched, and he felt a tingling sensation all through the member, from
+the shoulder to the tips of his fingers.
+
+Beside, his sleeve was ripped its entire length, and the lion's claws
+had cut deep into his arm. The breast of his shirt was in strips.
+
+"I say! I'm hurt, worse than I thought, eh?" he said, a little
+uncertainly. He wavered a moment on his sound foot, and then sank slowly
+to the grass.
+
+"Wait! Don't let yourself go!" exclaimed the girl, getting into quick
+action. "It isn't so bad."
+
+She ran for the leather water-bottle that hung from her saddle. Molly
+had stood through the trouble without moving. Now the girl filled the
+bottle at the spring.
+
+Pratt Sanderson was lying back on his elbows, and the white lids were
+lowered over his black eyes.
+
+The treatment the range girl gave him was rather rough, but extremely
+efficacious. She dashed half the contents of the bottle into his face,
+and he sat up, gasping and choking. She tore away his tattered shirt in
+a most matter-of-fact manner and began to bathe the scratches on his
+chest with her kerchief (quickly unknotted from around her throat),
+which she had saturated with water. Fortunately, the wounds were not
+very deep, after all.
+
+"You--you must think me a silly sort of chap," he gasped. "Foolish to
+keel over like this----"
+
+"You haven't been used to seeing blood," the girl observed. "That makes
+a difference. I've been binding up the boys' cuts and bruises all my
+life. Never was such a place as the old Bar-T for folks getting hurt."
+
+"Bar-T?" ejaculated the young man, with sudden interest. "Then you must
+be Miss Rugley, Captain Dan Rugley's daughter?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the girl, quietly. "Captain Rugley is my father."
+
+"And you're going to put on that very clever spectacle at the Jackleg
+schoolhouse next month? I've heard all about it--and what you have done
+toward making it what Bill Edwards calls a howling success. I'm stopping
+with Bill. Mrs. Edwards is my mother's friend, and I'm the advance guard
+of a lot of Amarillo people who are coming out to the Edwardses just to
+see your 'Pageant of the Panhandle.' Bill and his wife are no end
+enthusiastic about it."
+
+The deeper color had gradually faded out of the girl's cheeks. She was
+cool enough now; but she kept her eyes lowered, just the same. He would
+have liked to see their expression once more. There had been a startled
+look in their grey depths when first she glanced at him.
+
+"I am afraid they make too much of my part in the affair," said she,
+quietly. "I am only one of the committee----"
+
+"But they say you wrote it all," the young fellow interposed, eagerly.
+
+"Oh--_that_! It happened to be easy for me to do so. I have always
+been deeply interested in the Panhandle--'The Great American Desert' as
+the old geographies used to call all this great Middle West, of Kansas,
+Nebraska, the Indian Territory, and Upper Texas.
+
+"My father crossed it among the first white men from the Eastern States.
+He came back here to settle--long before I was born, of course--when a
+plow had never been sunk in these range lands. He belongs to the old
+cattle regime. He wouldn't hear until lately of putting wheat into any
+of the Bar-T acres."
+
+"Ah, well, by all accounts he is one of the few men who still know how
+to make money out of cows," laughed Pratt Sanderson. "Thank you, Miss
+Rugley. I can't let you do anything more for me----"
+
+"You are a long way from the Edwards' place," she said. "You'd better
+ride to the Bar-T for the night. We will send a boy over there with a
+message, if you think Mrs. Edwards will be worried."
+
+"I suppose I'd better do as you say," he said, rather ruefully. "Mrs.
+Edwards _will_ be worried about my absence over supper time. She
+says I'm such a tenderfoot."
+
+For a moment a twinkle came into the veiled grey eyes; the new
+expression illumined the girl's face like a flash of sunlight across the
+shadowed field.
+
+"You rather back up her opinion when you tackle a lion with nothing but
+birdshot--and one barrel of your gun fouled in the bargain," she said.
+"Don't you think so?"
+
+"But I killed it with a revolver!" exclaimed the young fellow,
+struggling to his feet again.
+
+"That pistol throws a good-sized bullet," said the ranchman's daughter,
+smiling. "But I'd never think of picking a quarrel with a lion unless I
+had a good rope, or something that threw heavier lead than birdshot."
+
+He looked at her, standing there in the after-glow of the sunset, with
+honest admiration in his eyes.
+
+"I _am_ a tenderfoot, I guess," he admitted. "And you were not
+scared for a single moment!"
+
+"Oh, yes, I was," and Frances Rugley's laugh was low and musical. "But
+it was all over so quickly that the scare didn't have a chance to show.
+Come on! I'll catch your pony, and we'll make the Bar-T before supper
+time."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"FRANCES OF THE RANGES"
+
+
+The grey was a well-trained cow-pony, for the Edwards' ranch was one of
+the latest in that section of the Panhandle to change from cattle to
+wheat raising. A part of its range had not as yet been plowed, and Bill
+Edwards still had a corral full of good riding stock.
+
+Pratt Sanderson got into his saddle without much trouble and the girl
+whistled for Molly.
+
+"I'll throw that lion over my saddle," she said. "Molly won't mind it
+much--especially if you hold her bridle with her head up-wind."
+
+"All right, Miss Rugley," the young man returned. "My name is Pratt
+Sanderson--I don't know that you know it."
+
+"Very well, Mr. Sanderson," she repeated.
+
+"They don't call me _that_ much," the young fellow blurted out. "I
+answer easier to my first name, you know--Pratt."
+
+"Very well, Pratt," said the girl, frankly. "I am Frances
+Rugley--Frances Durham Rugley."
+
+She lifted the heavy lion easily, flung it across Molly, and lashed it
+to the saddle; then she mounted in a hurry and the ponies started for
+the ranch trail which Frances had been following before she heard the
+report of the shotgun.
+
+The youth watched her narrowly as they rode along through the dropping
+darkness. She was a well-matured girl for her age, not too tall, her
+limbs rounded, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh. Perhaps she
+knew of his scrutiny; but her face remained calm and she did not return
+his gaze. They talked of inconsequential things as they rode along.
+
+Pratt Sanderson thought: "_What_ a girl she is! Mrs. Edwards is
+right--she's the finest specimen of girlhood on the range, bar none! And
+she is more than a little intelligent--quite literary, don't you know,
+if what they say is true of her. Where did _she_ learn to plan
+pageants? Not in one of these schoolhouses on the ranges, I bet an
+apple! And she's a cowgirl, too. Rides like a female Centaur; shoots, of
+course, and throws a rope. Bet she knows the whole trade of cattle
+herding.
+
+"Yet there isn't a girl who went to school with me at the Amarillo High
+who looks so well-bred, or who is so sure of herself and so easy to
+converse with."
+
+For her part, Frances was thinking: "And he doesn't remember a thing
+about me! Of course, he was a senior when I was in the junior class. He
+has already forgotten most of his schoolmates, I suppose.
+
+"But that night of Cora Grimshaw's party he danced with me six times. He
+was in the bank then, and had forgotten all 'us kids,' I suppose. Funny
+how suddenly a boy grows up when he gets out of school and into
+business. But me----
+
+"Well! I should have known him if we hadn't met for twenty years.
+Perhaps that's because he is the first boy I ever danced with--in town,
+I mean. The boys on the ranch don't count."
+
+Her tranquil face and manner had not betrayed--nor did they betray
+now--any of her thoughts about this young fellow whom she remembered so
+clearly, but who plainly had not taxed his memory with her.
+
+That was the way of Frances Durham Rugley. A great deal went on in her
+mind of which nobody--not even Captain Dan Rugley, her father--dreamed.
+
+Left motherless at an early age, the ranchman's daughter had grown to
+her sixteenth year different from most girls. Even different from most
+other girls of the plains and ranges.
+
+For ten years there was not a woman's face--white, black, or red--on the
+Bar-T acres. The Captain had married late in life, and had loved
+Frances' mother devotedly. When she died suddenly the man could not bear
+to hear or see another woman on the place.
+
+Then Frances grew into his heart and life, and although the old wound
+opened as the ranchman saw his daughter expand, her love and
+companionship was like a healing balm poured into his sore heart.
+
+The man's strong, fierce nature suddenly went out to his child and she
+became all and all to him--just as her mother had been during the few
+years she had been spared to him.
+
+So the girl's schooling was cut short--and Frances loved books and the
+training she had received at the Amarillo schools. She would have loved
+to go on--to pass her examinations for college preparation, and finally
+get her diploma and an A. B., at least, from some college.
+
+That, however, was not to be. Old Captain Rugley lavished money on her
+like rain, when she would let him. She used some of the money to buy
+books and a piano and pay for a teacher for the latter to come to the
+ranch, while she spent much midnight oil studying the books by herself.
+
+Captain Rugley's health was not all it should have been. Frances could
+not now leave him for long.
+
+Until recently the old ranchman had borne lightly his seventy years. But
+rheumatism had taken hold upon him and he did not stand as straight as
+of old, nor ride so well.
+
+He was far from an invalid; but Frances realized--more than he did,
+perhaps--that he had finished his scriptural span of life, and that his
+present years were borrowed from that hardest of taskmasters, Father
+Time.
+
+Often it was Frances who rode the ranges, instead of Captain Rugley,
+viewing the different herds, receiving the reports of underforemen and
+wranglers, settling disputes between the punchers themselves, looking
+over chuck outfits, buying hay, overseeing brandings, and helping cut
+out fat steers for the market trail.
+
+There was nothing Frances of the ranges did not know about the
+cattle-raising business. And she was giving some attention to the new
+grain-raising ideas that had come into the Panhandle with the return of
+the first-beaten farming horde.
+
+For the Texas Panhandle has had its two farming booms. The first advance
+of the farmers into the ranges twenty-five years or more before had been
+a rank failure.
+
+"They came here and plowed up little spots in our parsters that air
+eyesores now," one old cowman said, "and then beat it back East when
+they found it didn't rain 'cordin' ter schedule. This land ain't good
+for nothin' 'cept cows."
+
+But this had been in the days of the old unfenced ranges, and before
+dry-farming had become a science. Now the few remaining cattlemen kept
+their pastures fenced, and began to think of raising other feed than
+river-bottom hay.
+
+The cohorts of agriculturists were advancing; the cattlemen were falling
+back. The ancient staked plains of the Spanish _conquestadors_ were
+likely to become waving wheat fields and smiling orchards.
+
+The young girl and her companion could not travel fast to the Bar-T
+ranch-house for two reasons: Pratt Sanderson was sore all over, and the
+mountain lion slung across Frances' pony caused some trouble. The pinto
+objected to carrying double--especially when an occasional draft of
+evening air brought the smell of the lion to her nostrils.
+
+The young fellow admired the way in which the girl handled her mount. He
+had seen many half-wild horsemen at the Amarillo street fairs, and the
+like; since coming to Bill Edwards' place he had occasionally observed a
+good rider handling a mean cayuse. But this man-handling of a half-wild
+pony was nothing like the graceful control Frances of the ranges had
+over Molly. The pinto danced and whirled and snorted, and once almost
+got her quivering nose down between her knees--the first position of the
+bucking horse.
+
+At every point Frances met her mount with a stern word, or a firm rein,
+or a touch of the spur or quirt, which quickly took the pinto's mind off
+her intention of "acting up."
+
+"You are wonderful!" exclaimed the youth, excitedly. "I wish I could
+ride half as good as you do, Miss Frances."
+
+Frances smiled. "You did not begin young enough," she said. "My father
+took me in his arms when I was a week old and rode a half-wild mustang
+twenty miles across the ranges to exhibit me to the man who was our
+next-door neighbor in those days. You see, my tuition began early."
+
+It was not yet fully dark, although the ranch-house lamps were lit, when
+they came to the home corral and the big fenced yard in front of the
+Bar-T.
+
+Two boys ran out to take the ponies. One of these Frances instructed to
+saddle a fresh pony and ride to the Edwards place with word that Pratt
+Sanderson would remain all night at the Bar-T.
+
+The other boy was instructed to give the mountain lion to one of the
+men, that the pelt might be removed and properly stretched for curing.
+
+"Come right in, Pratt," said the girl, with frank cordiality. "You'll
+have a chance for a wash and a brush before supper. And dad will find
+you some clean clothes.
+
+"There's dad on the porch, though he's forbidden the night air unless he
+puts a coat on. Oh, he's a very, very bad patient, indeed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE OLD SPANISH CHEST
+
+
+Pratt saw a tall, lean man--a man of massive frame, indeed, with a heavy
+mustache that had once been yellow but had now turned grey, teetering on
+the rear legs of a hard-bottomed chair, with his shoulders against the
+wall of the house.
+
+There were plenty of inviting-looking chairs scattered about the
+veranda. There were rugs, and potted plants, and a lounge-swing, with a
+big lamp suspended from the ceiling, giving light enough over all.
+
+But the master of the Bar-T had selected a straight-backed,
+hard-bottomed chair, of a kind that he had been used to for half a
+century and more. He brought the front legs down with a bang as the girl
+and youth approached.
+
+"What's kept you, Frances?" he asked, mellowly. "Evening, sir! I take it
+your health's well?"
+
+He put out a hairy hand into which Pratt confided his own and, the next
+moment, vowed secretly he would never risk it there again! His left hand
+tingled badly enough since the attentions of the mountain lion. Now his
+right felt as though it had been in an ore-crusher.
+
+"This is Pratt Sanderson, from Amarillo," the daughter of the ranchman
+said first of all. "He's a friend of Mrs. Bill Edwards. He was having
+trouble with a lion over in Brother's Coulie, when I came along. We got
+the lion; but Pratt got some scratches. Can't Ming find him a flannel
+shirt, Dad?"
+
+"Of course," agreed Captain Rugley, his eyes twinkling just as Frances'
+had a little while before. "You tell him as you go in. Come on, Pratt
+Sanderson. I'll take a look at your scratches myself."
+
+A shuffle-footed Chinaman brought the shirt to the room Pratt Sanderson
+had been ushered to by the cordial old ranchman. The Chinaman assisted
+the youth to get into the garment, too, for Captain Rugley had already
+swathed the scratches on Pratt's chest and arm with linen, after
+treating the wounds with a pungent-smelling but soothing salve.
+
+"San Soo, him alle same have dlinner ready sloon," said Ming, sprinkling
+'l's' indiscriminately in his information. "Clapen an' Misse Flank wait
+on pleaza."
+
+The young fellow, when he was presentable, started back for the
+"pleaza."
+
+Everything he saw--every appointment of the house--showed wealth, and
+good taste in the use of it. The old ranchman furnished the former, of
+course; but nobody but Frances, Pratt thought, could have arranged the
+furnishings and adornments of the house.
+
+The room he was to occupy as a guest was large, square, grey-walled, was
+hung with bright pictures, a few handsome Navajo blankets, and had heavy
+soft rugs on the floor. There was a gay drapery in one corner, behind
+which was a canvas curtain masking a shower bath with nickel fittings.
+
+The water ran off from the shallow marble basin through an open drain
+under the wall. The bed was of brass and looked comfortable. There was a
+big steamer chair drawn invitingly near the window which opened into the
+court, or garden, around which the house was built.
+
+The style of the building was Spanish, or Mexican. A fountain played in
+the court and there were trees growing there, among the branches of
+which a few lanterns were lit, like huge fireflies.
+
+In passing back to the front porch of the ranch-house (farther south it
+would have been called _hacienda_) Pratt noted Spanish and Aztec
+armor hanging on the walls; high-backed, carven chairs of black oak,
+mahogany, and other heavy woods; weapons of both modern and ancient
+Indian manufacture, and those of the style used by Cortez and his
+cohorts when they marched on the capital city of the great Montezuma.
+
+In a glass-fronted case, too, hung a brilliant cloak of parakeet
+feathers such as were worn by the Aztec nobles. Lights had been lit in
+the hall since he had arrived and the treasures were now revealed for
+the first time to the startled eye of the visitor.
+
+The sight of these things partially prepared him for the change in
+Frances' appearance. Her smooth brown skin and her veiled eyes were the
+same. She still wore her hair in girlish plaits. She was quite the
+simple, unaffected girl of sixteen. But her dress was white, of some
+soft and filmy material which looked to the young fellow like spider's
+web in the moonlight. It was cut a little low at the throat; her arms
+were bared to the elbow. She wore a heavy, glittering belt of alternate
+red-gold links and green stones, and on one arm a massive, wrought-gold
+bracelet--a serpent with turquoise eyes.
+
+"Frances is out in her warpaint," chuckled Captain Rugley's mellow voice
+from the shadow, where he was tipped back in his chair again.
+
+"You gave me these things out of your treasure chest, Daddy, to wear
+when we had company," said the girl, quite calmly.
+
+She wore the barbarous ornaments with an air of dignity. They seemed to
+suit her, young as she was. And Pratt knew that the girdle and bracelet
+must be enormously valuable as well as enormously old.
+
+The expression "treasure chest" was so odd that it stuck in the young
+man's mind. He was very curious as to what it meant, and determined,
+when he knew Frances better, to ask about it.
+
+A little silence had fallen after the girl's speech. Then Captain Rugley
+started forward suddenly and the forelegs of his chair came sharply to
+the planks.
+
+"Hello!" he said, into the darkness outside the radiance of the porch
+light. "Who's there?"
+
+Frances fluttered out of her chair. Pratt noted that she slipped into
+the shadow. Neither she nor the Captain had been sitting in the full
+radiance of the lamp.
+
+The visitor had heard nothing; but he knew that the old ranchman was
+leaning forward listening intently.
+
+"Who's there?" the captain demanded again.
+
+"Don't shoot, neighbor!" said a hoarse voice out of the darkness. "I'm
+jest a-paddin' of it Amarillo way. Can I get a flop-down and a bite
+here?"
+
+"Only a tramp, Dad," breathed Frances, with a sigh.
+
+"How did you get into this compound?" demanded Captain Rugley, none the
+less suspiciously and sternly.
+
+"I come through an open gate. It's so 'tarnal dark, neighbor----"
+
+"You see those lights down yonder?" snapped the Captain. "They are at
+the bunk-house. Cook'll give you some chuck and a chance to spread your
+blanket. But don't you let me catch you around here too long after
+breakfast to-morrow morning. We don't encourage hobos, and we already
+have all the men hired for the season we want."
+
+"All right, neighbor," said the voice in the darkness, cheerfully--too
+cheerfully, in fact, Pratt Sanderson thought. An ordinary man--even one
+with the best intentions in the world--would have been offended by the
+Captain's brusk words.
+
+A stumbling foot went down the yard. Captain Rugley grunted, and might
+have said something explanatory, but just then Ming came softly to the
+door, whining:
+
+"Dlinner, Misse."
+
+"Guess Pratt's hungry, too," grunted the Captain, rising. "Let's go in
+and see what the neighbors have flung over the back fence."
+
+But sad as the joke was, all that Captain Rugley said seemed so
+open-hearted and kindly--save only when he was talking to the unknown
+tramp--that the guest could not consider him vulgar.
+
+The dining-room was long, massively furnished, well lit, and the
+sideboard exposed some rare pieces of old-fashioned silver. Two heavy
+candelabra--the loot of some old cathedral, and of Spanish
+manufacture--were set upon either end of the great serving table.
+
+All these treasures, found in the ranch-house of a cowman of the
+Panhandle, astounded the youth from Amarillo. Nothing Mrs. Bill Edwards
+had said of Frances of the ranges and her father had prepared him for
+this display.
+
+Captain Rugley saw his eyes wandering from one thing to the other as
+Ming served a perfect soup.
+
+"Just pick-ups over the Border," the old man explained, with a
+comprehensive wave of his hand toward the candelabra and other articles
+of value. "I and a partner of mine, when we were in the Rangers years
+and years ago, raided over into Mexico and brought back the bulk of
+these things.
+
+"We cached them down in Arizona till after I was married and built this
+ranch-house. Poor Lon! Never have heard what became of him. I've got his
+share of the treasure out of old Don Milo Morales' _hacienda_ right
+here. When he comes for it we'll divide. But I haven't heard from Lon
+since long before Frances, here, was born."
+
+This was just explanation enough to whet the curiosity of Pratt. Talk of
+the Texas Rangers, and raiding over the Border, and looting a Mexican
+_hacienda_, was bound to set the young man's imagination to work.
+
+But the dinner, as it was served in courses, took up Pratt's present
+attention almost entirely. Never--not even when he took dinner at the
+home of the president of the bank in Amarillo--had he eaten so
+well-cooked and well-served a meal.
+
+Despite his commonplace speech, Captain Rugley displayed a familiarity
+with the niceties of table etiquette that surprised the guest. Frances'
+mother had come from the East and from a family that had been used to
+the best for generations. And the old ranchman, in middle age, had set
+himself the task of learning the niceties of table manners to please
+her.
+
+He had never fallen back into the old, careless ways after Frances'
+mother died. He ate to-night in black clothes and a soft, white shirt in
+the bosom of which was a big diamond. Although he had sat on the veranda
+without a coat--contrary to his doctor's orders--he had slipped one on
+when he came to the table and, with his neatly combed hair, freshly
+shaven face, and well-brushed mustache, looked well groomed indeed.
+
+He would have been a bizarre figure at a city table; nevertheless, he
+presided at his own board with dignity, and was a splendid foil for the
+charming figure of Frances opposite.
+
+In the midst of the repast the Captain said, suddenly, to the
+soft-footed Chinaman:
+
+"Ming! telephone down to Sam at the bunk-house and see if a hobo has
+just struck there, on his way to Amarillo. I told him he could get chuck
+and a sleep. Savvy?"
+
+"Jes so, Clapen," said Ming, softly, and shuffled out.
+
+It was evident that the tramp was on the Captain's mind. Pratt believed
+there must be some special reason for the old ranchman's worrying over
+marauders about the Bar-T.
+
+There was nothing to mar the friendliness of the dinner, however; not
+even when Ming slipped back and said in a low voice to the Captain:
+
+"Him Slilent Slam say no hobo come to blunk-house."
+
+They finished the meal leisurely; but on rising from the table Captain
+Rugley removed a heavy belt and holster from its hook behind the
+sideboard and slung it about his hips.
+
+Withdrawing the revolver, he spun the cylinder, made sure that it was
+filled, and slipped it back in the holster. All this was done quite as a
+matter of course. Frances made no comment, nor did she seem surprised.
+
+The three went back to the porch for a little while, although the night
+air was growing chill. Frances insisted that her father wear his coat,
+and they both sat out of the brighter radiance of the hanging lamp.
+
+She and her guest were talking about the forthcoming pageant at the
+Jackleg schoolhouse. Pratt had begun to feel enthusiastic over it as he
+learned more of the particulars.
+
+"People scarcely realize," said Frances, "that this Panhandle of ours
+has a history as ancient as St. Augustine, Florida. And _that_, you
+know, is called the oldest white settlement in these United States.
+
+"Long, long ago the Spanish explorers, with Indian guides whom they had
+enslaved, made a path through the swarming buffaloes up this way and
+called the country _Llano Estacada_, the staked plain. Our
+geographers misapplied the name 'Desert' to this vast country; but
+Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma threw off that designation because it was
+proven that the rains fell more often than was reported."
+
+"What has built up those states," said Pratt, with a smile, "is farming,
+not cattle."
+
+The Captain grunted, for he had been listening to the conversation.
+
+"You ought to have seen those first hayseeds that tried to turn the
+ranges into posy beds and wheat fields," he chuckled. "They got all that
+was coming to them--believe me!"
+
+Frances laughed. "Daddy is still unconverted. He does not believe that
+the Panhandle is fit for anything but cattle. But he's going to let me
+have two hundred acres to plow and sow to wheat--he's promised."
+
+The Captain grunted again.
+
+"And last year we grew a hundred acres of milo maize and feterita.
+Helped on the winter feed--didn't it, Daddy?" and she laughed.
+
+"Got me there, Frances--got me there," admitted the old ranchman. "But I
+don't hope to live long enough to see the Bar-T raising more wheat than
+steers."
+
+"No. It's stock-raising we want to follow, I believe," said the girl,
+calmly. "We must raise feed for our steers, fatten them in fenced
+pastures, and ship them more quickly."
+
+"My goodness!" exclaimed Pratt, admiringly, "you talk as though you
+understood all about it, Miss Frances."
+
+"I think I _do_ know something about the new conditions that face
+us ranchers of the Panhandle," the girl said, quietly. "And why
+shouldn't I? I have been hearing it talked about, and thinking of it
+myself, ever since I can remember."
+
+Secretly Pratt thought she must have given her attention to something
+beside the ranch work and cattle-raising. Of this he was assured when
+they went inside later, and Frances sat down to the piano. The
+instrument was in a big room with a bare, polished floor. It was
+evidently used for dancing. There was a talking machine as well as a
+piano. The girl played the latter very nicely indeed. There were a few
+scratches on the floor of the room, and she saw Pratt looking at them.
+
+"I told Ratty M'Gill he shouldn't come in here with the rest of the boys
+to dance if he didn't take his spurs off," she said. "We have an
+old-time hoe-down for the boys pretty nearly every week, when we're not
+too rushed on the ranch. It keeps 'em better contented and away from the
+towns on pay-days."
+
+"Are the cowpunchers just the same as they used to be?" asked Pratt. "Do
+they go to town and blow it wide open on pay-nights?"
+
+"Not much. We have a good sheriff. But it wasn't so long ago that your
+fancy little city of Amarillo was nothing but a cattleman's town. I'm
+going to have a representation of old Amarillo in our pageant--you'll
+see. It will be true to life, too, for some of the very people who take
+part in our play lived in Amarillo at the time when the sight of a high
+hat would draw a fusillade of bullets from the door of every saloon and
+dance-hall."
+
+"Don't!" gasped Pratt. "Was Amarillo ever like _that_?"
+
+"And not twenty years ago," laughed Frances. "It had a few hundred
+inhabitants--and most of them ruffians. Now it claims ten thousand, has
+bricked streets that used to be cow trails, electric lights, a
+street-car service, and all the comforts and culture of an 'effete
+East.'"
+
+Pratt laughed, too. "It's a mighty comfortable place to live in--beside
+Bill Edwards' ranch, for instance. But I notice here at the Bar-T you
+have a great many of the despised Eastern luxuries."
+
+"'Do-funnies' daddy calls them," said Frances, smiling. "Ah! here he
+is."
+
+The old ranchman came in, the holstered pistol still slung at his hip.
+
+"All secure for the night, Daddy?" she asked, looking at him tenderly.
+
+"Locked, barred, and bolted," returned her father. "I tell you, Pratt,
+we're something of a fort here when we go to bed. The court's free to
+you; but don't try to get out till Ming opens up in the morning. You
+see, we're some distance from the bunk-house, and nobody but the two
+Chinks are here with us now."
+
+"I see, sir," said Pratt.
+
+But he did not see; he wondered. And he wondered more when, after
+separating from Frances for the night, he found his way through the hall
+to the door of the room that had been assigned to him for his use.
+
+On the other side of the hall was another door, open more than a crack,
+with a light shining behind it. Pratt's curiosity got the better of him
+and he peeped.
+
+Captain Dan Rugley was standing in the middle of the almost bare room,
+before an old dark, Spanish chest. He had a bunch of keys in one hand
+and in the other dangled the ancient girdle and the bracelet Frances had
+worn.
+
+"That must be the 'treasure chest' she spoke of," thought the youth.
+"And it looks it! Old, old, wrought-iron work trimmings of Spanish
+design. What a huge old lock! My! it would take a stick of dynamite to
+blow that thing open if one hadn't the key."
+
+The Captain moved quickly, turning toward the door. Pratt dodged
+back--then crept silently away, down the hall. He did not know that the
+eye of the old ranchman watched him keenly through the crack of the
+door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+Frances looked through her barred window, out over the fenced yard, and
+down to the few twinkling watch-lights at the men's quarters. All the
+second-story windows of the ranch-house, overlooking the porch roof,
+were barred with iron rods set in the cement, like those on the first
+floor. The Bar-T ranch-house was a veritable fort.
+
+There was a reason for this that the girl did not entirely understand,
+although her father often hinted at it. His stories of his adventures as
+a Texas Ranger, and over the Border into Mexico, amused her; but they
+had not impressed her much. Perhaps, because the Captain always skimmed
+over the particulars of those desperate adventures which had so spiced
+his early years--those years before the gentle influence of Frances'
+mother came into his life.
+
+He had mentioned his partner, "Lon," on this evening. But he seldom
+particularized about him.
+
+Frances could not remember when her father had gone into Arizona and
+returned from thence with a wagon-train loaded with many of the most
+beautiful of their household possessions. It was when she was a very
+little girl.
+
+With the other things, Captain Rugley had brought back the old Spanish
+chest which he guarded so anxiously. She did not know what was in the
+chest--not all its treasures. It was the one secret her father kept from
+her.
+
+Out of it he brought certain barbarous ornaments that he allowed her to
+wear now and then. She was as much enamored of jewelry and beautiful
+adornments as other girls, was Frances of the ranges.
+
+There was perfect trust between her father and herself; but not perfect
+confidence. No more than Pratt Sanderson, for instance, did she know
+just how the old ranchman had become possessed of the great store of
+Indian and Spanish ornaments, or of the old Spanish chest.
+
+Certain she was that he could not have obtained them in a manner to
+wrong anybody else. He spoke of them as "the loot of old Don Milo
+Morales' _hacienda_"; but Frances knew well enough that her good
+father, Captain Dan Rugley, had been no land pirate, no so-called Border
+ruffian, who had robbed some peaceful Spanish ranch-owner across the Rio
+Grande of his possessions.
+
+Frances was a bit worried to-night. There were two topics of thought
+that disturbed her.
+
+Motherless, and with few female friends even, she had been shut away
+with her own girlish thoughts and fears and wonderings more than most
+girls of her age. Life was a mystery to her. She lived in books and in
+romances and in imagination's pictures more than she did in the workaday
+world about her.
+
+There seems to be little romance attached to the everyday lives we live,
+no matter how we are situated. The most dreary and uncolored existence,
+in all probability, there is in the world to-day is the daily life of a
+real prince or princess. We look longingly over the fence of our desires
+and consider all sorts and conditions of people outside as happier and
+far better off than we.
+
+That was the way it was with Frances. Especially on this particular
+night.
+
+Her unexpected meeting with Pratt Sanderson had brought to her heart and
+mind more strongly than for months her experiences in Amarillo. She
+remembered her school days, her school fellows, and the difference
+between their lives and that which she lived at present.
+
+Probably half the girls she had known at school would be delighted (or
+thought they would) to change places with Frances of the ranges, right
+then. But the ranch girl thought how much better off she would be if she
+were continuing her education under the care of people who could place
+her in a more cultivated life.
+
+Not that she was disloyal, even in thought, to her father. She loved him
+intensely--passionately! But the life of the ranges, after her taste of
+school and association with cultivated people, could not be entirely
+satisfactory.
+
+So she sat, huddled in a white wool wrapper, by the barred, open window,
+looking out across the plain. Only for the few lights at the corrals and
+bunk-house, it seemed a great, horizonless sea of darkness--for there
+was no moon and a haze had enveloped the high stars since twilight.
+
+No sound came to her ears at first. There is nothing so soundless as
+night on the plains--unless there be beasts near, either tamed or wild.
+
+No coyote slunk about the ranch-house. The horses were still in the
+corrals. The cattle were all too far distant to be heard. Not even the
+song of a sleepy puncher, as he wheeled around the herd, drifted to the
+barred window of Frances' room.
+
+Her second topic for thought was her father's evident expectation that
+the ranch-house might be attacked. Every stranger was an object of
+suspicion to him.
+
+This did not abate one jot his natural Western hospitality. As mark his
+open-handed reception of Pratt Sanderson on this evening. They kept open
+house at the Bar-T ranch. But after dark--or, after bedtime at
+least--the place was barred like a fort in the Indian country!
+
+Captain Rugley never went to his bed save after making the rounds, armed
+as he had been to-night, with Ming to bolt the doors. The only way a
+marauder could get into the inner court was by climbing the walls and
+getting over the roof, and as the latter extended four feet beyond the
+second-story walls, such a feat was well-nigh impossible.
+
+The cement walls themselves were so thick that they seemed impregnable
+even to cannon. The roof was of slates. And, as has been pointed out
+already, all the outer first-floor windows, and all those reached from
+the porch roof, were barred.
+
+Frances knew that her father had been seriously troubled to-night by the
+appearance of the strange and unseen tramp in the yard, and the fact
+that the arrival of that same individual had not been reported from the
+men's quarters.
+
+Captain Rugley telephoned and learned from his foreman, Silent Sam
+Harding, that nobody had come to the bunk-house that night asking for
+lodging and food.
+
+Frances was about to seek her bed. She yawned, curled her bare toes up
+closer in the robe, and shivered luxuriously as the night air breathed
+in upon her. In another moment she would pop in between the blankets and
+cuddle down----
+
+Something snapped! It was outside, not in!
+
+Frances was wide awake on the instant. Her eyelids that had been so
+drowsy were propped apart--not by fear, but by excitement.
+
+She had lived a life which had sharpened her physical perceptions to a
+fine point. She had no trouble in locating the sound that had so
+startled her. Somebody was climbing the vine at the corner of the
+veranda roof, not twenty feet from her window. She crouched back, well
+sheltered in the shadow, but able to see anything that appeared
+silhouetted between her window and the dark curtain of the night.
+
+There was no light in the room behind her; indeed every lamp in the
+ranch-house had been extinguished some time before. It was evident that
+this marauder--whoever he was--had waited for the quietude of sleep to
+fall upon the place.
+
+Back in the room at the head of Frances' bed hung her belt with the
+holster pistol she wore when riding about the ranges. In these days it
+was considered perfectly safe for a girl to ride alone, save that
+coyotes sometimes came within range, or such a savage creature as had
+been the introduction of Pratt Sanderson and herself so recently. It was
+the duty of everybody on the ranges to shoot and kill these "varmints,"
+if they could.
+
+Frances did not even think of this weapon now. She did not fear the
+unknown; only that the mystery of the night, and of his secret pursuit,
+surrounded him. Who could he be? What was he after? Should she run to
+awaken her father, or wait to observe his appearance above the edge of
+the veranda roof?
+
+A dried stick of the vine snapped again. There was a squirming figure on
+the very edge of the roof. Frances knew that the unknown lay there,
+panting, after his exertions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE SHADOW IN THE COURT
+
+
+A dozen things she _might_ have done afterward appealed to Frances
+Rugley. But as she crouched by her chamber window watching the squirming
+human figure on the edge of the roof, she was interested in only one
+thing:
+
+_Who was he?_
+
+This question so filled her thought that she was neither fearful nor
+anxious. Curiosity controlled her actions entirely for the few next
+minutes. And so she observed the marauder rise up, carefully balance
+himself on the slates of the veranda roof, and tiptoe away to the corner
+of the house. He did not come near her window; nor could she see his
+face. His outlines were barely visible as he drifted into the shadow at
+the corner--soundless of step now. Only the cracking of the dry branch,
+as he climbed up, had betrayed him.
+
+"I wish he had come this way," thought Frances. "I might have seen what
+he looked like. Surely, we have no man on the ranch who would do such a
+thing. Can it be that father is right? Did the fellow who hailed us
+to-night come here to the Bar-T for some bad purpose?"
+
+She waited several minutes by her window. Then she bethought her that
+there was a window at the end of a cross-hall on the side of the house
+where the man had disappeared, out of which she might catch another
+glimpse of him.
+
+So she thrust her bare feet into slippers, tied the robe more firmly
+about her, and hurried out of the room. Nor did she think now of the
+charged weapon hanging at the head of her bed.
+
+She believed nobody would be astir in the great house. The Chinamen
+slept at the extreme rear over the kitchen. Their guest, Pratt
+Sanderson, was on the lower floor and at the opposite side, with his
+windows opening upon the court around which the _hacienda_ was
+built.
+
+Captain Rugley's rooms were below, too. Frances knew herself to be alone
+in this part of the house.
+
+Nothing had ever happened to Frances Rugley to really terrify her. Why
+should she be afraid now? She walked swiftly, her robe trailing behind,
+her slippered feet twinkling in and out under the nightgown she wore. In
+the cross-hall she almost ran. There, at the end, was the open window.
+Indeed, there were no sashes in these hall windows at this time of year;
+only the bars.
+
+The night air breathed in upon her. Was that a rustling just outside the
+bars? There was no light behind her and she did not fear being seen from
+without.
+
+Tiptoeing, she came to the sill. Her ears were quick to distinguish
+sounds of any character. There _was_ a strange, faint creaking not
+far from that wide-open casement. She could not thrust her head between
+the bars now (she remembered vividly the last time she had done that and
+got stuck, and had to shriek for Daddy to come and help her out), but
+she could press her face close against them and stare into the blackness
+of the outer world.
+
+There! something stirred. Her eyes, growing more accustomed to the
+darkness, caught the shadow of something writhing in the air.
+
+What could it be? Was it alive? A man, or----
+
+Then the bulk of it passed higher, and the strange creaking sound was
+renewed. Frances almost cried aloud!
+
+It was the man she had before seen. He was mounting directly into the
+air. The over-thrust of the ranch-house roof made the shadow very thick
+against the house-wall. The man was swinging in the air just beyond this
+deeper shadow.
+
+"What can he be doing?" Frances thought.
+
+She had almost spoken the question aloud. But she did not want to
+startle him--not yet.
+
+First, she must learn what he was about. Then she would run and tell her
+father. This night raider was dangerous--there was no doubt of that.
+
+"Oh!" quavered Frances, suddenly, and under her breath. The uncertain
+bulk of the man hanging in the air had disappeared!
+
+For a minute she could not understand. He had disappeared like magic.
+His very corporeal body--and she noted that it had been bulky when she
+first saw him roll over the edge of the veranda roof and sit up--had
+melted into thin air.
+
+And then she saw something swinging, pendulum-like, before her. She
+thrust an arm between the bars and seized the thing. It was a rope
+ladder.
+
+The whole matter, then, was as plain as daylight. The man had climbed to
+the porch roof, with the rope ladder wound around his body. That was
+what had made him seem so bulky.
+
+Selecting this spot as a favorable one, he had flung the grappling-hook
+over the eaves. There must be some break in the slates which held the
+hook. Once fastened there, the man had quickly worked his way up to the
+roof, and Frances had arrived just in time to see him squirm out of
+sight.
+
+There were a dozen questions in Frances' mind. How did he get here? Who
+was he? What did he want? Was he the man Captain Rugley had seemed to be
+expecting to try to make a raid upon the ranch-house? Was he alone? How
+did he know he could make the hook of his ladder fast at this point? Was
+there a traitor about who had broken a slate in the roof? Or was the
+broken place the result of an accident, and the marauder had noted it by
+daylight from the ground?
+
+Question after question flashed through her mind. But there was one
+query far more important than all the others:
+
+Where was the man going over the roof?
+
+Frances let the ladder swing away from her clutch again. If she held it
+the fellow above might become alarmed.
+
+She turned from the window and darted back along the hall. At the end
+was a door leading out onto the balcony which surrounded the inner court
+of the house at the level of the second story. The roof sloped out from
+the main wall of the building at this inner side, just as it did in
+front--indeed, the eaves were even longer. But the pillars of the
+balcony met the overhang at its verge, making it very easy indeed for an
+active person to swarm down from the roof.
+
+Once on the balcony, the interior of the house was open to a marauder by
+a dozen doors, while there were likewise two flights of stairs
+descending directly into the court.
+
+There were no lamps in the court now. It was a well, filled with grey
+shadows. Frances leaned over the balustrade and heard no sound. She
+looked up. The edge of the roof was a sharply defined line against the
+lighter background of the sky. But there was no moving figure
+silhouetted against that background.
+
+Where had the man gone who had climbed the rope ladder? He could not so
+quickly have descended into the court; Frances was positive of that.
+
+She shivered a little. There was something quite disturbing about this
+mysterious marauder. She wished now she had aroused her father
+immediately on first descrying the man.
+
+She started around the gallery. Her father's room lay upon the other
+side of the house. She could reach his windows by descending the outside
+stairway there. Her slippered feet made no sound; the wool robe did not
+rustle. Had she been seen by anybody she might have been taken for a
+ghost. But the black shadow of the roof of the gallery swathed Frances
+about, and it would have taken keen eyes indeed to distinguish her form.
+
+Down the stair she sped. She was almost at its foot when something held
+her motionless again. She halted with a gasp, while before her, from the
+direction of the softly playing fountain, a figure drifted in.
+
+Frances held her breath. Was _this_ the man who had come over the
+roof of the house? Or was it another?
+
+She crouched silently behind the railing. The figure passed her, going
+toward her father's windows. She dared not whisper, for she did not
+think it bulky enough for her father's huge frame.
+
+On the trail of the figure she started, her heart palpitating with
+excitement, yet never for a moment considering her own peril.
+
+There were other bedrooms beside that of Captain Rugley in this
+direction. And there was that small apartment in which the old Spanish
+chest was so carefully locked.
+
+Captain Rugley never allowed the key of this door or the key of the
+chest to go out of his possession. He had always intimated that if a
+thief ever tried to break into the Bar-T ranch-house, he would first of
+all try to get at the treasure chest.
+
+There were plenty of valuable things scattered about the house, but they
+were bulky--hard for a thief to remove. Although Frances did not know
+just what her father's treasure consisted of, she believed it must be of
+such a nature that it could be removed by a thief.
+
+Frances, her eyes now well used to the gloom, hurried along in the wake
+of the drifting shadow, without sound. She came to the first window
+opening into her father's sleeping apartment. Like a wraith she glided
+in, believing at last that her duty was to awaken her father.
+
+But when she reached his bed she found it undisturbed. It seemed his
+pillow had not been lain upon that night. She felt swiftly over the
+smooth bed, and with growing alarm--not for herself, but alarm for the
+missing man.
+
+Where could he have gone? What had happened here since the lights went
+out and that mysterious marauder had come in over the ranch-house roof?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION
+
+
+Frances knew her way about her father's room in the dark as well as she
+did about her own. She knew where every piece of furniture stood. She
+knew where the chair was on which he carelessly threw his outer clothing
+at night.
+
+Like most men who for years have slept in the open, Captain Rugley did
+not remove all his clothing when he went to bed. He usually lay between
+blankets on the outside of his bed, with his boots and trousers ready to
+jump into at a moment's notice. Of some of the practices of his life on
+the plains, with the dome of heaven for a roof-tree, he could not be
+broken.
+
+She fumbled for the chair, and found it empty. She reached for the belt
+and holster which he usually hung on a hook at the head of the bed.
+They, too, were gone, and Frances felt relieved.
+
+She did not withdraw from the room through either of the long windows.
+Instead, she crept through her father's office and out of the door of
+that room into the great, main hall.
+
+Along this a little way was the door of the room to which Pratt
+Sanderson had been assigned, and that of the treasure room as well.
+
+Frances scarcely gave Pratt a thought. She presumed him far in the land
+of dreams. She did not take into consideration the fact that about now
+the scratches of the mountain lion would become painful, and Pratt
+correspondingly restless. Frances was mainly troubled by her father's
+absence from his room. Had he, too, seen the mysterious shadow in the
+court? Was he on the watch for a possible marauder?
+
+By feeling rather than eyesight she knew the door to the treasure room
+was closed. Was her father there?
+
+She doubled her fist and raised it to knock upon the panel. Then she
+hesitated. The slightest sound would ring through the silent house like
+an alarm of fire.
+
+Inclining her ear to the door, she listened. But the oak planking was
+thick and there was no crevice, now the portal was closed, through which
+any slight sound could penetrate. She could not have even distinguished
+the heavy breathing of a sleeping man behind the door.
+
+Uncertain, wondering, yet quite mistress of herself again, Frances went
+on along the corridor. Here was an open door before her into the court.
+Had that shadow she had seen come this way? she wondered.
+
+The hiss of a voice, almost in her ear, _did_ startle her:
+
+"My goodness! is it you, Miss Frances?"
+
+A clammy hand clutched her wrist. She knew that Pratt Sanderson must
+have been horribly wrought up and nervous, for he was trembling.
+
+"What is the matter? Why are you out of your bed, Pratt?" she asked,
+quite calmly.
+
+"I couldn't sleep. Fever in those scratches, I s'pose," said the young
+man. "I got up and went outside to get a drink at the fountain--and to
+bathe my face and wrists. Isn't it hot?"
+
+"You _are_ feverish," whispered Frances, cautiously. "Have you seen
+daddy?"
+
+"The Captain?" returned Pratt, wonderingly. "Oh, no. He isn't up, is
+he?"
+
+"He's not in his room----"
+
+"And you're not in yours," said Pratt, with a nervous laugh. "We all
+seem to be out of our beds at the hour when graveyards yawn, eh?"
+
+Frances had a reassuring laugh ready.
+
+"I think you would better go to bed again, Pratt," she said. "You--you
+saw nothing in the court?"
+
+"No. But I thought I heard a big bird overhead when I was splashing the
+water about out there. Imagination, of course," he added. "There are no
+big night-flying birds out here on the plains?"
+
+"Not that I know of," returned she.
+
+"I made some noise. I didn't know what it was I scared up. Seemed to be
+on the roof of the house."
+
+Frances thought of the mysterious man and his rope ladder. But she did
+not mention them to Pratt.
+
+"Put some more of father's salve on those scratches," she advised. "It's
+an Indian salve and very healing. He was taught by an old Indian
+medicine man to make it."
+
+"All right. Good-night, Miss Frances," said Pratt, and withdrew into his
+room, from which he had appeared so suddenly to accost her.
+
+Pratt's mention of "the bird on the roof" disturbed Frances a good deal.
+She turned to run back upstairs and learn if the ladder was still
+hanging from the eaves. But as she started to do so she realized that
+the door of the treasure room had been silently opened.
+
+"Frances!"
+
+"Oh, Dad!"
+
+"What are you running about the house for at this time o' night?" he
+demanded.
+
+She laughed rather hysterically. "Why are you out of your bed, sir--with
+your rheumatism?" she retorted.
+
+"Good reason. Thought I heard something," growled the Captain.
+
+"Good reason. Thought I _saw_ something," mocked Frances, seizing
+his arm.
+
+She stepped inside the room with him. He flashed an electric torch for a
+moment about the place. She saw he had a cot arranged at one side, and
+had evidently gone to bed here, beside the treasure chest.
+
+"Why is this, sir?" she demanded, with pretty seriousness.
+
+"Reckon the old man's getting nervous," said Captain Rugley. "Can't
+sleep in my reg'lar bed when there are strangers in the house."
+
+Frances started. "What do you mean?" she cried.
+
+"Well, there's that young man."
+
+"Why, Pratt is all right," declared Frances, confidently.
+
+"I don't know anything _for_ him--and do know one thing
+_against_ him," growled the old ranchman. "He's been up and about
+all night, so far. Weren't you just talking to him?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Dad! But Pratt is all right."
+
+"That's as may be. What was he doing wandering around that court?"
+
+"Oh, Dad! Don't worry about _him_. His arm and chest hurt him----"
+
+"Humph! didn't hurt him when he went to bed, did they? Yet he was
+sneaking along this hall and looking into this very room when the door
+was slightly ajar. I saw him," said the old ranchman, bitterly.
+
+Frances was amazed by this statement; but she realized that her father
+was oversuspicious regarding the interest of strangers in the old
+Spanish chest and its contents.
+
+"Never mind Pratt," she said. "I came downstairs to find you, Daddy,
+because there really _is_ a stranger about the house."
+
+"What do you mean, Frances?" was the sharp retort.
+
+The girl told him briefly about the man she had observed climbing up to
+the veranda roof, and later to the roof of the house by aid of the rope
+ladder.
+
+"And Pratt tells me he heard some sound up there. He thought it was a
+big bird," she concluded.
+
+"Come on!" said her father, hastily. "Let's see that ladder."
+
+He locked the door of the treasure room and strode up the main stairway.
+Frances kept close behind him and warned him to step softly--rather an
+unnecessary bit of advice to an old Indian trailer like Captain Rugley!
+
+But when they came to the window through which Frances had seen the
+dangling ladder it was gone. The old ranchman shot a ray of his electric
+torch through the opening; but the light revealed nothing.
+
+"Gone!" he announced, briefly.
+
+"Do--do you think so, Dad?"
+
+"Sure. Been scared off."
+
+"But what could he possibly want--climbing up over our roof, and all
+that?"
+
+Captain Rugley stood still and stroked his chin reflectively. "I reckon
+I know what they're after----
+
+"They? But, Daddy, there was only one man."
+
+"One that was coming over the roof," said her father. "But he had
+pals--sure he did! If one of them wasn't in the house----"
+
+"Why, Dad!" exclaimed Frances, in wonder.
+
+"You can't always tell," said the old ranchman, slowly. "There's a heap
+of valuables in that chest. Of course, they don't all belong to me," he
+added, hastily. "My partner, Lon, has equal rights in 'em--don't ever
+forget that, Frances, if something should happen to me."
+
+"Why, Dad! how you talk!" she exclaimed.
+
+"We can never tell," sighed her father. "Treasure is tempting. And it
+looks to me as though this fellow who climbed over the roof expected to
+find somebody inside to help him. That's the way it looks to me," he
+repeated, shaking his head obstinately.
+
+"Dear Dad! you don't mean that you think Pratt Sanderson would do such a
+thing?" said Frances, in a horrified tone.
+
+"We don't know him."
+
+"But his coming here to the Bar-T was unexpected. I urged him to come.
+That lion really scratched him----"
+
+"Yes. It doesn't look reasonable, I allow," admitted her father; but she
+could see he was not convinced of the honesty of Pratt Sanderson.
+
+There was a difference of opinion between Frances and Captain Rugley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE STAMPEDE
+
+
+The remainder of the night passed in quietness. That there really had
+been a marauder about the Bar-T ranch-house could not be doubted; for a
+slate was found upon the ground in the morning, and the place in the
+roof where it had been broken out was plainly visible.
+
+Captain Rugley sent one of the men up with a ladder and new slates to
+repair the damage. He reported that the marks of the grappling-hook in
+the roof sheathing were unmistakable, too.
+
+Although her father had expressed himself as doubtful of the good
+intentions of Pratt Sanderson, Frances was glad to see at breakfast that
+he treated the young man no differently than before. Pratt slept late
+and the meal was held back for him.
+
+"The attentions of that old mountain lion bothered me so that I did not
+sleep much the fore part of the night," Pratt explained.
+
+"How about that bird you heard on the roof?" the Captain asked, calmly.
+
+"I don't know what it was. It sounded like big wings flapping," the
+young fellow explained. "But I really didn't see anything."
+
+Captain Rugley grunted, and said no more. He grunted a good deal this
+morning, in fact, for every movement gave him pain.
+
+"The rheumatism has got its fangs set in me right, this time," he told
+Frances.
+
+"That's for being out of your warm bed and chasing all over the house
+without a coat on in the night," she said, admonishingly.
+
+"Goodness!" said her father. "Must I be _that_ particular? If so, I
+_am_ getting old, I reckon."
+
+She made him promise to keep out of draughts when she mounted Molly to
+ride away on an errand to a distant part of the ranch. She rode off with
+Pratt Sanderson, for he was traveling in the same direction, toward Mr.
+Bill Edwards' place.
+
+Frances of the ranges was more silent than she had been when they rode
+together the night before. Pratt found it hard to get into conversation
+with her on any but the most ephemeral subjects.
+
+For instance, when he hinted about Captain Rugley's adventures on the
+Border:
+
+"Your father is a very interesting talker. He has seen and done so
+much."
+
+"Yes," said Frances.
+
+"And how adventurous his life must have been! I'd love to get him in a
+story-telling mood some day."
+
+"He doesn't talk much about old times."
+
+"But, of course, you know all about his adventures as a Ranger, and his
+trips into Mexico?"
+
+"No," said Frances.
+
+"Why! he spoke last night as though he often talked about it. About the
+looting of---- Who was the old Spanish grandee he mentioned?"
+
+"I know very little about it, Pratt," fluttered Frances. "That's just
+dad's talk."
+
+"But that gorgeous girdle and bracelet you wore!"
+
+Frances secretly determined not to wear jewelry from the treasure chest
+again. She had never thought before about its causing comment and
+conjecture in the minds of people who did not know her father as well as
+she did.
+
+Suppose people believed that Captain Dan Rugley had actually stolen
+those things in some raid into Mexico? Such a thought had never troubled
+her before. But she could see, now, that strangers might misjudge her
+father. He talked so recklessly about his old life on the Border that he
+might easily cause those who did not know him to believe that not alone
+the contents of that mysterious treasure chest but his other wealth was
+gained by questionable means.
+
+Fortunately, a herd of steers, crossing from one of the extreme southern
+ranges of the Bar-T to the north where juicier grass grew, attracted the
+attention of the guest from Amarillo.
+
+"Are those all yours, Frances?" he asked, when he saw the mass of dark
+bodies and tossing horns that appeared through rifts in the dust cloud
+that accompanies a driven herd even over sod-land.
+
+"My father's," she corrected, smiling. "And only a small herd. Not more
+than two thousand head in that bunch."
+
+"I'd call two thousand cows a whole lot," Pratt sighed.
+
+"Not for us. Remember, the Bar-T has been in the past one of the great
+cattle ranches of the West. Daddy is getting old now and cannot attend
+to so much work."
+
+"But you seem to know all about it," said Pratt, with enthusiasm. "Don't
+you really do all the overseeing for him?"
+
+"Oh, no!" laughed Frances. "Not at all. Silent Sam is the ranch manager.
+I just do what either dad or Sam tell me. I'm just errand girl for the
+whole ranch."
+
+But Pratt knew better than that. He saw now that she was watching the
+oncoming mass of steers with a frown of annoyance. Something was going
+wrong and Frances was troubled.
+
+"What's the matter?" he asked, curiously.
+
+"I thought that was Ratty M'Gill with that bunch," Frances answered,
+more as though thinking aloud than consciously answering Pratt's
+question. "The rascal! He'd run all the fat off a bunch of cows between
+pastures."
+
+She pulled Molly around and headed the pinto for the herd. It was not in
+his way, but Pratt followed her example and rode his grey hard after the
+cowgirl.
+
+Not a herdsman was in sight. The steers were coming on through the dust,
+sweating and steaming, evidently having been driven very hard since
+daybreak. Occasionally one bawled an angry protest; but those in front
+were being forced on by the rear ranks, which in turn were being
+harassed by the punchers in charge.
+
+Suddenly, a bald-faced steer shot out of the ruck of the herd, darting
+at right angles to the course. For a little way a steer can run as fast
+as a race-horse. That's why the creatures are so very hard to manage on
+occasion.
+
+To Pratt, who was watching sharply, it was a question which got into
+action first--Frances or her wise little pinto. He did not see the girl
+speak to Molly; but the pony turned like a shot and whirled away after
+the careering steer. At the same moment, it seemed, Frances had her hair
+rope in her hand.
+
+The coils began to whirl around her head. The pinto was running like the
+wind. The bald-faced, ugly-looking brute of a steer was soon running
+neck and neck with the well-mounted girl.
+
+Pratt followed. He was more interested in the outcome of the chase than
+he was in where his grey was putting his feet.
+
+There was an eerie yell behind them. Pratt saw a wild-looking, hatless
+cowboy racing a black pony toward them. The whole herd seemed to have
+been turned in some miraculous way, and was thundering after Old
+Baldface and the girl.
+
+Pratt began to wonder if there was not danger. He had heard of a
+stampede, and it looked to him as though the bunch of steers was quite
+out of hand. Had he been alone, he would have pulled out and let the
+herd go by.
+
+But either Frances did not see them coming, or she did not care. She was
+after that bald-faced steer, and in a moment she had him.
+
+The whirling noose dropped and in some wonderful way settled over a horn
+and one of the steer's forefeet. When Molly stopped and braced herself,
+the steer pitched forward, turned a complete somersault, and lay on the
+prairie at the mercy of his captor.
+
+"Hurray!" yelled Pratt, swinging his hat.
+
+He was riding recklessly himself. He had seen a half-tamed steer roped
+and tied at an Amarillo street fair; but _that_ was nothing like
+this. It had all been so easy, so matter-of-fact! No display at all
+about the girl's work; but just as though she could do it again, and yet
+again, as often as the emergency arose.
+
+Frances cast a glowing smile over her shoulder at him, as she lay back
+in the saddle and let Molly hold Old Baldface in durance. But suddenly
+her face changed--a flash of amazed comprehension chased the triumphant
+smile away. She opened her lips to shout something to Pratt--some
+warning. And at that instant the grey put his foot into a ground-dog
+hole, and the young man from Amarillo left the saddle!
+
+He described a perfect parabola and landed on his head and shoulders on
+the ground. The grey scrambled up and shot away at a tangent, out of the
+course of the herd of thundering steers. He was not really hurt.
+
+But his rider lay still for a moment on the prairie. Pratt Sanderson was
+certainly "playing in hard luck" during his vacation on the ranges.
+
+The mere losing of his mount was not so bad; but the steers had really
+stampeded, and he lay, half-stunned, directly in the path of the herd.
+
+Old Baldface struggled to rise and seized upon the girl's attention. She
+used the rope in a most expert fashion, catching his other foreleg in a
+loop, and then catching one of his hind legs, too. He was secured as
+safely as a fly in a spider-web.
+
+Frances was out of her saddle the next moment, and ran back to where
+Pratt lay. She knew Molly would remain fixed in the place she was left,
+and sagging back on the rope.
+
+The girl seized the young man under his armpits and started to drag him
+toward the fallen steer. The bulk of Old Baldface would prove a
+protection for them. The herd would break and swerve to either side of
+the big steer.
+
+But one thing went wrong in Frances' calculations. Her rope slipped at
+the saddle. For some reason it was not fastened securely.
+
+The straining Molly went over backward, kicking and squealing as the
+rope gave way, and the big steer began to struggle to his feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+IN PERIL AND OUT
+
+
+Pratt Sanderson had begun to realize the situation. As Frances' pony
+fell and squealed, he scrambled to his knees.
+
+"Save yourself, Frances!" he cried. "I am all right."
+
+She left him; but not because she believed his statement. The girl saw
+the bald-faced steer staggering to its feet, and she knew their
+salvation depended upon the holding of the bad-tempered brute.
+
+The stampeded herd was fast coming down upon them; afoot, she nor Pratt
+could scarcely escape the hoofs and horns of the cattle.
+
+She saw Ratty M'Gill on the black pony flying ahead of the steers; but
+what could one man do to turn two thousand head of wild cattle? Frances
+of the ranges had appreciated the peril which threatened to the full and
+at first glance.
+
+The prostrate carcase of the huge steer would serve to break the wave of
+cattle due to pass over this spot within a very few moments. If Baldface
+got up, shook off the entangling rope and ran, Frances and Pratt would
+be utterly helpless.
+
+Once under the hoofs of the herd, they would be pounded into the prairie
+like powder, before the tail of the stampede had passed.
+
+Frances, seeing the attempts of the big steer to climb to its feet, ran
+forward and seized the rope that had slipped through the ring of her
+saddle. She drew in the slack at once; but her strength was not
+sufficient to drag the steer back to earth.
+
+Snorting and bellowing, the huge beast was all but on his feet when
+Pratt Sanderson reached the girl's side.
+
+Pratt was staggering, for the shock of his fall had been severe. He
+understood her, however, when she cried:
+
+"Jump on it, Pratt! Jump on it!"
+
+The young man leaped, landing with both feet on the taut rope. Frances,
+at the same instant, threw herself backward, digging her heels into the
+sod.
+
+The shock of the tightening of the rope, therefore, fell upon the steer.
+Down he went bellowing angrily, for he had not cast off the noose that
+entangled him.
+
+"Don't let him get loose, Pratt! Stand on the rope!" commanded Frances.
+
+With the slack of the lariat she ran forward, caught a kicking hind
+foot, then entangled one of the beast's forefeet, and drew both together
+with all her strength. The bellowing steer was now doubly entangled; but
+he was not secure, and well did Frances know it.
+
+She ran in closer, although Pratt cried out in warning, and looped the
+rope over the brute's other horn. Slipping the end of her rope through
+the loop that held his feet together, Frances got a purchase by which
+she could pull the great head of the beast aside and downward, thus
+holding him helpless. It was impossible for him to get up after he was
+thus secured.
+
+"Got him! Quick, Pratt, this way!" Frances panted.
+
+She beckoned to the Amarillo young man, and the latter instantly joined
+her. She had conquered the steer in a few seconds; the herd was now
+thundering down upon them. M'Gill, on the black pony, dashed by.
+
+"Bully for you, Miss Frances," he yelled.
+
+"You wait, Ratty!" Frances said; but, of course, only Pratt heard.
+"Father and Sam will jack you up for this, and no mistake!"
+
+Then she whipped out her revolver and fired it into the air--emptying
+all the chambers as the herd came on.
+
+The steers broke and passed on either side of their fallen brother. The
+tossing horns, fiery eyes and red, expanded nostrils made them look--to
+Pratt's mind--fully as savage as had the mountain lion the evening
+before.
+
+Then he looked again at his comrade. She was only breathing quickly now;
+she gave no sign of fear. It was all in the day's work. Such adventures
+as this had been occasional occurrences with Frances of the ranges since
+childhood.
+
+Pratt could scarcely connect this alert, vigorous young girl with her
+who had sat at the piano in the ranch-house the previous evening!
+
+"You're a wonder!" murmured Pratt Sanderson, to himself. And then
+suddenly he broke out laughing.
+
+"What's tickling you, Pratt?" asked Frances, in her most matter-of-fact
+tone.
+
+"I was just wondering," the Amarillo young man replied, "what Sue Latrop
+will think of you when she comes out here."
+
+"Who's she?" asked Frances, a little puzzled frown marring her smooth
+forehead. She was trying to remember any girl of that name with whom she
+had gone to school at the Amarillo High.
+
+"Sue Latrop's a distant cousin of Mrs. Bill Edwards, and she's from
+Boston. She's Eastern to the tips of her fingers--and talk about
+'culchaw'! She has it to burn," chuckled Pratt. "Bill Edwards says she
+is just 'putting on dog' to show us natives how awfully crude we are.
+But I guess she doesn't know any better."
+
+The steers had swept by, and Pratt was just a little hysterical. He
+laughed too easily and his hand shook as he wiped the perspiration and
+dust from his face.
+
+"I shouldn't think she would be a nice girl at all," Frances said,
+bluntly.
+
+"Oh, she's not at all bad. Rather pretty and--my word--some dresser! No
+end of clothes she's brought with her. She's coming out to the Edwards
+ranch before long, and you'll probably see her."
+
+Frances bit her lip and said nothing for a moment. The big steer
+struggled again and groaned. The girl and Pratt were afoot and the
+stampede of cattle had swept their mounts away. Even Molly, the pinto,
+was out of call.
+
+The half dozen punchers who followed the maddened steers had no time for
+Frances and her companion. A great cloud of dust hung over the departing
+herd and that was the last the castaways on the prairie would see of
+either cattle or punchers that day.
+
+"We've got to walk, I reckon," Frances said, slowly.
+
+"How about this steer?" asked the young man, curiously.
+
+"I think he's tamed enough for the time," said the girl, with a smile.
+"Anyway I want my rope. It's a good one."
+
+She began to untangle the bald-faced steer. He struggled and grunted and
+tossed his wide, wicked horns free. To tell the truth Pratt was more
+than a little afraid of him. But he saw that Frances had reloaded the
+revolver she carried, and he merely stepped aside and waited. The girl
+knew so much better what to do that he could be of no assistance.
+
+"Now, Pratt," she said, at last, "stand from under! Hoop-la!"
+
+She swung the looped lariat and brought it down smartly upon the beast's
+back as it struggled to its shaking legs. The steer bellowed, shook
+himself like a dog coming out of the water, or a mule out of the
+harness, and trotted away briskly.
+
+"He'll follow the herd, I reckon," Frances said, smiling again. "If he
+doesn't they'll pick him out at the next round-up. His brand is too
+plain to miss."
+
+"And now we're afoot," said Pratt. "It's a long walk for you back to the
+house, Frances."
+
+"And longer for you to the Edwards ranch," she laughed. "But perhaps you
+will fall in with some of Mr. Bill's herders. They'll have an extra
+mount or two. I'll maybe catch Molly. She's a good pinto."
+
+"But oughtn't I to go back with you?" questioned Pratt, doubtfully. "You
+see--you're alone--and afoot----"
+
+"Why! it isn't the first time, Pratt," laughed the girl. "Don't fret
+about me. This range to me is just like your backyard to you."
+
+"I suppose it sounds silly," admitted Pratt. "But I haven't been used to
+seeing girls quite as independent as you are, Frances Rugley."
+
+"No? The girls you know don't live the sort of life I do," said the
+range girl, rather wistfully.
+
+"I don't know that they have anything on you," put in Pratt, stoutly. "I
+think you're just wonderful!"
+
+"Because I am doing something different from what you are used to seeing
+girls do," she said, with gravity. "That is no compliment, Pratt."
+
+"Well! I meant it as such," he said, earnestly. He offered his hand,
+knowing better than to urge his company upon her. "And I hope you know
+how much obliged to you I am. I feel as though you had saved my life
+twice. I would not have known what to do in the face of that stampede."
+
+"Every man to his trade," quoted Frances, carelessly. "Good-bye, Pratt.
+Come over again to see us," and she gave his hand a quick clasp and
+turned away briskly.
+
+He stood and watched her for some moments; then, fearing she might look
+back and see him, he faced around himself and set forth on his long
+tramp to the Edwards ranch.
+
+It was true Frances did not turn around; but she knew well enough Pratt
+gazed after her. He would have been amazed had he known her reason for
+showing no further interest in him--for not even turning to wave her
+hand at him in good-bye. There were tears on her cheeks, and she was
+afraid he would see them.
+
+"I am foolish--wicked!" she told herself. "Of course he knows other--and
+nicer--girls than _me_. And it isn't just that, either," she added,
+rather enigmatically. "But to remember all those girls I knew in
+Amarillo! How different their lives are from mine!
+
+"How different they must look and behave. Why, I'm a perfect
+_tomboy_. Pratt said I was wonderful--just as though I were a trick
+pony, or an educated goose!
+
+"I do things he never saw a girl do before, and he thinks it strange and
+odd. But if that Sue Latrop should see me and say that I was not nice,
+he'd begin to see, too, that it is a fact.
+
+"Riding with the boys here on the ranch, and officiating at the
+branding-pen, riding herd, cutting out beeves and playing the cowboy
+generally, has not added to my 'culchaw,' that is sure. I don't know
+that I'd be able to 'act up' in decent society again.
+
+"Pratt looked at me big-eyed last evening when I dressed for dinner. But
+he was only astonished and amused, I suppose. He didn't expect me to
+look like that after seeing me in this old riding dress.
+
+"Oh, dear!" sighed Frances of the ranges. "I wouldn't leave daddy, or do
+anything to displease him, poor dear! But I wish he could be content to
+live nearer to civilization.
+
+"We've got enough money. _I_ don't want any more, I'm sure. We
+could sell the cattle and turn our ranges into wheat and milo fields.
+Then we could live in town part of the year--in Amarillo, perhaps!"
+
+The thought was a daring one. Indeed, she was not wholly confident that
+it was not a wicked thought.
+
+Just then she reached the summit of a slight ridge from which she could
+behold the home corrals of the _hacienda_ itself, still a long
+distance ahead, and glowing like jewels in the morning sunshine.
+
+Such a beautiful place! After all, Frances Rugley loved it. It was home,
+and every tender tie of her life bound her to it and to the old man who
+she knew was sitting somewhere on the veranda, with his pipe and his
+memories.
+
+There never was such another beautiful place as the old Bar-T! Frances
+was sure of that. She longed for Amarillo and what the old Captain
+called "the frills of society"; but could she give up the ranch for
+them?
+
+"I reckon I want to keep my cake and eat it, too," she sighed. "And
+that, daddy would say, 'is plumb impossible!'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+SURPRISING NEWS
+
+
+Frances arrived at home about noon. The last few miles she bestrode
+Molly, for that intelligent creature had allowed herself to be caught.
+It was too late to go on the errand to Cottonwood Bottom before
+luncheon.
+
+Silent Sam Harding met her at the corral gate. He was a lanky, saturnine
+man, with never a laugh in his whole make-up. But he was liked by the
+men, and Frances knew him to be faithful to the Bar-T interests.
+
+"What happened to Ratty's bunch?" he asked, in his sober way.
+
+"Did you see them?" cried Frances, leaping down from the saddle.
+
+"Saw their dust," said Sam.
+
+"They stampeded," Frances said, warmly. "And Mr. Sanderson and I lost
+our ponies--pretty nearly had a bad accident, Sam," and she went on to
+give the foreman of the ranch the particulars. "I thought something was
+wrong. I got that little grey hawse of Bill Edwards'. He just come in,"
+said Sam.
+
+"Ratty M'Gill was running those steers," Frances told him. "I must
+report him to daddy. He's been warned before. I think Ratty's got some
+whiskey."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder. There was a bootlegger through here yesterday."
+
+"The man who tried to get over our roof!" exclaimed Frances.
+
+"Mebbe."
+
+"Do you suppose he's known to Ratty?" questioned the girl, anxiously.
+
+"Dunno. But Ratty's about worn out his welcome on the Bar-T. If the Cap
+says the word, I'll can him."
+
+"Well," said Frances, "he shouldn't have driven that herd so hard. I'll
+have to speak to daddy about it, Sam, though I hate to bother him just
+now. He's all worked up over that business of last night."
+
+"Don't understand it," said the foreman, shaking his head.
+
+"Could it have been the bootlegger?" queried Frances, referring to the
+illicit whiskey seller of whom she suspected the irresponsible Ratty
+M'Gill had purchased liquor. The "bootleggers" were supposed to carry
+pint flasks of bad whiskey in the legs of their topboots, to sell at a
+fancy price to thirsty punchers on the ranges.
+
+"Dunno how that slate come broken on the roof," grumbled Sam. "The
+feller knowed just where to go to hitch his rope ladder. Goin' to have
+one of the boys ride herd on the _hacienda_ at night for a while."
+This was a long speech for Silent Sam.
+
+Frances thanked him and went up to the house. She did not find an
+opportunity of speaking to Captain Rugley about Ratty M'Gill at once,
+however, for she found him in a state of great excitement.
+
+"Listen to this, Frances!" he ejaculated, when she appeared, waving a
+sheet of paper in his hand, and trying to get up from the hard chair in
+which he was sitting.
+
+A spasm of pain balked him; his bronzed face wrinkled as the rheumatic
+twinge gripped him; but his hawklike eyes gleamed.
+
+"My! my!" he grunted. "This pain is something fierce."
+
+Frances fluttered to his side. "Do take an easier chair, Daddy," she
+begged. "It will be so much more comfortable."
+
+"Hold on! this does very well. Your old dad's never been used to
+cushions and do-funnies. But see here! I want you to read this." He
+waved the paper again.
+
+"What is it, Daddy?" Frances asked, without much curiosity.
+
+"Heard from old Lon at last--yes, ma'am! What do you know about that?
+From good old Lon, who was my partner for twenty years. I've got a
+letter here that one of the boys brought from the station just now, from
+a minister, back in Mississippi. Poor old Lon's in a soldier's home, and
+he's just got track of me.
+
+"My soul and body, Frances! Think of it," added the excited Captain.
+"He's been living almost like a beggar for years in a Confederate
+soldiers' home--good place, like enough, of its kind, but here am I
+rolling in wealth, and that treasure chest right here under my eye, and
+Lon suffering, perhaps----"
+
+The Captain almost broke down, for with the pain he was enduring and
+all, the incident quite unstrung him. Frances had her arms about him and
+kissed his tear-streaked cheek.
+
+"Foolish, am I?" he demanded, looking up at her, "But it's broken me
+up--hearing from my old partner this way. Read the letter, Frances,
+won't you?"
+
+She did so. It was from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, of
+Bylittle, Mississippi.
+
+    "Captain Daniel Rugley,
+      "Bar-T Ranch,
+        "Texas Panhandle.
+
+    "Dear Sir:
+
+    "I am writing in behalf of an old soldier in this institution,
+    one Jonas P. Lonergan, who was at one time a member of Company
+    K, Texas Rangers, and who before that time served honorably in
+    Company P, Fifth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, during the
+    War between the States.
+
+    "Mr. Lonergan is a sadly broken man, having passed through much
+    evil after his experiences on the Border and in Mexico in your
+    company. Indeed, his whole life has been one of privation and
+    hardship. Now, bent with years, he has been obliged to seek
+    refuge with some of his ancient comrades at Bylittle.
+
+    "In several private talks with me, Captain Rugley, he has
+    mentioned the incidents relating to the looting and destruction
+    of Senor Morales' _hacienda_, over the Border in Mexico,
+    while you and he were on detail in that vicinity as Rangers.
+
+    "Perhaps the old man is rambling; but he always talks of a
+    treasure chest which he claims you and he rescued from the
+    bandits and removed into Arizona, hiding the same in a certain
+    valley at the mouth of a canyon which he calls Dry Bone Canyon.
+
+    "Mr. Lonergan always speaks of you as 'the whitest man who ever
+    lived.' 'If my old partner, Captain Dan, knew how I was fixed or
+    where I was, he'd have me rollin' in luxury in no time,' he has
+    said to me; 'providing he's this same Captain Dan Rugley that's
+    owner of the Bar-T Ranch in the Panhandle.'
+
+    "You know (if you know him at all) that Mr. Lonergan had no
+    educational advantages. Such men have difficulty in keeping up
+    communication with their friends.
+
+    "He claims to have lost track of you twenty-odd years ago. That
+    when you separated you both swore to divide equally the contents
+    of Senor Morales' treasure chest, the hiding place of which at
+    that time was in a hostile country, Geronimo and his braves
+    being on the warpath.
+
+    "If you are Jonas P. Lonergan's old-time partner you will
+    remember the particulars more clearly than I can state them.
+
+    "If this be the case, I am sure I need only state the above and
+    certify to the identity of Mr. Lonergan, to bring from you an
+    expression of your remembrance and the statement whether or no
+    any property to which Mr. Lonergan might make a claim is in your
+    possession.
+
+    "Mr. L. speaks much of the treasure chest and tells marvelous
+    stories of its contents. He does not seem to desire wealth for
+    himself, however, for he well knows that he has but a few months
+    to live, nor does he seem ever to have cared greatly for money.
+
+    "His anxiety is for the condition of a sister of his who was
+    left a widow some years ago, and for her son. Mr. L. fears that
+    the nephew has not the chance of getting on in life that he
+    would like the boy to have. In his old age Mr. L. feels keenly
+    the fact that he was never able to do anything for his family,
+    and the fate of his widowed sister and her son is much on his
+    mind.
+
+    "A prompt reply, Captain Rugley, if you are the old-time partner
+    of my ancient friend, will be gratefully received by the
+    undersigned, and joyfully by Mr. Lonergan.
+
+                                    "Respectfully,
+                                          "(Rev.) Decimus Tooley."
+
+"Why! what do you think of that?" gasped Frances, when she had read the
+letter to the very last word.
+
+Her father's face was shining and there were tears in his eyes. His joy
+at hearing from his old companion-in-arms was unmistakable.
+
+This turning up of Jonas Lonergan meant the parting with a portion of
+the mysterious wealth that the old ranchman kept hidden in the Spanish
+chest--wealth that he might easily keep if he would.
+
+Frances was proud of him. Never for an instant did he seem to worry
+about parting with the treasure to Lonergan. His fears for it had never
+been the fears of a miser who worshiped wealth--no, indeed!
+
+Now it was plain that the thought of seeing his old partner alive again,
+and putting into his hands the part of the treasure rightfully belonging
+to him, delighted Captain Dan Rugley in every fibre of his being.
+
+"The poor old codger!" exclaimed the ranchman, affectionately. "And to
+think of Lon being in need, and living poor--maybe actually
+suffering--when I've been doing so well here, and have had this old
+chest right under my thumb all these years.
+
+"You see, Frances," said the Captain, making more of an explanation than
+ever before, "Lon and I got possession of that chest in a funny way.
+
+"We'd been sent after as mean a man as ever infested the Border--and
+there were some mighty mean men along the Rio Grande in those days. He
+had slipped across the Border to escape us; but in those times we didn't
+pay much attention to the line between the States and Mexico.
+
+"We went after him just the same. He was with a crowd of regular
+bandits, we found out. And they were aiming to clean up Senor Milo
+Morales' _hacienda_.
+
+"We got onto their plans, and we rode hard to the _hacienda_ to
+head them off. We knew the old Spaniard--as fine a Castilian gentleman
+as ever stepped in shoe-leather.
+
+"We stopped with him a while, beat off the bandits, and captured our
+man. After everything quieted down (as we thought) we started for the
+Border with the prisoner. Senor Morales was an old man, without chick or
+child, and not a relative in the world to leave his wealth to. His was
+one of the few Castilian families that had run out. Neither in Mexico
+nor in Spain did he have a blood tie.
+
+"His vast estates he had already willed to the Church. Such faithful
+servants as he had (and they were few, for the _peon_ is not noted
+for gratitude) he had already taken care of.
+
+"Lon and I had saved his life as well as his personal property, he was
+good enough to say, and he showed us this treasure chest and what was in
+it. When he passed on, he said, it should be ours if we were fixed so we
+could get it before the Mexican authorities stepped in and grabbed it
+all, or before bandits cleaned out the _hacienda_. It was a toss-up
+in those days between the two, which was the most voracious!
+
+"Well, Frances, that's how it stood when we rode away with Simon Hawkins
+lashed to a pony between us. Before we reached the river we heard of a
+big band of outlaws that had come down from the Sierras and were
+trailing over toward Morales'.
+
+"We hurried back, leaving Simon staked down in a hide-out we knew of.
+But Lon and I were too late," said the old Captain, shaking his head
+sadly. "Those scoundrels had got there ahead of us, led by the men we
+had first beaten off, and they had done their worst.
+
+"The good old Senor--as harmless and lovely a soul as ever lived--had
+been brutally murdered. One or two of his servants had been killed,
+too--for appearance's sake, I suppose. The others, especially the
+_vaqueros_, had joined the outlaws, and the _hacienda_ was
+being looted.
+
+"But Lon and I took a chance, stole in by night, found the treasure
+chest, and slipped away with it. I went back alone before dawn, found a
+six-mule team already loaded with household stuff and drove off with it,
+thus stealing from the thieves.
+
+"A good many of these fine old things we have here were on that wagon. I
+decided that they belonged to me as much as to anybody. Get them once
+over the boundary into God's country and the thieving Mexican
+Government--only one degree removed at that time from the outlaws
+themselves--would not dare lay claim to them.
+
+"We did this," concluded Captain Dan, with a sigh of reminiscence, and
+with his eyes shining, "and we got Simon into the jail at Elberad, too.
+
+"Lon and I kept on up into Arizona, into Dry Bone Canyon, and there we
+cached the stuff. Air and sand are so dry there that nothing ever
+decays, and so all these rugs and hangings and featherwork were
+uninjured when I brought them away to this ranch soon after you were
+born.
+
+"That's the story, my dear. I never talk much about it, for it isn't
+altogether my secret. You see, my old partner, Lon, was in on it. And
+now he's going to come for his share----"
+
+"Come for his share, Daddy?" asked Frances, in surprise.
+
+"Yes--sir-ree--sir!" chuckled the old ranchman. "Think I'm going to let
+old Lon stay in that soldiers' home? Not much!"
+
+"But will he be able to travel here to the Panhandle?"
+
+"Of course! What the matter is with Lon, he's been shut indoors. I know
+what it is. Why! he's younger than I am by a year or two."
+
+"But if he can't travel alone----"
+
+"I'll go after him! I'll hire a private car! My goodness! I'll hire a
+whole train if it's necessary to get him out of that Bylittle place!
+That's what I'll do!
+
+"And he shall live here with us--so he shall! He and I will divide this
+treasure just as I've been aching to do for years. You shall have jewels
+then, my girl!"
+
+"But, dear!" gasped Frances, "you are not well enough to go so far."
+
+"Now, don't bother, Frances. Your old dad isn't dead yet--not by any
+means! I'll be all right in a day or two."
+
+But Captain Rugley was not all right in so short a time. He actually
+grew worse. Frances sent a messenger for the doctor the very next
+morning. Whether it was from the exposure of the night the stranger
+tried to climb over the _hacienda_ roof or not, Captain Rugley took
+to his bed. The physician pronounced it rheumatic fever, and a very
+serious case indeed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE MAN FROM BYLITTLE
+
+
+Responsibility weighed heavily upon the young shoulders of Frances of
+the ranges in these circumstances.
+
+Old Captain Rugley insisted upon being out of doors, ill as he was, and
+they made him as comfortable as possible on a couch in the court where
+the fountain played. Ming was in attendance upon him all day long, for
+Frances had many duties to call her away from the ranch-house at this
+time. But at night she slept almost within touch of the sick man's bed.
+
+He did not get better. The physician declared that he was not in
+immediate danger, although the fever would have to run its course. The
+pain that racked his body was hard to bear; and although he was a stoic
+in such matters, Frances would see his jaws clench and the muscles knot
+in his cheeks; and she often wiped the drops of agony from his forehead
+while striving to hide the tears that came into her own eyes.
+
+He demanded to know how long he was "going to be laid by the heels"; and
+when he learned that the doctor could not promise him a swift return to
+health, Captain Rugley began to worry.
+
+It was of his old partner he thought most. That the affairs of the ranch
+would go on all right in the hands of his young daughter and Silent Sam,
+he seemed to have no doubt. But the letter from the chaplain of the
+Bylittle Soldiers' Home was forever troubling him. Between his spells of
+agony, or when his mind was really clear, he talked to Frances of little
+but Jonas Lonergan and the treasure chest.
+
+"He is troubling his mind about something, and it is not good for him,"
+the doctor, who came every third day (and had a two hundred-mile jaunt
+by train and buckboard), told Frances. "Can't you calm his mind, Miss
+Frances?"
+
+She told the medical man as much about her father's ancient friend as
+she thought was wise. "He desires to have him brought here," she
+explained, "so that they can go over, face to face and eye to eye, their
+old battles and adventures."
+
+"Good! Bring the man--have him brought," said the physician.
+
+"But he is an old soldier," said Frances. She read aloud that part of
+the Reverend Decimus Tooley's letter relating to the state of Mr.
+Lonergan's health.
+
+"Don't know what we can do about it, then," said the doctor, who was a
+native of the Southwest himself. "Your father and the old fellow seem to
+be 'honing' for each other. Too bad they can't meet. It would do your
+father good. I don't like his mind's being troubled."
+
+That night Frances was really frightened. Her father began muttering in
+his sleep. Then he talked aloud, and sat up in bed excitedly, his face
+flushed, and his tongue becoming clearer, although his speech was not
+lucid.
+
+He was going over in his distraught mind the adventures he had had with
+Lon when they two had foiled the bandits and recovered possession of the
+Senor's treasure chest.
+
+Frances begged him to desist, but he did not know her. He babbled of the
+long journey with the mule team into the mouth of Dry Bone Canyon, and
+the caching of the treasure. For an hour he talked steadily and then,
+growing weaker, gradually sank back on his pillows and became silent.
+
+But the effort was very weakening. Frances telephoned from the nearest
+station for the doctor. Something _had_ to be done, for the
+exertion and excitement of the night had left Captain Rugley in a state
+that troubled the girl much.
+
+She had no friend of her own sex. Mrs. Bill Edwards was a city woman
+whom, after all, she scarcely knew, for the lady had not been married to
+Mr. Edwards more than a year.
+
+There were other good women scattered over the ranges--some "nesters,"
+some small cattle-raisers' wives, and some of the new order of Panhandle
+farmers; but Frances had never been in close touch with them.
+
+The social gatherings at the church and schoolhouse at Jackleg had been
+attended by Frances and Captain Rugley; but the Bar-T folk really had no
+near neighbors.
+
+The girl's interest in the forthcoming pageant had called the attention
+of other people to her more than ever before; but to tell the truth the
+young folk were rather awe-stricken by Frances' abilities as displayed
+in the preparation for the entertainment, while the older people did not
+know just how to treat the wealthy ranchman's daughter--whether as a
+person of mature years, or as a child.
+
+Riding back from the railroad station, where one of the boys with the
+buckboard three hours later would meet the physician, she thought of
+these facts. Somehow, she had never felt so lonely--so cut off from
+other people as she did right now.
+
+The railroad crossed one corner of the Bar-T's vast fenced ranges; but
+there were twenty long miles between the house and the station. She had
+ridden Molly hard coming over to speak to the doctor on the telephone;
+but she took it easy going back.
+
+Somewhere along the trail she would meet the buckboard and ponies going
+over to meet the doctor. And as she walked her pony down the slope of
+the trail into Cottonwood Bottom, she thought she heard the rattle of
+the buckboard wheels ahead.
+
+A clump of trees hid the trail for a bit; when she rounded it the way
+was empty. Whoever she had heard had turned off the trail into the
+cottonwoods.
+
+"Maybe he didn't water the ponies before he started," thought Frances,
+"and has gone down to the ford. That's a bit of carelessness that I do
+not like. Whom could Sam have sent with the bronchos for the doctor?"
+
+She turned Molly off the trail beyond the bridge. The wood was not a
+jungle, but she could not see far ahead, nor be seen. By and by she
+smelled tobacco smoke--the everlasting cigarette of the cattle puncher.
+Then she heard the sound of voices.
+
+Why this latter fact should have made Frances suspicious, she could not
+have told. It was her womanly intuition, perhaps.
+
+Slipping out of the saddle, she tied Molly with her head up-wind. She
+was afraid the pinto would smell her fellows from the ranch, and signal
+them, as horses will.
+
+Once away from her mount, she passed between the trees and around the
+brush clumps until she saw the ford of the river sparkling below her.
+There were the hard-driven ponies, their heads drooping, their flanks
+heaving, standing knee-deep in the stream--this fact in itself an
+offense that she could not overlook.
+
+The animals had been overdriven, and now the employee of the ranch who
+had them in charge was allowing them to cool off too quickly--and in the
+cold stream, too!
+
+But who was he? For a moment Frances could not conceive.
+
+The figure of the driver was humped over on the seat in a slouching
+attitude, sitting sideways, and with his back toward the direction from
+which the range girl was approaching. He faced a man on a shabby horse,
+whose mount likewise stood in the stream and who had been fording the
+river from the opposite direction.
+
+This horseman was a stranger to Frances. He wore a broad-brimmed black
+hat, no chaps, no cartridge belt or gun in sight, and a white shirt and a
+vest under his coat, while shoes instead of boots were on his feet. He
+was neither puncher nor farmer in appearance. And his face was bad.
+
+There could be no doubt of that latter fact. He wore a stubble of beard
+that did not disguise the sneering mouth, or the wickedly leering
+expression of his eyes.
+
+"Well, I done my part, old fellow," drawled the man in the seat of the
+buckboard, just as Frances came within earshot. "'Tain't my fault you
+bungled it."
+
+Frances stopped instead of going on. It was Ratty M'Gill!
+
+She could not understand why he was not on the range, or why Sam had
+sent the ne'er-do-well to meet the doctor. It puzzled her before the
+puncher's continued speech began to arouse her curiosity.
+
+"You'll sure find yourself in a skillet of hot water, old fellow,"
+pursued Ratty, inhaling his cigarette smoke and letting it forth through
+his nostrils in little puffs as he talked. "The old Cap's built his
+house like a fort, anyway. And he's some man with a gun--believe me!"
+
+"You say he's sick," said the other man, and he, too, drawled. Frances
+found herself wondering where she had heard that voice before.
+
+"He ain't so sick that he can't guard that chest you was talkin' about.
+He's had his bed made up right in the room with it. That's whatever,"
+said Ratty.
+
+"Once let me get in there," said the other, slowly.
+
+"Sam's set some of the boys to ride herd on the house," chuckled Ratty.
+
+"That's the way, then!" exclaimed the other, raising his clenched fist
+and shaking it. "You get put on that detail, Ratty."
+
+"I'll see you blessed first," declared the puncher, laughing. "I don't
+see nothing in it but trouble for me."
+
+"No trouble for you at all. They didn't get you before."
+
+"No," said the puncher. "More by good luck than good management. I don't
+like going things blind, Pete. And you're always so blamed secretive."
+
+"I have to be," growled the other. "You're as leaky as a sieve yourself,
+Ratty. I never could trust you."
+
+"Nor nobody else," laughed the reckless puncher. "Sam's about got my
+number now. If he ain't the gal has----"
+
+"You mean that daughter of the old man's?"
+
+"Yep. She's an able-minded gal--believe me! And she's just about boss of
+the ranch, specially now the old Cap is laid by the heels for a while."
+
+The other was silent for some moments. Ratty gathered up the reins from
+the backs of the tired ponies.
+
+"I gotter step along, Pete," he said. "Gal's gone to telephone for the
+medical sharp, who'll show up on Number 20 when she goes through
+Jackleg. I'm to meet him. Or," and he began to chuckle again, "Jose
+Reposa was, and I took his place so's to meet you here as I promised."
+
+"And lots of good your meeting me seems to do me," growled the man
+called Pete.
+
+"Well, old fellow! is that my fault?" demanded the puncher.
+
+"I don't know. I gotter git inside that _hacienda_."
+
+"Walk in. The door's open."
+
+"You think you are smart, don't you?" snarled Pete, in anger. "You tell
+me where the chest is located; but it couldn't be brought out by day.
+But at night---- My soul, man! I had the team all ready and waiting the
+other night, and I could have got the thing if I'd had luck."
+
+"You didn't have luck," chuckled Ratty M'Gill. "And I don't believe
+you'd 'a' had much more luck if you'd got away with the old Cap's
+chest."
+
+"I tell you there's a fortune in it!"
+
+"You don't know----"
+
+"And I suppose you do?" snarled Pete.
+
+"I know no sane man ain't going to keep a whole mess of jewels and such,
+what you talk about, right in his house. He'd take 'em to a bank at
+Amarillo, or somewhere."
+
+"Not that old codger. He'd keep 'em under his own eye. He wouldn't trust
+a bank like he would himself. Humph! I know his kind.
+
+"Why," continued Pete, excitedly, "that old feller at Bylittle is
+another one just like him. These old-timers dug gold, and made their
+piles half a dozen times, and never trusted banks--there warn't no
+banks!"
+
+"Not in them days," admitted Ratty. "But there's a plenty now."
+
+"You say yourself he's got the chest."
+
+"Sure! I seen it once or twice. Old Spanish carving and all that. But I
+bet there ain't much in it, Pete."
+
+"You'd ought to have heard that doddering old idiot, Lonergan, talk
+about it," sniffed Pete. "Then your mouth would have watered. I tell you
+that's about all he's been talkin' about the last few months, there at
+Bylittle. And I was orderly on his side of the barracks and heard it
+all.
+
+"I know that the parson, Mr. Tooley, was goin' to write to this Cap
+Rugley. Has, before now, it's likely. Then something will be done about
+the treasure----"
+
+"Waugh!" shouted Ratty. "Treasure! You sound like a silly boy with a
+dime story book."
+
+The puncher evidently did not believe his friend knew what he was
+talking about. Pete glowered at him, too angry to speak for a minute or
+two.
+
+Frances began to worm her way back through the brush. She put the
+biggest trees between her and the ford of the river. When she knew the
+two men could not see or hear her, she ran.
+
+She had heard enough. Her mind was in a turmoil just then. Her first
+thought was to get away, and get Molly away. Then she would think this
+startling affair out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+FRANCES ACTS
+
+
+She got away from the Bottom without disturbing Ratty and the man from
+Bylittle. Once Molly was loping over the plain again, Frances began to
+question her impressions of the dialogue she had overheard.
+
+In the first place, she was sure she had heard the voice of the man,
+Pete, before. It was the same drawling voice that had come out of the
+darkness asking for food and a bed the evening Pratt Sanderson stopped
+at the Bar-T Ranch.
+
+The voice had been cheerful then; it was snarling now; but the tones
+were identical. Then, going a step farther, Frances realized, from the
+talk she had just heard, that this Pete was the man who had tried to get
+over the roof of the ranch-house. One and the same man--tramp and
+robber.
+
+Ratty had shown Pete the way. Ratty was a traitor. He might easily have
+seen the broken slate on the roof and pointed it out to the mysterious
+Pete.
+
+The latter had been an orderly in the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, and had
+heard the story of the Spanish treasure chest, when old Mr. Lonergan was
+rambling about it to the chaplain.
+
+The fellow's greed had started him upon the quest of the treasure so
+long in Captain Rugley's care. Perhaps he had known Ratty M'Gill before;
+it seemed so. And yet, Ratty did not seem entirely in the confidence of
+the robber.
+
+Nevertheless, Ratty must leave the ranch. Frances was determined upon
+this.
+
+She could not tell her father about him; and she shrank from revealing
+the puncher's villainy to Silent Sam Harding. Indeed, she was afraid of
+what Sam and the other boys on the ranch might do to punish Ratty
+M'Gill. The Bar-T punchers might be rather rough with a fellow like
+Ratty.
+
+Frances believed the boys on the Bar-T were loyal to her father and
+herself. Ratty's defection hurt her as much as it surprised her. She had
+never thought him more than reckless; but it seemed he had developed
+more despicable characteristics.
+
+These and similar thoughts disturbed Frances' mind as she made her way
+back to the ranch-house. She found her father very weak, but once more
+quite lucid. Ming glided away at her approach and Frances sat down to
+hold the old ranchman's hand and tell him inconsequential things
+regarding the work on the ranges, and the gossip of the bunk-house.
+
+All the time the girl's heart hungered to nurse him herself, day and
+night, instead of depending upon the aid of a shuffle-footed Chinaman.
+The mothering instinct was just as strong in her nature as in most girls
+of her age. But she knew her duty lay elsewhere.
+
+Before this time Captain Rugley had never entirely given over the reins
+of government into the hands of Silent Sam. He had kept in touch with
+ranch affairs, delegating some duties to Frances, others to Sam or to
+the underforeman. Now the girl had to be much more than the intermediary
+between the old ranchman and his employees.
+
+The doctor had impressed her with the rule that his patient was not to
+be worried by business matters. Many things she had to do "off her own
+bat," as Sam Harding expressed it. The matter of Ratty M'Gill's
+discharge must be one of these things, Frances saw plainly.
+
+She waited now for the doctor's appearance with much anxiety of mind.
+The Captain was quiet when the physician came; but the effect of his
+delirium of the night before was plain to the medical eye.
+
+"Something must be done to ease his mind of this anxiety about his old
+chum, Frances," said the doctor, taking her aside. "That, I take it, was
+the burden of his trouble when he rambled last night in his speech?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Try to get the fellow brought here, then," said the doctor, with
+decision.
+
+"That Mr. Lonergan?"
+
+"The old soldier--yes. Can't it be done?"
+
+"I--I don't know," said the troubled girl. "The chaplain writes that he
+is a sick man----"
+
+"And so is your father. I warn you. A very sick man. And he cannot be
+moved, while this Lonergan can probably travel if his fare is paid."
+
+"Oh, Doctor! If it is only a matter of money, father, I know, would hire
+a private car--a whole train, he said!--to get his old partner here,"
+Frances declared.
+
+"Good! I advise you to go ahead and send for the man," said the
+physician. "It's the best prescription for Captain Rugley that I can
+give you. He has his mind set upon seeing his old friend, and these
+delirious spells will be repeated unless his longing is satisfied. And
+such attacks are weakening."
+
+"Oh, I see that, Doctor!" agreed Frances.
+
+She sat down that very hour and wrote to the Reverend Decimus Tooley,
+explaining why she, instead of Captain Rugley, wrote, and requesting
+that Jonas Lonergan be made ready for the trip from Bylittle to Jackleg,
+in the Panhandle, where a carriage from the Bar-T Ranch would meet him.
+
+She told the chaplain of the soldiers' home that a private car would be
+supplied for Captain Rugley's old partner to travel in, if it were
+necessary. She would make all arrangements for transportation
+immediately upon receiving word from Mr. Tooley that the old man could
+travel.
+
+Haste was important, as she explained. Likewise she asked the following
+question--giving no reason for her curiosity:
+
+"Did there recently leave the Bylittle Home an employee--an
+orderly--whose first name is Peter? And if so, what is his reputation,
+his full name, and why did he leave the Home?"
+
+"Maybe that will puzzle the Reverend Mr. Tooley some," thought Frances
+of the ranges. "But I am indeed curious about this friend of Ratty
+M'Gill's. And now I'll tell Silent Sam that there is a man lurking about
+the Bar-T who must be watched."
+
+She said nothing to Captain Rugley about sending for Lonergan until she
+had written. The doctor said it would be just as well not to discuss the
+matter much until it was accomplished. He also left soothing medicine to
+be given to the patient if he again became delirious.
+
+Frances was so much occupied with her father all that day that she could
+do nothing about Ratty M'Gill. She had noticed, however, that the
+Mexican boy, Jose Reposa, had driven the doctor to the ranch and that he
+took him back to the train again.
+
+The reckless cowpuncher had somehow bribed the Mexican boy to let him
+take his place on the buckboard that forenoon.
+
+"Ratty is like a rotten apple in the middle of the barrel," thought
+Frances. "If I let him remain on the ranch he will contaminate the other
+boys. No, he's got to go!
+
+"But if I tell him why he is discharged it will warn him--and that
+Pete--that we suspect, or know, an attempt is being made to rob father's
+old chest. Now, what shall I do about this?"
+
+The conversation between Ratty and Pete at the ford which she had
+overheard gave Frances an idea. She saw that the contents of the
+treasure chest ought really to be put into a safety deposit vault in
+Amarillo. But the old ranchman considered it his bounden duty to keep
+the treasure in his own hands until his partner came to divide it; and
+he would be stubborn about any change in this plan.
+
+Lonergan could not get to the Bar-T for three weeks, or more. In the
+meantime suppose Pete made another attempt to steal the contents of the
+Spanish chest?
+
+Frances Rugley felt that she could depend upon nobody in this emergency
+for advice; and upon few for assistance in carrying out any plan she
+might make to thwart those bent upon robbing the _hacienda_. To see
+the sheriff would advertise the matter to the public at large. And that,
+she well knew, would make Captain Dan Rugley very angry.
+
+Whatever she did in this matter, as well as in the affair of Ratty
+M'Gill, must be done without advice.
+
+Her mind slanted toward Pratt Sanderson at this time. Had her father not
+seemed to suspect the young fellow from Amarillo, Frances would surely
+have taken Pratt into her confidence.
+
+Now that Captain Rugley had given a clear explanation of how he had come
+possessed of a part of the loot of Senor Milo Morales' _hacienda_,
+Frances was not afraid to take a friend into her confidence.
+
+There was no friend, however, that she cared to confide in save Pratt.
+And it would anger her father if she spoke to the young fellow about the
+treasure.
+
+She knew this to be a fact, for when Pratt Sanderson had ridden over
+from the Edwards Ranch to inquire after Captain Rugley's health, the old
+ranchman had sent out a courteously worded refusal to see Pratt.
+
+"I'm not so awfully fond of that young chap," the Captain said,
+reflectively, at the time. "And seems to me, Frances, he's mighty
+curious about my health."
+
+"But, Daddy!" Frances cried, "he was only asking out of good feeling."
+
+"I don't know that," growled the old ranchman. "I haven't forgotten that
+he was here in the house the night that other fellow tried to break in.
+Looks curious to me, Frances--sure does!"
+
+She might have told him right then about Ratty M'Gill and the man Pete;
+but Frances was not an impulsive girl. She studied about things, as the
+colloquialism has it. And she knew very well that the mere fact that
+Ratty and the stranger were friends would not disprove Pratt's
+connection with the midnight marauder. Pete might have had an aid
+inside, as well as outside, the _hacienda_.
+
+So Frances said nothing more to the old ranchman, and nothing at all to
+Pratt about that which troubled her. They spoke of inconsequential
+things on the veranda, where Ming served cool drinks; and then the
+Amarillo young man rode away.
+
+"Sue Latrop and that crowd will be out to-morrow, I expect," he said, as
+he departed. "Don't know when I can get over again, Frances. I'll have
+to beau them around a bit."
+
+"Good-bye, Pratt," said Frances, without comment.
+
+"By the way," called Pratt, from his saddle and holding in his pony,
+"your father being so ill isn't going to make you give up your part in
+the pageant, Frances?"
+
+"Plenty of time for that," she returned, but without smiling. "I hope
+father will be well before the date set for the show."
+
+Pratt's departure left Frances with a sinking heart; but she did not
+betray her feelings. To be all alone with her father and the two
+Chinamen at the ranch-house seemed hard indeed; and with the
+responsibility of the treasure chest on her heart, too!
+
+Her father, it was true, had insisted on having his couch placed at
+night in the room with the Spanish chest. He seemed to consider that,
+ill as he was, he could guard the treasure better than anybody else.
+
+Frances had to devise a plan without either her father's advice or that
+of anybody else. She prepared for the adventure by begging the Captain
+to have burlap wrapped about the chest and securely roped on.
+
+"Then it won't be so noticeable," she told him, "when people come in to
+call on you." For some of the other cattlemen of the Panhandle rode many
+miles to call at the Bar-T Ranch; and, of course, they insisted upon
+seeing Captain Rugley.
+
+Ming and San Soo (the latter was very tall and enormously strong for a
+coolie) corded the Spanish chest as directed, and under the Captain's
+eye. Then Frances threw a Navajo blanket over it and it looked like a
+couch or divan.
+
+To Silent Sam she said; "I want a four-mule wagon to go to Amarillo for
+supplies. When can I have it?"
+
+"Can't you have the goods come by rail to Jackleg?" asked the foreman,
+somewhat surprised by the request.
+
+Now, Jackleg was not on the same railroad as Amarillo. Frances shook her
+head.
+
+"I'm sorry, Sam. There's something particular I must get at Amarillo."
+
+"You going with the wagon, Miss Frances?"
+
+"Yes. I want a good man to drive--Bender, or Mack Hinkman. None of the
+Mexicans will do. We'll stop at Peckham's Ranch and at the hotel in
+Calas on the way."
+
+"Whatever ye say," said Sam. "When do ye want to go?"
+
+"Day after to-morrow," responded Frances, briskly. "It will be all right
+then?"
+
+"Sure," agreed Silent Sam. "I'll fix ye up."
+
+Frances had several important things to do before the time stated. And,
+too, before that time, something quite unexpected happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+MOLLY
+
+
+Frances' secret plans did not interfere with her usual tasks. She
+started in the morning to make her rounds. Molly had been resting and
+would now be in fine fettle, and the girl expected to call her to the
+gate when she came down to the corral in which the spare riding stock
+was usually kept.
+
+Instead of seeing only Jose Reposa or one of the other Mexicans hanging
+about, here was a row of punchers roosting along the top rail of the
+corral fence, and evidently so much interested in what was going on in
+the enclosure that they did not notice the approach of Captain Rugley's
+daughter.
+
+"Better keep off'n the leetle hawse, Ratty!" one fellow was advising the
+unseen individual who was partly, at least, furnishing the entertainment
+for the loiterers.
+
+"She looks meek," put in another, "but believe me! when she was broke,
+it was the best day's work Joe Magowan ever done on this here ranch.
+Ain't that so, boys?"
+
+"Ratty warn't here then," said the first speaker. "He don't know that
+leetle Molly hawse and what capers she done cut up----"
+
+"Molly!" ejaculated Frances, under her breath, and ran forward.
+
+At that instant there was a sudden hullabaloo in the corral. Some of the
+men cheered; others laughed; and one fell off the fence.
+
+"Go it!"
+
+"Hold tight, boy!"
+
+"Tie a knot in your laigs underneath her, Ratty! She's a-gwine to try to
+throw ye clean ter Texarkana!"
+
+_"What's he doing with my pony?"_
+
+The cry startled the string of punchers. They turned--most of them
+looking sheepish enough--and gaped, wordlessly, at Frances, who came
+running to the fence.
+
+Molly was her pet, her own especial property. Nobody else had ridden the
+pinto since she was broken by the head wrangler, Joe Magowan. Nor was
+Molly really broken, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.
+
+Frances could ride her--could do almost anything with her. She was the
+best cutting-out pony on the ranch. She was gentle with Frances, but she
+had never shown fondness for anybody else, and would look wall-eyed on
+the near approach of anybody but the girl herself. None but Joe and
+Frances had ever bridled her or cinched the saddle on Molly.
+
+Ratty M'Gill was the culprit, of course; nor did he hear Frances' cry as
+she arrived at the corral. He had bestridden the nervous pinto and Molly
+was "acting up."
+
+Ratty had his rope around her neck and a loop around her lower jaw, as
+Indians guide their half-wild steeds. At every bound the puncher jerked
+the pony's jaw downward and raked her flanks with his cruel spurs. These
+latter were leaving welts and gashes along the pinto's heaving sides.
+
+"You cruel fellow!" shrieked Frances. "Get off my pony at once!"
+
+"Say! she's trying to buck, Miss Frances," one of the men warned her.
+"She'll be sp'il't if he lets her beat him now. You won't never be able
+to ride her, once let her git the upper hand."
+
+"Mind you own concerns, Jim Bender!" exclaimed the girl, both wrathful
+and hurt. "I can manage that pony if she's let alone." Then she raised
+her voice again and cried to Ratty:
+
+"M'Gill! you get off that horse! At once, I tell you!"
+
+"The Missus is sure some peeved," muttered Bender to one of his mates.
+
+"And why shouldn't she be? We'd never ought to let Ratty try to ride
+that critter."
+
+"Molly!" shouted Frances, climbing the fence herself as quickly as any
+boy.
+
+She dropped over into the corral where the other ponies were running
+about in great excitement.
+
+"Molly, come here!" She whistled for the pinto and Molly's head came up
+and her eyes rolled in the direction of her mistress. She knew she was
+being abused; and she remembered that Frances was always kind to her.
+
+Whether Ratty agreed or not, the pinto galloped across the corral.
+
+"Get down off that pony, you brute!" exclaimed Frances, her eyes
+flashing at the half-serious, half-grinning cowboy.
+
+"She's some little pinto when she gits in a tantrum," remarked the
+unabashed Ratty.
+
+Frances had brought her bridle. Although Molly stood shaking and
+quivering, the girl slipped the bit between her jaws and buckled the
+straps in a moment. She held the pony, but did not attempt to lead her
+toward the saddling shed.
+
+"M'Gill," Frances said, sharply, "you go to Silent Sam and get your time
+and come to the house this noon for your pay. You'll never bestride
+another pony on this ranch. Do you hear me?"
+
+"What's that?" demanded the cowpuncher, his face flaming instantly, and
+his black eyes sparkling.
+
+She had reproved him before his mates, and the young man was angry on
+the instant. But Frances was angry first. And, moreover, she had good
+reason for distrusting Ratty. The incident was one lent by Fortune as an
+excuse for his discharge.
+
+"You are not fit to handle stock," said Frances, bitingly. "Look what
+you did to that bunch of cattle the other day! And I've watched you more
+than once misusing your mount. Get your pay, and get off the Bar-T.
+We've no use for the like of you."
+
+"Say!" drawled the puncher, with an ugly leer. "Who's bossing things
+here now, I'd like to know?"
+
+"I am!" exclaimed the girl, advancing a step and clutching the quirt,
+which swung from her wrist, with an intensity that turned her knuckles
+white. "You see Sam as I told you, and be at the house for your pay when
+I come back."
+
+The other punchers had slipped away, going about their work or to the
+bunk-house. Ratty M'Gill stood with flaming face and glittering eyes,
+watching the girl depart, leading the trembling Molly toward the exit of
+the corral.
+
+"You're a sure short-tempered gal this A. M.," he growled to himself.
+"And ye sure have got it in for me. I wonder why? I wonder why?"
+
+Frances did not vouchsafe him another look. She stood in the shadow of
+the shed and petted Molly, fed her a couple of lumps of sugar from her
+pocket, and finally made her forget Ratty's abuse. But Molly's flanks
+would be tender for some time and her temper had not improved by the
+treatment she had received.
+
+"Perfectly scandalous!" exclaimed Frances, to herself, almost crying
+now. "Just to show off before the other boys. Oh! he was mean to you,
+Molly dear! A fellow like Ratty M'Gill will stand watching, sure
+enough."
+
+Finally, she got the saddle cinched upon the nervous pinto and rode her
+out of the corral and away to the ranges for her usual round of the
+various camps. She had not been as far as the West Run for several days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE GIRL FROM BOSTON
+
+
+Cow-ponies are never trained to trot. They walk if they are tired;
+sometimes they gallop; but usually they set off on a long, swinging lope
+from the word "Go!" and keep it up until the riders pull them down.
+
+The moment Frances of the ranges had swung herself into Molly's saddle,
+the badly treated pinto leaped forward and dashed away from the corrals
+and bunk-house. Frances let her have her head, for when Molly was a bit
+tired she would forget the sting and smart of Ratty M'Gill's spurs and
+quirt.
+
+Frances had not seen Silent Sam that morning; but was not surprised to
+observe the curling smoke of a fresh fire down by the branding pen. She
+knew that a bunch of calves and yearlings had been rounded up a few days
+before, and the foreman of the Bar-T would take no chance of having them
+escape to the general herds on the ranges, and so have the trouble of
+cutting them out again at the grand round-up.
+
+It was impossible, even on such a large ranch as the Bar-T, to keep
+cattle of other brands from running with the Bar-T herds. A breach made
+in a fence in one night by some active young bull would allow a Bar-T
+herd and some of Bill Edwards' cattle, for instance, to become
+associated.
+
+To try to separate the cattle every time such a thing happened would
+give the punchers more than they could do. The cattle thus associated
+were allowed to run together until the round-up. Then the unbranded
+calves would always follow their mothers, and the herdsmen could easily
+separate the young stock, as well as that already branded, from those
+belonging on other ranches.
+
+Although it was a bit out of her direct course, Frances pulled Molly's
+head in the direction of the branding fire. Before she came in sight of
+the bawling herd and the bunch of excited punchers, a cavalcade of
+riders crossed the trail, riding in the same direction.
+
+No cowpunchers these, but a party of horsemen and horsewomen who might
+have just ridden out of the Central Park bridle-path at Fifty-ninth
+Street or out of the Fens in Boston's Back Bay section.
+
+At a distance they disclosed to Frances' vision--unused to such
+sights--a most remarkable jumble of colors and fashions. In the West
+khaki, brown, or olive grey is much worn for riding togs by the women,
+while the men, if not in overalls, or chaps, clothe themselves in plain
+colors.
+
+But here was actually more than one red coat! A red coat with never a
+fox nearer than half a thousand miles!
+
+"Is it a circus parade?" thought Frances, setting spurs to her pinto.
+
+And no wonder she asked. There were three girls, or young women, riding
+abreast, each in a natty red coat with tails to it, hard hats on their
+heads, and skirts. They rode side-saddle. Luckily the horses they rode
+were city bred.
+
+There were two or three other girls who were dressed more like Frances
+herself, and bestrode their ponies in sensible style. The males of the
+party were in the Western mode; Frances recognized one of them
+instantly; it was Pratt Sanderson.
+
+He was not a bad rider. She saw that he accompanied one of the girls who
+wore a red coat, riding close upon her far side. The cavalcade was
+ambling along toward the branding pen, which was in the bottom of a
+coulie.
+
+As Frances rode up behind the party, Molly's little feet making so
+little sound that her presence was unnoticed, the Western girl heard a
+rather shrill voice ask:
+
+"And what are they doing it for, Pratt? I re'lly don't just understand,
+you know. Why burn the mark upon the hides of those--er--embryo cows?"
+
+"I'm telling you," Pratt's voice replied, and Frances saw that it was
+the girl next to him who had asked the question. "I'm telling you that
+all the calves and young stock have to be branded."
+
+"Branded?"
+
+"Yes. They belong to the Bar-T, you see; therefore, the Bar-T mark has
+to be burned on them."
+
+"Just fancy!" exclaimed the girl in the red coat. "Who would think that
+these rude cattle people would have so much sentiment. This Frances
+Rugley you tell about owns all these cows? And does she have her
+monogram burned on all of them?"
+
+Frances drew in her mount. She wanted to laugh (she heard some of the
+party chuckling among themselves), and then she wondered if Pratt
+Sanderson was not, after all, making as much fun of her as he was of the
+girl in the red coat?
+
+Pratt suddenly turned and saw the ranchman's daughter riding behind
+them. He flushed, but smiled, too; and his eyes were dancing.
+
+"Oh, Sue!" he exclaimed. "Here is Frances now."
+
+So this was Sue Latrop--the girl from Boston. Frances looked at her
+keenly as she turned to look at the Western girl.
+
+"My dear! Fancy! So glad to know you," she said, handling her horse
+remarkably well with one hand and putting out her right to Frances.
+
+The latter urged Molly nearer. But the pinto was not on her good
+behavior this morning. She had been too badly treated at the corral.
+
+Molly shook her head, danced sideways, wheeled, and finally collided
+with Pratt's grey pony. The latter squealed and kicked. Instantly,
+Molly's little heels beat a tattoo on the grey's ribs.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Pratt, recovering his seat and pulling in the grey.
+"What's the matter with that horse, Frances?"
+
+Molly was off like a rocket. Frances fairly stood in the stirrups to
+pull the pinto down--and she was not sparing of the quirt. It angered
+her that Molly should "show off" just now. She had heard Sue Latrop's
+shrill laugh.
+
+When she rode back Frances did not offer to shake hands with the Boston
+girl. And, as it chanced, she never did shake hands with her.
+
+"You ride such perfectly ungovernable horses out here," drawled the
+Boston girl. "Is it just for show?"
+
+"Our ponies are not usually family pets," laughed Frances. Yet she
+flushed, and from that moment she was always expecting Sue to say
+cutting things.
+
+"They tell me it is so interesting to see the calves--er--monogrammed;
+do you call it?" said Sue, with a little cough.
+
+"Branded!" exclaimed Pratt, hurriedly.
+
+"Oh, yes! So interesting, I suppose?"
+
+"We do not consider it a show," said Frances, bluntly. "It is a
+necessary evil. I never fancied the smell of scorched hair and hide
+myself; and the poor creatures bawl so. But branding and slitting their
+ears are the only ways we have of marking the cattle."
+
+"Re'lly?" repeated Sue, staring at her as though Frances were more
+curious than the bawling cattle.
+
+The irons were already in the fire when the party rode down to the scene
+of the branding. Silent Sam was in charge of the gang. They had rounded
+up nearly two hundred calves and yearlings. Some of the cows had
+followed their off-spring out of the herd, and were lowing at the corral
+fence.
+
+Afoot and on horseback the men drove the half-wild calves into the
+branding pen runway. As they came through they were roped and thrown,
+and Sam and an assistant clapped the irons to their bony hips. The smell
+of singed hair was rather unpleasant, and the bawling of the excited
+cattle drowned all conversation.
+
+When a calf or a yearling was let loose, he ran as hard as he could for
+a while, with the smoking "monogram," as Sue Latrop called it, the
+object of his tenderest attention. But the smart of it did not last for
+long, and the branded stock soon went to graze contentedly outside the
+corral fence, forgetting the experience.
+
+Frances had a chance to speak to Sam for a moment.
+
+"Ratty will come to you for his time. I'm going to pay him off this
+noon. I've got good reason for letting him go."
+
+"I bet ye," agreed Sam, for whatever Frances said or did was right with
+him.
+
+Pratt insisted upon Frances meeting all these people from Amarillo.
+There was Mrs. Bill Edwards, whom she already knew, as chaperon. Most of
+the others were young people, although nearer Pratt's age than that of
+the ranchman's daughter.
+
+Sue Latrop was the only one from the East. She had been to Amarillo
+before, and she evidently had much influence over her girl friends from
+that Panhandle city, if over nobody else. Two of the girls had copied
+her riding habit exactly; and if imitation is the sincerest flattery,
+then Sue was flattered indeed.
+
+The Boston girl undoubtedly rode well. She had had schooling in the art
+of sticking to a side-saddle like a fly on a wall!
+
+Her horse curvetted, arched his neck, played pretty tricks at command,
+and was long-legged enough to carry her swiftly over the ground if she
+so desired. He made the scrubby, nervous little cow-ponies--including
+Molly--look very shabby indeed.
+
+Sue Latrop apparently believed she was ever so much better mounted than
+the other girls, for she was the only one who had brought her own horse.
+The others, including Pratt, were mounted on Bill Edwards' ponies.
+
+While they were standing in a group and talking, there came a yell from
+the branding pen. A section of rail fence went down with a crash.
+Through the fence came a little black steer that had escaped several
+"branding soirees."
+
+Blackwater, as the Bar-T boys called him, was a notorious rebel. He was
+originally a maverick--a stray from some passing herd--and had joined
+the Bar-T cattle unasked. That was more than two years before. He had
+remained on the Bar-T ranges, but was evidently determined in his dogged
+mind not to submit to the humiliation of the branding-iron.
+
+He had been rounded up with a bunch of yearlings and calves a dozen
+times; but on each occasion had escaped before they got him into the
+corral. It was better to let the black rebel go than to lose a dozen or
+more of the others while chasing him.
+
+This time, however, Silent Sam had insisted upon riding the rebel down
+and hauling him, bawling, into the corral.
+
+But the rope broke, and before the searing-iron could touch the black
+steer's rump he went through the fence like a battering-ram.
+
+"Look out for that ornery critter, Miss Frances!" yelled the foreman of
+the Bar-T Ranch.
+
+Frances saw him coming, headed for the group of visitors. She touched
+Molly with the spur, and the intelligent cow-pony jumped aside into the
+clear-way. Frances seized the rope hanging at her saddle.
+
+Pratt had shouted a warning, too. The visitors scattered. But for once
+Sue Latrop did not manage her mount to the best advantage.
+
+"Look out, Sue!"
+
+"Quick! He'll have you!"
+
+These and other warnings were shouted. With lowered front the black
+steer was charging the horse the girl from Boston rode.
+
+Unlike the trained cow-ponies from Bill Edwards' corral, this gangling
+creature did not know, of himself, what to do in the emergency. The
+other mounts had taken their riders immediately out of the way. Sue's
+horse tossed his head, snorted, and pawed the earth, remaining with his
+flank to the charging steer.
+
+"Get out o' that!" yelled Pratt, and laid his quirt across the stubborn
+horse's quarters.
+
+But to no avail. Sue could neither manage him nor get out of the saddle
+to escape Blackwater. The maverick was fortunately charging the strange
+horse from the off side, and he was coming like a shot from a cannon.
+
+The cowpunchers at the pen were mounting their ponies and racing after
+the black steer, but they were too far away to stop him. In another
+moment he would head into the body of Sue's mount with an awful impact!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE CONTRAST
+
+
+"Frances!"
+
+Pratt Sanderson fairly shrieked the ranch girl's name. He could do
+nothing to save Sue Latrop himself, nor could the other visitors from
+Amarillo. Silent Sam and his men were too far away.
+
+If with anybody, it lay with Frances Rugley to save the Boston girl.
+Frances already had her rope circling her head and Molly was coming on
+the jump!
+
+The wicked little black steer was almost upon the gangling Eastern horse
+ere Frances stretched forward and let the loop go.
+
+Then she pulled back on Molly's bridle reins. The cow-pony began to
+slide, haunches down and forelegs stiffened. The loop dropped over the
+head of the black steer.
+
+Had Blackwater been a heavier animal, he would have overborne Frances
+and her mount at the moment the rope became taut. For it was not a good
+job at all--that particular roping Frances was afterward ashamed of.
+
+To catch a big steer in full flight around the neck only is to court
+almost certain disaster; but Blackwater did not weigh more than nine
+hundred pounds.
+
+Nor was Molly directly behind him when Frances threw the lariat. The
+rope tautened from the side--and at the very instant the mad steer
+collided with Sue Latrop's mount.
+
+The wicked head of the steer banged against the horse's body, which gave
+forth a hollow sound; the horse himself squealed, stumbled, and went
+over with a crash.
+
+Fortunately Sue had known enough to loosen her foot from the stirrup. As
+Frances lay back in her own saddle, and she and Molly held the black
+steer on his knees, Pratt drove his mount past the stumbling horse, and
+seized the Boston girl as she fell.
+
+She cleared her rolling mount with Pratt's help. Otherwise she would
+have fallen under the heavy carcase of the horse and been seriously
+hurt.
+
+Blackwater had crashed to the ground so hard that he could not
+immediately recover his footing. He kicked with a hind foot, and Frances
+caught the foot expertly in a loop, and so got the better of him right
+then and there. She held the brute helpless until Sam and his assistants
+reached the spot.
+
+It was Pratt who had really done the spectacular thing. It looked as
+though Sue Latrop owed her salvation to the young man.
+
+"Hurrah for Pratt!" yelled one of the other young fellows from the city,
+and most of the guests--both male and female--took up the cry. Pratt had
+tumbled off his own grey pony with Sue in his arms.
+
+"You're re'lly a hero, Pratt! What a fine thing to do," the girl from
+Boston gasped. "Fancy my being under that poor horse."
+
+The horse in question was struggling to his feet, practically unhurt,
+but undoubtedly in a chastened spirit. One of the boys from the branding
+pen caught his bridle.
+
+Pratt objected to the praise being showered upon him. "Why, folks, I
+didn't do much," he cried. "It was Frances. She stopped the steer!"
+
+"You saved my life, Pratt Sanderson," declared Sue Latrop. "Don't deny
+it."
+
+"Lots of good I could have done if that black beast had been able to
+keep right on after your horse, Sue," laughed Pratt. "You ask Mr. Sam
+Harding--or any of them."
+
+Sue's pretty face was marred by a frown, and she tossed her head. "I
+don't need to ask them. Didn't you catch me as I fell?"
+
+"Oh, but, Sue----"
+
+"Of course," said the Boston girl, in a tone quite loud enough for
+Frances to hear, "those cowmen would back up their employer. They'd say
+she helped me. But I know whom to thank. You are too modest, Pratt."
+
+Pratt was silenced. He saw that it was useless to try to convince Sue
+that she was wrong. It was plain that the girl from Boston did not wish
+to feel beholden to Frances Rugley.
+
+So the young man dropped the subject. He ran after his own pony, and
+then brought Sue's stubborn mount to her hand. Sue was being
+congratulated and made much of by her friends. None of them spoke to
+Frances.
+
+Pratt came over to the latter before she could ride away after the
+bawling steer. Blackwater was going to be branded this time if it took
+the whole force of the Bar-T to accomplish it!
+
+"Thank you, Frances, for what you did," the young man said, grasping her
+hand. "And Bill will thank you, too. He'll know that it was your work
+that saved her; Mrs. Edwards isn't used to cattle and isn't to be
+blamed. I feel foolish to have them put it on me."
+
+Frances laughed. She would not show Pratt that this whole series of
+incidents had hurt her deeply.
+
+"Don't make a mountain out of a mole-hill, Pratt," she said. "And you
+did do a brave thing. That girl would have been hurt if you had not
+caught her."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," he grumbled.
+
+"I reckon she thinks so, anyway," said Frances, her eyes twinkling. "How
+does it feel to be a hero, Pratt?"
+
+Pratt blushed and turned away. "I don't want to wear any laurels that
+are not honestly my own," he muttered.
+
+"But you don't object to Miss Boston's expression of gratitude, Pratt?"
+teased Frances.
+
+He made a little face at her as he went back to the ranchman's wife and
+her guests; without another word Frances spurred Molly in the other
+direction, and before Mrs. Bill Edwards could speak to her the girl of
+the ranges was far away.
+
+She headed for the West Run, where a large herd of the Bar-T cattle
+grazed. Nor did she look back again to see what became of the group of
+riders who were with Mrs. Edwards and Pratt.
+
+Frances had no heart for such company just then. Sue Latrop's manner had
+really hurt the Western girl. Perhaps Frances was easily wounded; but
+Sue had plainly revealed her opinion of the ranchman's daughter.
+
+The contrast between them cut Frances to the quick. She keenly realized
+how she, herself, must appear in the company of the pretty Eastern girl.
+
+"Of course, Pratt, and Mrs. Edwards, and all of them, must see how
+superior she is to me," Frances thought, as Molly galloped away with
+her. "But just the same, I don't like that Sue Latrop a bit!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+IN THE FACE OF DANGER
+
+
+Frances was going by the way of Cottonwood Bottom because the trail was
+better and there were fewer gates to open.
+
+The Bar-T kept a gang riding fence all the time; but even so, it was
+impossible always to keep up the wires. Frances seldom if ever rode from
+home without wire cutters and staples in a pocket of her saddle.
+
+She stopped several times on this morning to mend breaks and to tighten
+slack wires, so it was late when she found the herd at West Run. Here
+were chuck-wagon, horse corral and camp--a regular "cowboy's home," in
+fact.
+
+The boss of the outfit was Asa Bird, and Tom Phipps was the wrangler,
+while a Mexican, named Miguel, was cooking for the outfit.
+
+"Ya-as, Miss Frances," drawled Asa, "I reckon we need a right smart of
+things. Mike says he's most out o' provisions; but for the love of home
+don't send us no more beans. We've jest about been beaned to death! No
+wonder them Greasers are fighting among themselves all the endurin'
+time. It's the _frijoles_ they eat makes 'em so fractious--sure
+is!"
+
+Frances wrote out a list of the goods needed, for the next supply wagon
+that passed this way to drop at the camp, and looked over the outfit in
+general in order to report fully to Sam and her father regarding the
+conditions at the West Run.
+
+It was high noon before she got in sight of the cottonwoods on her
+homeward trail. She was hurrying Molly, for she did not want to keep
+Ratty M'Gill waiting for his money. As she had told him, she wanted the
+reckless cowboy off the Bar-T ranges before nightfall.
+
+She had struck the plain above the river ford when she sighted a single
+rider far ahead, and going in her own direction. It was plain that the
+man--whoever he was--was heading for the ford instead of the bridge
+where the new trail crossed.
+
+Something about this fact--or about the slouching rider himself--made
+Frances suspicious. She was reminded of the last time she had come this
+way and of the dialogue she had overheard between Ratty M'Gill and the
+man named Pete.
+
+"If he turns to look back, he will see me," thought the excited girl.
+
+Instantly she was off Molly's back. There might be no time to ride out
+of sight over the ridge. Here was an old buffalo wallow, and she took
+advantage of it.
+
+In the old days when the bison roamed the plains of the Panhandle the
+beasts made wallows in which they ground off the grass, and the
+grassroots as well, leaving a barren hollow from two to four feet in
+depth. These dust baths were used frequently by the heavily-coated
+buffalo in hot weather.
+
+Holding Molly by the head the girl commanded her to lie down. The
+cow-pony, perfectly amenable to her young mistress now, obeyed the
+order, grunting as she dropped to her knees, the saddle squeaking.
+
+"Be dead!" ordered Frances, sternly. The pinto rolled on her side,
+stretched out her neck, and blinked up at the girl. She was entirely
+hidden from any chance glance thrown back by the stranger on the trail;
+and when Frances dropped down, too, both of them were well out of sight
+of any one riding the range.
+
+The range girl waited until she was quite sure the stranger had ridden
+beyond the first line of cottonwoods. Perhaps he merely wished to water
+his steed at the ford, but Frances had her doubts of him.
+
+When she finally stood up to scrutinize the plain ahead, there was no
+moving object in sight. Yet she did not mount and ride Molly when she
+had got the pinto on its legs.
+
+Instead, she led the pony, and kept off the wellworn trail, too. The
+pounding of hoofs on a hard trail can be distinguished for a long
+distance by a man who will take the trouble to put his ear to the
+ground. The sound travels almost as far as the jar of a coming railroad
+train on the steel rails.
+
+It was more than two miles to the beginning of the cottonwood grove, and
+one cannot walk very fast and lead a horse, too. But with a hand on
+Molly's neck, and speaking an urgent word to the pinto now and then,
+Frances was able to accomplish the journey within a reasonable time.
+
+Meantime she saw no sign of the man on horseback, nor of anybody else.
+He had ridden down to the ford, she was sure, and was still down there.
+
+Once among the trees, Frances tied the pinto securely and crept through
+the thickets toward the shallow part of the stream. She heard no voices
+this time; but she did smell smoke.
+
+"Not tobacco," thought Frances Rugley, with decision. "He's built a
+campfire. He is going to stay here for a time. What for, I wonder? Is he
+expecting to meet somebody?"
+
+This Cottonwood Bottom, as it was called, was on the Bar-T range. Nobody
+really had business here save the ranch employees. The trail to the
+_hacienda_ was not a general road to any other ranch or settlement.
+It was curious that this lone man should come here and make camp.
+
+She came in sight of him ere long. He had kindled a small fire, over
+which already was a battered tin pot in which coffee beans were stewing.
+The rank flavor was wafted through the grove.
+
+His scrubby pony was grazing, hobbled. The man's flapping hat brim hid
+his face; but Frances knew him.
+
+It was Pete, the man who had been orderly at the Soldiers' Home, at
+Bylittle, Mississippi, and who had frankly owned to coming to the
+Panhandle for the purpose of robbing Captain Dan Rugley.
+
+The girl of the ranges was much puzzled what to do in this emergency.
+Should she creep away, ride Molly hard back to the ranch-house, arouse
+Sam and some of the faithful punchers, and with them capture this
+ne'er-do-well and run him off the ranges?
+
+That seemed, on its face, the more sensible if the less romantic thing
+to do. Yet the very publicity attending such a move was against it.
+
+The suspicion that Captain Rugley had a treasure hidden away in the old
+Spanish chest was not a general one. It might have been lazily discussed
+now and then over some outfit's fire when other subjects of gossip had
+"petered out," to use the punchers' own expression.
+
+But it was doubtful if even Ratty M'Gill believed the story. Frances had
+heard him scoff at the man, Pete, for holding such a belief.
+
+If she attempted to capture this tramp by the fire, making the affair
+one of importance, the story of the Spanish treasure chest would spread
+over half the Panhandle.
+
+"What the boys didn't know wouldn't hurt them!" Frances told herself,
+and she would not ask for help. She had already laid her plans and she
+would stick to them.
+
+And while she hesitated, discussing these things in her mind, a figure
+afoot came down the slope toward the ford and the campfire. It was Ratty
+M'Gill, walking as though already footsore, and with his saddle and
+accoutrements on his shoulder.
+
+The high-heeled boots worn by cowpunchers are not easy footwear to walk
+in. And a real cattleman's saddle weighs a good bit! Ratty flung down
+the leather with a grunt, and dropped on the ground beside the fire.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" growled the man, Pete. "Been pulling
+leather?"
+
+"There ain't no hawse bawn can make me git off if I don't want,"
+returned Ratty M'Gill, sharply. "I got canned."
+
+"Fired?"
+
+"Yep. And by that snip of a gal," and he said it viciously.
+
+"Ain't you man enough to have a pony of your own?"
+
+"Sam wouldn't sell me one--the hound! Nor I didn't have no money to
+spare for a mount, anyway. I'd rustle one out of the herd if the
+wranglers hadn't drove 'em all up the other way las' night. And I said
+I'd come over here to see you again."
+
+"What else?" demanded Pete, suspiciously. He seemed to know that Ratty
+had not come here to the ford for love of him.
+
+"Wal, old man! I tried to go to headquarters. Went in to see the Cap.
+Nothing doing. If the gal had canned me, that was enough. So he said,
+and so Sam Harding said. I'm through at the Bar-T."
+
+"That's a nice thing," snarled Pete. "And just as I got up a scheme to
+use you there!"
+
+"Mebbe you can use me now," grunted Ratty.
+
+"I--don't--know."
+
+"Oh, I seen something that you'd like to know about."
+
+"What is that?" asked Pete, quickly.
+
+"The old Cap has taken a tumble to himself. Guess he was put wise by
+what happened the other night--you know. He's going to send the chest to
+the Amarillo bank."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"That's so," said Ratty, with his slow drawl, and evidently enjoying the
+other's discomfiture.
+
+"How do you know?" snapped Pete.
+
+"Seed it. Standing all corded up and with a tag on it, right in the
+hall. Knowed Sam was going to get ready a four-mule team for Amarillo
+to-morrow morning. The gal's going with it, and Mack Hinkman to drive.
+Good-night! if there's treasure in that chest, you'll have to break into
+the Merchants' and Drovers' Bank of Amarillo to get at it--take that
+from me!"
+
+Pete leaned toward him and his hairy hand clutched Ratty's knee. What he
+said to the discharged employee of the Bar-T Ranch Frances did not hear.
+She had, however, heard enough. She was worried by what Ratty had said
+about his interview with Captain Rugley. Her father should not have been
+disturbed by ranch business just then.
+
+The girl crept back through the grove, found Molly where she had left
+her, and soon was a couple of miles away from the ford and making for
+the ranch-house at Molly's very best pace.
+
+She found her father not so much excited as she had feared. Ratty had
+forced his way into the stricken cattleman's room and done some talking;
+but the Captain was chuckling now over the incident.
+
+"That's the kind of a spirit I like to see you show, Frances," he
+declared, patting her hand. "If those punchers don't do what you tell
+'em, bounce 'em! They've got to learn what you say goes--just as though
+I spoke myself. And Ratty M'Gill never was worth the powder to blow him
+to Halifax," concluded the ranchman, vigorously.
+
+Frances was glad her father approved of her action. But she did not
+believe they were well rid of Ratty just because he had started for
+Jackleg Station.
+
+She had constantly in mind Ratty and the man, Pete, with their heads
+together beside the campfire; and she wondered what villainy they were
+plotting. Nevertheless, in the face of possible danger, she went ahead
+with her scheme of starting for Amarillo in the morning. And, as Ratty
+had said, the chest, burlapped, corded, and tagged, stood in the main
+hall of the ranch-house, ready for removal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+A FRIEND INSISTENT
+
+
+It was a long way to the Peckham ranch-house, at which Frances meant to
+make her first night stop. The greater part of the journey would then be
+over.
+
+The second night she proposed to stay at the hotel in Calas, a suburb of
+Amarillo. Her errands in the big town would occupy but a few hours, and
+she expected to be back at Peckham's on the third evening, and at home
+again by the end of the fourth day.
+
+She was troubled by the thought of being so long away from her father's
+side; but he was on the mend again and the doctor had promised to see
+him at least once while she was away from the ranch.
+
+Her reason she gave for going to Amarillo was business connected with
+the forthcoming pageant, "The Panhandle: Past and Present." This
+explanation satisfied her father, too--and it was true to a degree.
+
+She heard from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home the day
+before she was to start on her brief journey, and she sent Jose Reposa
+with a long prepaid telegraph message to the station, arranging for a
+private car in which Jonas P. Lonergan was to travel from Mississippi to
+the Panhandle. She hoped the chaplain would come with him. About the
+ex-orderly of the home the letter said nothing. Perhaps Mr. Tooley had
+overlooked that part of her message.
+
+Captain Rugley was delighted that his old partner was coming West; the
+announcement seemed to have quieted his mind. But he lay on his bed,
+watching the corded chest, with his gun hanging close at hand.
+
+That is, he watched one of the corded and burlapped chests. The secret
+of the second chest was known only to Frances herself and the two
+Chinamen. Anybody who entered the great hall of the _hacienda_ saw
+that one, as Ratty had, standing ready for removal. The one in Captain
+Rugley's room was covered by the blanket and looked like an ordinary
+divan.
+
+Frances believed San Soo and Ming were to be trusted. But to Silent Sam
+she left the guarding of the ranch-house during her absence.
+
+Day was just beginning to announce itself by faint streaks of pink and
+salmon color along the eastern horizon, when the four-mule wagon and
+Frances' pony arrived at the gate of the compound. The two Chinamen, Sam
+himself, and Mack Hinkman, the driver, had all they could do to carry
+the chest out to the wagon.
+
+Frances came out, pulling on her gantlets. She had kissed her father
+good-bye the evening before, and he was sleeping peacefully at this
+hour.
+
+"Have a good journey, Miss Frances," said Sam, yawning. "Look out for
+that off mule, Mack. _Adios._"
+
+The Chinamen had scuttled back to the house. Frances was mounted on
+Molly, and the heavy wagon lurched forward, the mules straining in the
+collars under the admonition of Mack's voice and the snap of his
+bullwhip.
+
+The wagon had a top, and the flap at the back was laced down. No casual
+passer-by could see what was in the vehicle.
+
+Frances rode ahead, for Molly was fresh and was anxious to gallop. She
+allowed the pinto to have her head for the first few miles, as she rode
+straight away into the path of the sun that rose, red and
+jovial-looking, above the edge of the plain.
+
+A lone coyote, hungry after a fruitless night of wandering, sat upon its
+haunches not far from the trail, and yelped at her as she passed. The
+morning air was as invigorating as new wine, and her cares and troubles
+seemed to be lightened already.
+
+She rode some distance ahead of the wagon; but at the line of the Bar-T
+she picketed Molly and built a little fire. She carried at her saddle
+the means and material for breakfast. When the slower moving mule team
+came up with her there was an appetizing odor of coffee and bacon in the
+air.
+
+"That sure does smell good, Ma'am!" declared Mack. "And it's
+on-expected. I only got a cold bite yere."
+
+"We'll have that at noon," said Frances, brightly. "But the morning air
+is bound to make one hungry for a hot drink and a rasher of bacon."
+
+In twenty minutes they were on the trail again. Frances now kept close
+to the wagon. Once off the Bar-T ranges she felt less like being out of
+sight of Mack, who was one of the most trustworthy men in her father's
+employ.
+
+He was not much of a talker, it was true, so Frances had little company
+but her own thoughts; but _they_ were company enough at present.
+
+As she rode along she thought much about the pageant that was to be held
+at Jackleg; many of the brightest points in that entertainment were
+evolved by Frances of the ranges on this long ride to the Peckham ranch.
+
+There were several breaks in the monotony of the journey. One was when
+another covered wagon came into view, taking the trail far ahead of
+them. It came from the direction of Cottonwood Bottom, and was drawn by
+two very good horses. It was so far ahead, however, that neither Frances
+nor Mack could distinguish the outfit or recognize the driver.
+
+"Dunno who that kin be," said Mack, "'nless it's Bob Ellis makin' for
+Peckham's, too. I learned he was going to town this week."
+
+Bob Ellis was a small rancher farther south. Frances was doubtful.
+
+"Would Ellis come by that trail?" she queried. "And why doesn't he stop
+to pass the time of day with us?"
+
+"That's so!" agreed Mack. "It couldn't be Bob, for he'd know these
+mules, and he ain't been to the Bar-T for quite a spell. I dunno who
+that kin be, then, Miss Frances."
+
+Frances had had her light fowling-piece put in the wagon, and before
+noon she sighted a flock of the scarce prairie chickens. Away she
+scampered on Molly after the wary birds, and succeeded, in half an hour,
+in getting a brace of them.
+
+Mack picked and cleaned the chickens on the wagon-seat. "They'll help
+out with supper to-night, if Miz' Peckham ain't expectin' company," he
+remarked.
+
+But they were not destined to arrive at the Peckham ranch without an
+incident of more importance than these.
+
+It was past mid-afternoon. They had had their cold bite, rested the
+mules and Molly, and the latter was plodding along in the shade of the
+wagon-top all but asleep, and her rider was in a like somnolent
+condition. Mack was frankly snoring on the wagon-seat, for the mules had
+naught to do but keep to the trail.
+
+Suddenly Molly lifted her head and pricked her ears. Frances came to
+herself with a slight shock, too. She listened. The pinto nickered
+faintly.
+
+Frances immediately distinguished the patter of hoofs. A single pony was
+coming.
+
+The girl jerked Molly's head around and they dropped back behind the
+wagon which kept on lumberingly, with Mack still asleep on the seat.
+From the south--from the direction of the distant river--a rider came
+galloping up the trail.
+
+"Why!" murmured Frances. "It's Ratty M'Gill!"
+
+The ex-cowboy of the Bar-T swung around upon the trail, as though headed
+east, and grinned at the ranchman's daughter. His face was very red and
+his eyes were blurred, and Frances feared he had been drinking.
+
+"Hi, lady!" he drawled. "Are ye mad with me?"
+
+"I don't like you, M'Gill," the girl said, frankly. "You don't expect me
+to, do you?"
+
+"Aw, why be fussy?" asked the cowboy, gaily. "It's too pretty a world to
+hold grudges. Let's be friends, Frances."
+
+Frances grew restive under his leering smile and forced gaiety. She
+searched M'Gill sharply with her look.
+
+"You didn't gallop out of your way to tell me this," she said. "What do
+you want of me?"
+
+"Oh, just to say how-de-do!" declared the fellow, still with his leering
+smile. "And to wish you a good journey."
+
+"What do you know about my journey?" asked Frances, quickly.
+
+But Ratty M'Gill was not so much intoxicated that he could be easily
+coaxed to divulge any secret. He shook his head, still grinning.
+
+"Heard 'em say you were going to Amarillo, before I went to Jackleg," he
+drawled. "Mighty lonesome journey for a gal to take."
+
+"Mack is with me," said Frances, shortly. "I am not lonely."
+
+"Whew! I bet that hurt me," chuckled Ratty M'Gill. "My room's better
+than my comp'ny, eh?"
+
+"It certainly is," said the girl, frankly.
+
+"Now, you wouldn't say that if you knowed something that I know,"
+declared the fellow, grinning slily.
+
+"I don't know that anything you may say would interest me," the girl
+replied, sharply, and turned Molly's head.
+
+"Aw, hold on!" cried Ratty. "Don't be so abrupt. What I gotter say to
+you may help a lot."
+
+But Frances did not look back. She pushed Molly for the now distant
+wagon. In a moment she knew that Ratty was thundering after her. What
+did he mean by such conduct? To tell the truth, the ranchman's daughter
+was troubled.
+
+Surely, the reckless fellow did not propose to attack Mack and herself
+on the open trail and in broad daylight? She opened her lips to shout
+for the sleeping wagon-driver, when a cloud of dust ahead of the mules
+came into her view.
+
+She heard the clatter of many hoofs. Quite a cavalcade was coming along
+the trail from the east. Out of the dust appeared a figure that Frances
+had learned to know well; and to tell the truth she was not sorry in her
+heart to see the smiling countenance of Pratt Sanderson.
+
+"Hold on, Frances! Ye better listen to me a minute!" shouted the
+ex-cowboy behind her.
+
+She gave him no attention. Molly sprang ahead and she met Pratt not far
+from the wagon. He stopped abruptly, as did the girl of the ranges.
+Ratty M'Gill brought his own mount to a sudden halt within a few yards.
+
+"Hello!" exclaimed Pratt. "What's the matter, Frances?"
+
+"Why, Pratt! How came you and your friends to be riding this way?"
+returned the range girl.
+
+She saw the red coat of the girl from Boston in the party passing the
+slowly moving wagon, and she was not at all sure that she was glad to
+see Pratt, after all!
+
+But the young man had seen something suspicious in the manner in which
+Ratty M'Gill had been following Frances. The fellow now sat easily in
+his saddle at a little distance and rolled a cigarette, leering in the
+meantime at the ranch girl and her friend.
+
+"What does that fellow want?" demanded Pratt again.
+
+"Oh, don't mind him," said Frances, hurriedly. "He has been discharged
+from the Bar-T----"
+
+"That's the fellow you said made the steers stampede?" Pratt
+interrupted.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Don't like his looks," the Amarillo young man said, frankly. "Glad we
+came up as we did."
+
+"But you must go on with your friends, Pratt," said Frances, faintly.
+
+"Goodness! there are enough of them, and the other fellows can get 'em
+all back to Mr. Bill Edwards' in time for supper," laughed Pratt. "I
+believe I'll go on with you. Where are you bound?"
+
+"To Peckham's ranch," said Frances, faintly. "We shall stop there
+to-night."
+
+The rest of the party passed, and Frances bowed to them. Sue Latrop
+looked at the ranch girl, curiously, but scarcely inclined her head.
+Frances felt that if she allowed Pratt to escort her she would make the
+Boston girl more of an enemy than she already felt her to be.
+
+"We--we don't really need you, Pratt," said Frances. "Mack is all
+right----"
+
+"That fellow asleep on the wagon-seat? Lots of good _he_ is as an
+escort," laughed Pratt.
+
+"But I don't really need you," said the girl, weakly.
+
+"Oh! don't be so offish!" cried the young man, more seriously. "Don't
+you suppose I'd be glad of the chance to ride with you for a way?"
+
+"But your friends----"
+
+"You're a friend of mine," said Pratt, seriously. "I don't like the look
+of that Ratty M'Gill. I'm going to Peckham's with you."
+
+What could Frances say? Ratty leered at her from his saddle. She knew he
+must be partly intoxicated, for he was very careless with his matches.
+He allowed a flaming splinter to fall to the trail, after he lit his
+cigarette, and, drunk or sober, a cattleman is seldom careless with fire
+on the plains.
+
+It was mid-pasturage season and the ranges were already dry. A spark
+might at any time start a serious fire.
+
+"We-ell," gasped Frances, at last. "I can't stop you from coming!"
+
+"Of course not!" laughed Pratt, and quickly turned his grey pony to ride
+beside the pinto.
+
+The wagon was now a long way ahead. They set off on a gallop to overtake
+it. But when Frances looked over her shoulder after a minute, Ratty
+M'Gill still remained on the trail, as though undecided whether to
+follow or not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+AN ACCIDENT
+
+
+It was not until later that Frances was disturbed by the thought that
+Pratt was suspected by her father of having a strong curiosity regarding
+the Spanish treasure chest.
+
+"And here he has forced his company upon me," thought the girl. "What
+would father say, if he knew about it?"
+
+But fortunately Captain Rugley was not at hand with his suspicions.
+Frances wished to believe the young man from Amarillo truly her friend;
+and on this ride toward Peckham's they became better acquainted than
+before.
+
+That is, the girl of the ranges learned to know Pratt better. The young
+fellow talked more freely of himself, his mother, his circumstances.
+
+"Just because I'm in a bank--the Merchants' and Drovers'--in Amarillo
+doesn't mean that I'm wealthy," laughed Pratt Sanderson. "They don't
+give me any great salary, and I couldn't afford this vacation if it
+wasn't for the extra work I did through the cattle-shipping season and
+the kindness of our president.
+
+"Mother and I are all alone; and we haven't much money," pursued the
+young man, frankly. "Mother has a relative somewhere whom she suspects
+may be rich. He was a gold miner once. But I tell her there's no use
+thinking about rich relatives. They never seem to remember their poor
+kin. And I'm sure one can't blame them much.
+
+"We have no reason to expect her half-brother to do anything for me.
+Guess I'll live and die a poor bank clerk. For, you know, if you haven't
+money to invest in bank stock yourself, or influential friends in the
+bank, one doesn't get very high in the clerical department of such an
+institution."
+
+Frances listened to him with deeper interest than she was willing to
+show in her countenance. They rode along pleasantly together, and
+nothing marred the journey for a time.
+
+Ratty had not followed them--as she was quite sure he would have done
+had not Pratt elected to become her escort. And as for the strange
+teamster who had turned into the trail ahead of them, his outfit had
+long since disappeared.
+
+Once when Frances rode to the front of the covered wagon to speak to
+Mack, she saw that Pratt Sanderson lifted a corner of the canvas at the
+back and took a swift glance at what was within.
+
+Why this curiosity? There was nothing to be seen in the wagon but the
+corded chest.
+
+Frances sighed. She could credit Pratt with natural curiosity; but if
+her father had seen that act he would have been quite convinced that the
+young man from Amarillo was concerned in the attempt to get the
+treasure.
+
+It was shortly thereafter that the trail grew rough. Some heavy
+wagon-train must have gone this way lately. The wheels had cut deep ruts
+and left holes in places into which the wheels of the Bar-T wagon
+slumped, rocking and wrenching the vehicle like a light boat caught in a
+cross-sea.
+
+The wagon being nearly empty, however, Mack drove his mules at a
+reckless pace. He was desirous of reaching the Peckham ranch in good
+season for supper, and, to tell the truth, Frances, herself, was growing
+very anxious to get the day's ride over.
+
+This haste was a mistake. Down went one forward wheel into a hole and
+crack went the axle. It was far too tough a stick of oak to break short
+off; but the crack yawned, finger-wide, and with a serious visage Mack
+climbed down, after quieting his mules.
+
+The teamster's remarks were vividly picturesque, to say the least.
+Frances, too, was troubled by the delay. The sun was now low behind
+them--disappearing below distant line of low, rolling hills.
+
+Pratt got off his horse immediately and offered to help. And Mack needed
+his assistance.
+
+"Lucky you was riding along with us, Mister," grumbled the teamster. "We
+got to jack up the old contraption, and splice the axle together. I got
+wire and pliers in the tool box and here's the wagon-jack."
+
+He flung the implements out upon the ground. They set to work, Pratt
+removing his coat and doing his full share.
+
+Meanwhile Frances sat on her pony quietly, occasionally riding around
+the stalled wagon so as to get a clear view of the plain all about. For
+a long time not a moving object crossed her line of vision.
+
+"Who you looking for, Frances?" Pratt asked her, once.
+
+"Oh, nobody," replied the girl.
+
+"Do you expect that fellow is still trailing us?" he went on, curiously.
+
+"No-o. I think not."
+
+"But he's on your mind, eh?" suggested Pratt, earnestly. "Just as well I
+came along with you," and he laughed.
+
+"So Mack says," returned Frances, with an answering smile.
+
+Was she expecting an attack? Would Ratty come back? Was the man, Pete,
+lurking in some hollow or buffalo wallow? She scanned the horizon from
+time to time and wondered.
+
+The sun sank to sleep in a bed of gold and crimson. Pink and lavender
+tints flecked the cloud-coverlets he tucked about him.
+
+It was full sunset and still the party was delayed. The mules stamped
+and rattled their harness. They were impatient to get on to their
+suppers and the freedom of the corral.
+
+"We'll sure be too late for supper at Miz' Peckham's," grumbled Mack.
+
+"Oh, you're only troubled about your eats," joked Pratt.
+
+At that moment Frances uttered a little cry. Both Pratt and the teamster
+looked up at her inquiringly.
+
+"What's the matter, Frances?" asked the young fellow.
+
+"I--I thought I saw a light, away over there where the sun is going
+down."
+
+"Plenty of light there, I should say," laughed Pratt. "The sun has left
+a field of glory behind him. Come on, now, Mr. Mack! Ready for this
+other wire?"
+
+"Glory to Jehoshaphat!" grunted the teamster. "The world was made in a
+shorter time than it takes to bungle this mean, ornery job! I got a
+holler in me like the Cave of Winds."
+
+"Hadn't we better take a bite here?" Frances demanded. "It will be
+bedtime when we reach the Peckhams."
+
+"Wal, if you say so, Miss," said the teamster. "I kin eat as soon as
+you kin cook the stuff, sure! But I did hone for a mess of Miz'
+Peckham's flapjacks."
+
+Frances, well used to campwork, became immediately very busy. She ran
+for greasewood and such other fuel as could be found in the immediate
+vicinity, and started her fire.
+
+It smoked and she got the strong smell of it in her nostrils, and it
+made her weep. Pratt, tugging and perspiring under the wagon-body,
+coughed over the smoke, too.
+
+"Seems to me, Frances," he called, "you're filling the entire
+circumambient air with smoke--ker-_chow_!"
+
+"Why! the wind isn't your way," said Frances, and she stood up to look
+curiously about again.
+
+There seemed to be a lot of smoke. It was rolling in from the westward
+across the almost level plain. There was a deep rose glow behind it--a
+threatening illumination.
+
+"Wow!" yelled Pratt.
+
+He had just crawled out from beneath the wagon and was rising to his
+feet. An object flew by him in the half-dusk, about shoulder-high, and
+so swiftly that he was startled. He stepped back into a gopher-hole,
+tripped, and fell full length.
+
+"What in thunder was that?" he yelled, highly excited.
+
+"A jack-rabbit," growled Mack. "And going some. Something scare't that
+critter, sure's you're bawn!"
+
+"Didn't you ever see a jack before, Pratt?" asked Frances, her tone a
+little queer, he thought.
+
+"Not so close to," admitted the young fellow, as he scrambled to his
+feet. "Gracious! if he had hit me he'd have gone clear through me like a
+cannon-ball."
+
+It was only Frances who had realized the unexpected peril. She had tried
+to keep her voice from shaking; but Mack noticed her tone.
+
+"What's up, Miss?" he asked, getting to his legs, too.
+
+"Fire!" gasped the range girl, clutching suddenly at Pratt's arm.
+
+"You mean smoke," laughed Pratt. He saw her rubbing her eyes with her
+other hand.
+
+But Mack had risen, facing the west. He uttered a funny little cluck in
+his throat and the laughing young fellow wheeled in wonder.
+
+Along the horizon the glow was growing rapidly. A tongue of yellow flame
+shot high in the air. A long dead, thoroughly seasoned tree, standing at
+the forks of the trail, had caught fire and the flame flared forth from
+its top like a banner.
+
+_The prairie was afire!_
+
+"Glory to Jehoshaphat!" groaned Mack Hinkman, again. "Who done that?"
+
+"Goodness!" gasped Pratt, quite horror-stricken.
+
+Frances gathered up the cooking implements and flung them into the
+wagon. She had hobbled Molly and the grey pony; now she ran for them.
+
+"Got that axle fixed, Mack?" she shouted over her shoulder.
+
+"Not for no rough traveling, I tell ye sure, Miss Frances!" complained
+the teamster. "That was a bad crack. Have to wait to fix it proper at
+Peckham's." Then he added, _sotto voce_: "If we get the blamed
+thing there at all."
+
+"Don't say that, man!" gasped Pratt Sanderson. "Surely there's not much
+danger?"
+
+"This here spot will be scorched like an overdone flapjack in half an
+hour," declared Hinkman. "We got to git!"
+
+Frances heard him, distant as she was.
+
+"Oh, Mack! you know we can't reach the river in half an hour, even if we
+travel express speed."
+
+"Well! what we goin' ter do then?" demanded the teamster. "Stay here and
+fry?"
+
+Pratt was impressed suddenly with the thought that they were both
+leaning on the advice and leadership of the girl! He was inexperienced,
+himself; and the teamster seemed quite as helpless.
+
+A pair of coyotes, too frightened by the fire to be afraid of their
+natural enemy, man, shot by in the dusk--two dim, grey shapes.
+
+Frances released Molly and the grey pony from their hobbles. She leaped
+upon the back of the pinto and dragged the grey after by his
+bridle-reins. She was back at the stalled wagon in a few moments.
+
+Already the flames could be seen along the western horizon as far as the
+unaided eye could see anything, leaping under the pall of rising smoke.
+The fire was miles away, it was true; but its ominous appearance
+affrighted even Pratt Sanderson, who knew so little about such peril.
+
+Mack was fastening straps and hooking up traces; they had not dared
+leave the mules hitched to the wagon while they were engaged in its
+repair.
+
+"Come on! get a hustle on you, Mister!" exclaimed the teamster. "We got
+to light out o' here right sudden!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE WAVE OF FLAME
+
+
+Pratt was pale, as could be seen where his face was not smudged with
+earth and axle-grease. He came and accepted his pony's bridle from
+Frances' hand.
+
+"What shall we do?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady.
+
+It was plain that the teamster had little idea of what was wise or best
+to do. The young fellow turned to Frances of the ranges quite as a
+matter of course. Evidently, she knew so much more about the perilous
+circumstances than he did that Pratt was not ashamed to take Frances'
+commands.
+
+"This is goin' to be a hot corner," the teamster drawled again; but
+Pratt waited for the girl to speak.
+
+"Are you frightened, Pratt?" she asked, suddenly, looking down at him
+from her saddle, and smiling rather wistfully.
+
+"Not yet," said the young fellow. "I expect I shall be if it is very
+terrible."
+
+"But you don't expect me to be scared?" asked Frances, still gravely.
+
+"I don't think it is your nature to show apprehension," returned he.
+
+"I'm not like other girls, you mean. That girl from Boston, for
+instance?" Frances said, looking away at the line of fire again. "Well!"
+and she sighed. "I am not, I suppose. With daddy I've been up against
+just such danger as this before. You never saw a prairie fire, Pratt?"
+
+"No, ma'am!" exclaimed Pratt. "I never did."
+
+"The grass and greasewood are just right for it now. Mack is correct,"
+the girl went on. "This will be a hot corner."
+
+"And that mighty quick!" cried Mack.
+
+"But you don't propose to stay here?" gasped Pratt.
+
+"Not much! Hold your mules, Mack," she called to the grumbling teamster.
+"I'm going to make a flare."
+
+"Better do somethin' mighty suddent, Miss," growled the man.
+
+She spurred Molly up to the wagon-seat and there seized one of the
+blankets.
+
+"Got a sharp knife, Pratt?" she asked, shaking out the folds of the
+blanket.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Slit this blanket, then--lengthwise. Halve it," urged Frances. "And be
+quick."
+
+"That's right, Miss Frances!" called the teamster. "Set a backfire both
+sides of the trail. We got to save ourselves. Be sure ye run it a mile
+or more."
+
+"Do you mean to burn the prairie ahead of us?" panted Pratt.
+
+"Yes. We'll have to. I hope nobody will be hurt. But the way that fire
+is coming back there," said Frances, firmly, "the flames will be ten
+feet high when they get here."
+
+"You don't mean it!"
+
+"Yes. You'll see. Pray we may get a burned-over area before us in time
+to escape. The flames will leap a couple of hundred feet or more before
+the supply of gas--or whatever it is that burns so high above the
+ground--expires. The breath of that flame will scorch us to cinders if
+it reaches us. It will kill and char a big steer in a few seconds. Oh,
+it is a serious situation we're in, Pratt!"
+
+"Can't we keep ahead of it?" demanded the young man, anxiously.
+
+"Not for long," replied Frances, with conviction. "I've seen more than
+one such fire, as I tell you. There! Take this rawhide."
+
+The ranchman's daughter was not idle while she talked. She showed him
+how to knot the length of rawhide which she had produced from under the
+wagon-seat to one end of his share of the blanket. Her own fingers were
+busy with the other half meanwhile.
+
+"Into your saddle now, Pratt. Take the right-hand side of the trail.
+Ride as fast as you can toward the river when I give the word. Go a
+mile, at least."
+
+The ponies were urged close to the campfire and he followed Frances'
+example when she flung the tail of her piece of blanket into the blaze.
+The blankets caught fire and began to smoulder and smoke. There was
+enough cotton mixed with the wool to cause it to catch fire quickly.
+
+"All right! We're off!" shouted Frances, and spurred her pinto in the
+opposite direction. Immediately the smouldering blanket-stuff was blown
+into a live flame. Wherever it touched the dry grass and clumps of low
+brush fire started like magic.
+
+Immediately Pratt reproduced her work on the other side of the trail. At
+right angles with the beaten path, they fled across the prairie, leaving
+little fires in their wake that spread and spread, rising higher and
+higher, and soon roaring into quenchless conflagrations.
+
+These patches of fire soon joined and increased to a wider and wider
+swath of flame. The fire traveled slowly westward, but rushed eastward,
+propelled by the wind.
+
+Wider and wider grew the sea of flame set by the burning blankets. Like
+Frances, Pratt kept his mount at a fast lope--the speediest pace of the
+trained cow-pony--nor did he stop until the blanket was consumed to the
+rawhide knot.
+
+Then he wheeled his mount to look back. He could see nothing but flames
+and smoke at first. He did not know how far Frances had succeeded in
+traveling with her "flare"; but he was quite sure that he had come more
+than a mile from the wagon-trail.
+
+He could soon see a broadening patch of burned-over prairie in the midst
+of the swirling flames and smoke. His pony snorted, and backed away from
+the approach-fire; but Pratt wheeled the grey around to the westward,
+and where the flames merely crept and sputtered through the greasewood
+and against the wind, he spurred his mount to leap over the line of
+fire.
+
+The earth was hot, and every time the pony set a hoof down smoke or
+sparks flew upward; but Pratt had to get back to the trail. With the
+quirt he forced on the snorting grey, and finally reached a place where
+the fire had completely passed and the ground was cooler.
+
+Ashes flew in clouds about him; the smoke from the west drove in a thick
+mass between him and the darkened sky. Only the glare of the roaring
+fire revealed objects and landmarks.
+
+The backfire had burned for many yards westward, to meet the threatening
+wave of flame flying on the wings of the wind. To the east, the line of
+flame Pratt and Frances had set was rising higher and higher.
+
+He saw the wagon standing in the midst of the smoke, Mack Hinkman
+holding the snorting, kicking mules with difficulty, while a wild little
+figure on a pony galloped back from the other side of the trail.
+
+"All right, Pratt?" shrieked Frances. "Get up, Mack; we've no time to
+lose!"
+
+The teamster let the mules go. Yet he dared not let them take their own
+gait. The thought of that cracked axle disturbed him.
+
+The wagon led, however, through the smoke and dust; the two ponies fell
+in behind upon the trail. Frances and Pratt looked at each other. The
+young man was serious enough; but the girl was smiling.
+
+Something she had said a little while before kept returning to Pratt's
+mind. He was thinking of what would have happened had Sue Latrop, the
+girl from Boston, been here instead of Frances.
+
+"Goodness!" Pratt told himself. "They are out of two different worlds;
+that's sure! And I'm an awful tenderfoot, just as Mrs. Bill Edwards
+says."
+
+"What do you think of it?" asked Frances, raising her voice to make it
+heard above the roar of the fire and the rumble of the wagon ahead of
+them.
+
+"I'm scared--right down scared!" admitted Pratt Sanderson.
+
+"Well, so was I," she admitted. "But the worst is over now. We'll reach
+the river and ford it, and so put the fire all behind us. The flames
+won't leap the river, that's sure."
+
+The heat from the prairie fire was most oppressive. Over their heads the
+hot smoke swirled, shutting out all sight of the stars. Now and then a
+clump of brush beside the trail broke into flame again, fanned by the
+wind, and the ponies snorted and leaped aside.
+
+Suddenly Mack was heard yelling at the mules and trying to pull them
+down to something milder than a wild gallop. Frances and Pratt spurred
+their ponies out upon the burned ground in order to see ahead.
+
+Something loomed up on the trail--something that smoked and flamed like
+a big bonfire.
+
+"What can it be?" gasped Pratt, riding knee to knee with the range girl.
+
+"Not a house. There isn't one along here," she returned.
+
+"Some old-timer got caught!" yelled the teamster, looking back at the
+two pony-riders. "Hope he saved his skin."
+
+"A wagoner!" cried Frances, startled.
+
+"He cut his stock loose, of course," yelled Mack Hinkman.
+
+But when they reached the burning wagon they saw that this was not
+altogether true. One horse lay, charred, in the harness. The wagon had
+been empty. The driver of it had evidently cut his other horse loose and
+ridden away on its back to save himself.
+
+"And why didn't he free this poor creature?" demanded Pratt. "How
+cruel!"
+
+"He was scare't," said Mack, pulling his mules out of the trail so as to
+drive around the burning wagon. "Or mebbe the hawse fell. Like enough
+that's it."
+
+Frances said nothing more. She was wondering if this abandoned wagon was
+the one she had seen turn into the trail from Cottonwood Bottom early in
+the day? And who was its driver?
+
+They went on, puzzled by this incident. At least, Frances and Pratt were
+puzzled by it.
+
+"We may see the fellow at the ford," Frances said. "Too bad he lost his
+outfit."
+
+"He didn't have anything in that wagon," said Pratt. "It was as empty as
+your own."
+
+Frances looked at him curiously. She remembered that the young man from
+Amarillo had taken a peep into the Bar-T wagon when he joined them on
+the trail. He must have seen the heavy chest; and now he ignored it.
+
+On and on they rode. The smoke made the ride very unpleasant, even if
+the flames were now at a distance. Behind them the glare of the fire
+decreased; but to north and south the wall of flame, at a distance of
+several miles, rushed on and passed the riders on the trail.
+
+The trees along the river's brink came into view, outlined in many
+places by red and yellow flames. The fire would do a deal of damage
+along here, for even the greenest trees would be badly scorched.
+
+The mules had run themselves pretty much out of breath and finally
+reduced their pace; but the wagon still led the procession when it
+reached the high bank.
+
+The water in the river was very low; the trail descended the bank on a
+slant, and Mack put on the brakes and allowed the sure-footed mules to
+take their own course to the ford.
+
+With hanging heads and heaving flanks, the two cow-ponies followed.
+Frances and Pratt were scorched, and smutted from head to foot; and
+their throats were parched, too.
+
+"I hope I'll never have to take such another ride," admitted the young
+man from Amarillo. "Adventure is all right, Frances; but clerking in a
+bank doesn't prepare one for such a strenuous life."
+
+"I think you are game, Pratt," she said, frankly. "I can see that Mack,
+even, thinks you are pretty good--for a tenderfoot."
+
+The wagon went into the water at that moment. Mack yelled to the mules
+to stop. The wagon was hub deep in the stream and he loosened the reins
+so that the animals might plunge their noses into the flood. Molly and
+the grey quickly put down their heads, too.
+
+Above the little group the flames crackled in a dead-limbed tree,
+lighting the ford like a huge torch. Above the flare of the thick canopy
+of the smoke spread out, completely overcasting the river.
+
+Suddenly Frances laid her hand upon Pratt's arm. She pointed with her
+quirt into a bushy tree on the opposite bank.
+
+"Look over there!" she exclaimed, in a low tone.
+
+Almost as she spoke there sounded the sharp crack of a rifle, and a ball
+passed through the top of the wagon, so near that it made the ponies
+jump.
+
+"Put up your hands--all three of you folks down there!" commanded an
+angry voice. "The magazine of this rifle is plumb full and I can shoot
+straight. D'ye get me? Hands up!"
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Pratt Sanderson.
+
+What Mack Hinkman said was muffled in his own beard; but his hands shot
+upward as he sat on the wagon-seat.
+
+Frances said nothing; her heart jumped--and then pumped faster. She
+recognized the drawling voice of the man in the tree, although she could
+not see his face clearly in the firelight.
+
+It was Pete--Ratty M'Gill's acquaintance--the man who had been orderly
+at the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, and who had come all the way to the
+Panhandle to try to secure the treasure in the old Spanish chest.
+
+Perhaps Frances had half expected some such incident as this to
+punctuate her journey to Amarillo. Nevertheless, the reckless tone of
+the man, and the way he used his rifle, troubled her.
+
+"Put your hands up!" she murmured to Pratt. "Do just what he tells you.
+He may be wicked and foolish enough to fire again."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+MOST ASTONISHING!
+
+
+"The man must be crazy!" murmured the young bank clerk.
+
+"All the more reason why we should be careful to obey him," Frances
+said.
+
+Yet she was not unmindful of the peril Pratt pointed out. Only, in
+Frances' case, she had been brought up among men who carried guns
+habitually, and the sound of a rifle shot did not startle her as it did
+the young man.
+
+"Look yere, Mr. Hold-up Man!" yelled Mack Hinkman, when his amazement
+let him speak. "Ain't you headed in the wrong way? We ain't comin' from
+town with a load. Why, man! we're only jest goin' to town. Why didn't
+you wait till we was comin' back before springin' this mine on us?"
+
+"Keep still there," commanded Pete, from the tree. "Drive on through the
+river, and up on this bank, and then stop! You hear?"
+
+"I'd hear ye, I reckon, if I was plumb deef," complained Mack. "That
+rifle you handle so permiscuous speaks mighty plain."
+
+"Let them on hossback mind it, too," added the man in the tree. "I got
+an eye on 'em."
+
+"Easy, Mister," urged Mack, as he picked up the reins again. "One o'
+them is a young lady. You're a gent, I take it, as wouldn't frighten no
+female."
+
+"Stow that!" advised Pete, with vigor. "Come out o' there!"
+
+Mack started the mules, and they dragged the wagon creakingly up the
+bank. Frances and Pratt rode meekly in its wake. The man in the tree had
+selected his station with good judgment. When Mack halted his four
+mules, and Frances and Pratt obeyed a commanding gesture to stop at the
+water's edge, all three were splendid targets for the man behind the
+rifle.
+
+"Ride up to that wagon, young fellow," commanded Pete. "Rip open that
+canvas. That's right. Roll off your horse and climb inside; but don't
+you go out of sight. If you do I'll make that canvas cover a sieve in
+about one minute. Get me?"
+
+Pratt nodded. He could not help himself. He gave an appealing glance
+toward Frances. She nodded.
+
+"Don't be foolish, Pratt," she whispered. "Do what he tells you to do."
+
+Thus encouraged, the young fellow obeyed the mandate of the man who had
+stopped them on the trail. He had read of highwaymen and hold-ups; but
+he had believed that such things had gone out of fashion with the coming
+of farmers into the Panhandle, the building up of the frequent
+settlements, and the extension of the railroad lines.
+
+Pratt's heart was warmed by the girl's evident desire that he should not
+run into danger. The outlaw in the tree was after the chest hidden in
+the wagon; but Frances put his safety above the value of the treasure
+chest.
+
+"Heave that chist out of the end of the wagon, and be quick about it!"
+was the expected order from the desperado. "And don't try anything
+funny, young fellow."
+
+Pratt was in no mood to be "funny." He hesitated just a moment. But
+Frances exclaimed:
+
+"Do as he says! Don't wait!"
+
+So out rolled the chest. Mack was grumbling to himself on the front
+seat; but if he was armed he did not consider it wise to use any weapon.
+The man with the rifle had everything his own way.
+
+"Now, drive on!" commanded the latter individual. "I've got no use for
+any of you folks here, and you'll be wise if you keep right on moving
+till you get to that Peckham ranch. Git now!"
+
+"All right, old-timer," grunted Mack. "Don't be so short-tempered about
+it."
+
+He let the mules go and they scrambled up the bank, drawing the wagon
+after them. The chest lay on the river's edge. Pratt Sanderson had
+climbed upon his pony again.
+
+"You two git, also," growled the man in the tree. "I got all I want of
+ye."
+
+Pratt groaned aloud as he urged the grey pony after Molly.
+
+"What will your father say, Frances?" he muttered.
+
+"I don't know," returned the girl, honestly.
+
+"I'm going to ride ahead to the Peckham ranch and rouse them. That
+fellow can't get away with that heavy chest on horseback."
+
+"I'll go with you," returned the ranchman's daughter. "That rascal
+should be apprehended and punished. We have about chased such people out
+of this section of the country."
+
+"Goodness! you take it calmly, Frances," exclaimed Pratt. "Doesn't
+_anything_ ruffle you?"
+
+She laughed shortly, and made no further remark. They rode on swiftly
+and within the hour saw the lights of Peckham's ranch-house.
+
+Their arrival brought the family to the door, as well as half a dozen
+punchers up from the bunk-house. The fire had excited everybody and kept
+them out of bed, although there was no danger of the conflagration's
+jumping the river.
+
+"Why, Miss Frances!" cried the ranchman's wife, who was a fleshy and
+notoriously good-natured woman, the soul of Western hospitality. "Why,
+Miss Frances! if you ain't a cure for sore eyes! Do 'light and come
+in--and yer friend, too.
+
+"My goodness me! ye don't mean to say you've been through that fire?
+That is awful! Come right on in, do!"
+
+But what Frances and Pratt had to tell about their adventure at the ford
+excited the Peckhams and their hands much more than the fire.
+
+"John Peckham!" commanded the fleshy lady, who was really the leading
+spirit at the ranch. "You take a bunch of the boys and ride right after
+that rascal. My mercy! are folks goin' to be held up on this trail and
+robbed just as though we had no law and order? It's disgraceful!"
+
+Then she turned her mind to another idea. "Miss Frances!" she exclaimed.
+"What was in that trunk? Must have been something valuable, eh?"
+
+"I was taking it to the Amarillo bank, to put it in the safe deposit
+vaults," Frances answered, dodging the direct question.
+
+"'Twarn't full of money?" shrieked Mrs. Peckham.
+
+"Why, no!" laughed Frances. "We're not as rich as all that, you know."
+
+"Well," sighed the good, if curious, woman, "I reckon there was 'nough
+sight more valuables in the trunk than Captain Dan Rugley wants to lose.
+Hurry up, there, John Peckham!" she shouted after her husband. "Git
+after that fellow before he has a chance to break open the trunk."
+
+"I'm going to get a fresh horse and ride back with them," Pratt
+Sanderson told Frances. "And we'll get that chest, don't you fear."
+
+"You'd better remain here and have your night's rest," advised the girl,
+wonderfully calm, it would seem. "Let Mr. Peckham and his men catch that
+bad fellow."
+
+"And me sit here idle?" cried Pratt. "Not much!"
+
+She saw him start for the corral, and suddenly showed emotion. "Oh,
+Pratt!" she cried, weakly.
+
+The young man did not hear her. Should she shout louder for him? She
+paled and then grew rosy red. Should she run after him? Should she tell
+him the truth about that chest?
+
+"Do come in the house, Miss Frances," urged Mrs. Peckham. And the girl
+from the Bar-T obeyed her and allowed Pratt to go.
+
+"You must sure be done up," said Mrs. Peckham, bustling about. "I'll
+make you a cup of tea."
+
+"Thank you," said Frances. She listened for the posse to start, and knew
+that, when they dashed away, Pratt Sanderson was with them.
+
+Mack Hinkman arrived with the double mule team soon after. He said the
+crowd had gone by him "on the jump."
+
+"I 'low they'll ketch that feller that stole your chist, Miss Frances,
+'bout the time two Sundays come together in the week," he declared.
+"He's had plenty of time to make himself scarce."
+
+"But the trunk?" cried Mrs. Peckham. "That was some heavy, wasn't it?"
+
+"Aw, he had a wagon handy. He wouldn't have tried to take the chist if
+he hadn't. Don't you say so, Miss Frances?" said the teamster.
+
+"I don't know," said the girl, and she spoke wearily. Indeed, she had
+suddenly become tired of hearing the robbery discussed.
+
+"Don't trouble the poor girl," urged Mrs. Peckham. "She's all done up.
+We'll know all about it when John Peckham gets back. You wanter go to
+bed, honey?"
+
+Frances was glad to retire. Not alone was she weary, but she wished to
+escape any further discussion of the incident at the ford.
+
+Mrs. Peckham showed her to the room she was to occupy. Mack would remain
+up to repair properly the cracked axle of the wagon.
+
+For, whether the chest was recovered or not, Frances proposed to go
+right on in the morning to Amarillo.
+
+She did not awaken when Mr. Peckham and his men returned; but Frances
+was up at daybreak and came into the kitchen for breakfast. Mrs. Peckham
+was bustling about just as she had been the night before when the girl
+from the Bar-T retired.
+
+"Hard luck, Miss Frances!" the good lady cried. "Them men ain't worth
+more'n two bits a dozen, when it comes to sending 'em out on a trail.
+They never got your trunk for you at all!"
+
+"And they did not catch the man who stopped us at the ford?"
+
+"Of course not. John Peckham never could catch anything but a cold."
+
+"But where could he have gone--that man, I mean?" queried Frances.
+
+"Give it up! One party went up stream and t'other down. Your friend, Mr.
+Sanderson, went with the first party."
+
+"Oh, yes," Frances commented. "That would be on his way to the Edwards
+ranch where he is staying."
+
+"Well, mebbe. They say he was mighty anxious to find your trunk. He's an
+awful nice young man----"
+
+"Where's Mack?" asked Frances, endeavoring to stem the tide of the
+lady's speech.
+
+"He's a-getting the team ready, Frances. He's done had his breakfast.
+And I never did see a man with such a holler to fill with flapjacks. He
+eat seventeen."
+
+"Mack's appetite is notorious at the ranch," admitted Frances, glad Mrs.
+Peckham had finally switched from the subject of the lost chest.
+
+"He was telling me about that burned wagon you passed on the trail.
+Can't for the life of me think who it could belong to," said Mrs.
+Peckham.
+
+"We thought once that Mr. Bob Ellis was ahead of us on the trail," said
+Frances.
+
+"He'd have come right on here," declared the ranchman's wife. "No.
+'Twarn't Bob."
+
+"Then I thought it might have belonged to that man who stopped us,"
+suggested Frances.
+
+"If that's so, I reckon he got square for his loss, didn't he?" cried
+the lady. "I reckon that chest was filled with valuables, eh?"
+
+Fortunately, Frances had swallowed her coffee and the mule team rattled
+to the door.
+
+"I must hurry!" the girl cried, jumping up. "Many, many thanks, dear
+Mrs. Peckham!" and she kissed the good woman and so got out of the house
+without having to answer any further questions.
+
+She sprang into Molly's saddle and Mack cracked his whip over the mules.
+
+"Mebbe we'll have good news for you when you come back, Frances!" called
+the ranchwoman, quite filling the door with her ample person as she
+watched the Bar-T wagon, and the girl herself, take the trail for
+Amarillo.
+
+Mack Hinkman was quite wrought up over the adventure of the previous
+evening.
+
+"That young Pratt Sanderson is some smart boy--believe me!" he said to
+Frances, who elected to ride within earshot of the wagon-seat for the
+first mile or two.
+
+"How is that?" she asked, curiously.
+
+"They tell me it was him found the place where the chest had been put
+aboard that punt."
+
+"What punt?"
+
+"The boat the feller escaped in with the chest," said Mack.
+
+"Then he wasn't the man whose wagon and one horse was burned?" queried
+Frances.
+
+"Don't know. Mebbe. But that's no difference. This old punt has been hid
+down there below the ford since last duck-shooting season. Maybe he
+knowed 'twas there; maybe he didn't. Howsomever, he found the boat and
+brought it up to the ford. Into the boat he tumbled the chest. There was
+the marks on the bank. John Peckham told me himself."
+
+"And Pratt found the trail?"
+
+"That's what he did. Smart boy! The rest of 'em was up a stump when they
+didn't find the chest knocked to pieces. The hold-up gent didn't even
+stop to open it."
+
+"He expected we'd set somebody on his trail," Frances said,
+reflectively.
+
+"In course. Two parties. One went up stream and t'other down."
+
+"So Mrs. Peckham just told me."
+
+"Wal!" said Mack. "Mebbe one of 'em will ketch the varmint!"
+
+But Frances made no further comment. She rode on in silence, her mind
+vastly troubled. And mostly her thought connected Pratt Sanderson with
+the disappearance of the chest.
+
+Why had the young fellow been so sure that the robber had gone up stream
+instead of down? It did not seem reasonable that the man would have
+tried to stem the current in the heavy punt--nor was the chest a light
+weight.
+
+It puzzled Frances--indeed, it made her suspicious. She was anxious to
+learn whether the man who had stolen the chest had gone up, or down, the
+river.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE BOSTON GIRL AGAIN
+
+
+Frances warned Mack to say nothing about the hold-up at the ford. That
+was certainly laying no cross on the teamster's shoulders, for he was
+not generally garrulous.
+
+They put up at the hotel that night and Frances did her errands in
+Amarillo the next day without being disturbed by awkward questions
+regarding their adventure.
+
+Certainly, she was not obliged to go to the bank under the present
+circumstances, for there was no chest now to put in the safe-keeping of
+that institution.
+
+Nor did Frances Rugley have many friends in the breezy, Western city
+with whom she might spend her time. Two years make many changes in such
+a fast-growing community. She was not sure that she would be able to
+find many of the girls with whom she had gone to high school.
+
+And she was, too, in haste to return to the Bar-T. Although she had left
+her father better, she worried much about him. Naturally, too, she
+wished to get back and report to him the adventures which had marked her
+journey to Amarillo.
+
+She would have been glad to escape stopping at the Peckham ranch over
+the third night; but she could not get beyond that point--the wagon now
+being heavily laden; nor did she wish to remain out on the range at
+night without a shelter tent.
+
+The hold-up at the ford naturally made Frances feel somewhat timid, too.
+Mack was not armed, and she had only the revolver that she usually
+carried in her saddle holster and wouldn't have thought of defending
+herself with it from any human being.
+
+So she rode ahead when it became dark, and reached the Peckham ranch at
+supper time, finding both a warm welcome and much news awaiting her.
+
+"Glad to see ye back again, Frances," declared Mrs. Peckham. "We done
+been talking about you and your hold-up most of the time since you went
+to Amarillo. Beats all how little it does take to set folks' tongues
+wagging in the country. Ain't it so?
+
+"Well! that feller got clean away. And he took chest and all. Them
+fellers that went down stream found the old punt. But they never found
+no place where he'd shifted the trunk ashore. And it must have been
+heavy, Frances?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+"Must have been a sight of valuables in it," repeated Mrs. Peckham.
+
+"What about those who went up stream?" asked Frances, quickly.
+
+"There! your friend, Mr. Sanderson, didn't come back. He went on to Mr.
+Bill Edwards' place, so he said. He axed would you lead his grey pony on
+behind your wagon to the Bar-T. Said he'd come after it there."
+
+"Yes; of course," returned Frances. "But didn't he find any trace of the
+robber up stream?"
+
+"How could they, Miss Frances, if the boat went down?" demanded Mrs.
+Peckham. "Of course not."
+
+It was true. Frances worried about this. Pratt Sanderson had insisted
+upon leading a part of the searchers in exactly the opposite direction
+to that in which common sense should have told him the robber had gone
+with the chest.
+
+"Of course he would never have tried to pole against the current,"
+Frances told herself. "I am afraid daddy will consider that
+significant."
+
+She did not attempt to keep the story from Captain Dan Rugley when she
+got back home on the fourth evening.
+
+"Smart girl!" the old ranchman said, when she told him of the
+make-believe treasure chest she had carted halfway to Amarillo,
+burlapped, corded, and tagged as though for deposit in the city bank for
+safe-keeping.
+
+"Smart girl!" he repeated. "Fooled 'em good. But maybe you were
+reckless, Frances--just a wee mite reckless."
+
+"I had no intention of trying to defend the chest, or of letting Mack,"
+she told him.
+
+"And how about that Pratt boy who you say went along with you?" queried
+the Captain, his brows suddenly coming together.
+
+"Well, Daddy! He insisted upon going with me because Ratty bothered me,"
+said Frances, in haste.
+
+"Humph! Mack could break that M'Gill in two if the foolish fellow became
+really fresh with you. Now! I don't want to say anything to hurt your
+feelings, Frances; but it does seem to me that this Pratt Sanderson was
+too handy when that hold-up man got the chest."
+
+It was just as the girl feared. She bit her lip and said nothing. She
+did not see what there was to say in Pratt's defense. Besides, in her
+secret heart she, too, was troubled about the young fellow from
+Amarillo.
+
+She wondered what the robber at the ford thought about it when he got
+the old trunk open and found in it nothing but some junk and rubbish she
+had found in the attic of the ranch-house. At least, she had managed to
+draw the attention of the dishonest orderly from the Bylittle Soldiers'
+Home from the real Spanish treasure chest for several days.
+
+Before he could make any further attempt against the peace of mind of
+her father and herself, Frances hoped Mr. Lonergan would have arrived at
+the Bar-T and the responsibility for the safety of the treasure would be
+lifted from their shoulders.
+
+At any rate, the mysterious treasure would be divided and disposed of.
+When Pete knew that the Spanish treasure chest was opened and the
+valuables divided, he might lose hope of gaining possession of the
+wealth he coveted.
+
+A telegram had come while Frances was absent from the chaplain of the
+Soldiers' Home, stating that Mr. Lonergan would start for the Panhandle
+in a week, if all went well with him.
+
+Captain Rugley was as eager as a boy for his old partner's appearance.
+
+"And I've been wishing all these years," he said, "while you were
+growing up, Frances, to dress you up in a lot of this fancy jewelry. It
+would have been for your mother if she had lived."
+
+"But you don't want me to look like a South Sea Island princess, do you,
+Daddy?" Frances said, laughing. "I can see that the belt and bracelet I
+wore the night Pratt stopped here rather startled him. He's used to
+seeing ladies dressed up, in Amarillo, too."
+
+"Pooh! In the cities women are ablaze with jewels. Your mother and I
+went to Chicago once, and we went to the opera. Say! that was a show!
+
+"Let me tell you, there are things in that chest that will outshine
+anything in the line of ornaments that that Pratt Sanderson--or any
+other Amarillo person--ever saw."
+
+The girl was quite sure that this desire on her father's part of
+arraying her in the gaudy jewels from the old chest was bound to make
+her the laughing-stock of the people who were coming out from Amarillo
+to see the Pageant of the Panhandle.
+
+But what could she do about it? His wish was fathered by his love for
+her. She must wear the gems to please him, for Frances would never do
+anything to hurt his feelings, for the world.
+
+A good many of their friends, of course--people like good Mrs.
+Peckham--would never realize the incongruity of a girl being bedecked
+like a barbarian princess. But Frances wondered what the girl from
+Boston would say to Pratt Sanderson about it, if she chanced to see
+Frances so adorned?
+
+She had an opportunity of seeing something more of the Boston girl
+shortly, for in a day or two Pratt Sanderson came over for the grey pony
+he had left at the Peckham ranch, and Frances had led back to the Bar-T
+for him.
+
+And with Pratt trailed along Mrs. Bill Edwards and the visitors whom
+Frances had met twice before.
+
+By this time Captain Dan Rugley was able to hobble out upon the veranda,
+and was sitting there in his old, straight-backed chair when the
+cavalcade rode up. He hailed Mrs. Edwards, and welcomed her and her
+young friends as heartily as it was his nature so to do.
+
+"Come in, all of you!" he shouted. "Ming will bring out a pitcher of
+something cool to drink in a minute; and San Soo can throw together a
+luncheon that'll keep you from starving to death before you get back to
+Bill's place."
+
+He would not listen to refusals. The Mexican boys took the ponies away
+and a round dozen of visitors settled themselves--like a covey of
+prairie chickens--about the huge porch.
+
+Frances welcomed everybody quietly, but with a smile. She instructed
+Ming to set tables in the inner court of the _hacienda_, as it
+would be both cool and shady there on this hot noontide.
+
+She noticed that Sue Latrop scarcely bowed to her, and immediately set
+about chattering to two or three of her companions. Frances did not mind
+for herself; but she saw that the girl from Boston seemed amused by
+Captain Rugley's talk, and was not well-bred enough to conceal her
+amusement.
+
+The old ranchman was not dull in any particular, however; before long he
+found an opportunity to say to his daughter:
+
+"Who's the girl in the fancy fixin's? That red coat's got style to it, I
+reckon?"
+
+"If you like the style," laughed Frances, smiling tenderly at him.
+
+"You don't? And I see she doesn't cotton much to you, Frances. What's
+the matter?"
+
+"She's Eastern," explained Frances, briefly. "I imagine she thinks I am
+crude."
+
+"'Crude'? What's 'crude'?" demanded Captain Dan Rugley. "That isn't
+anything very bad, is it, Frances?" and his eyes twinkled.
+
+"Can't be anything much worse, Daddy," she whispered, "if you are all
+'fed up,' as the boys say, on 'culchaw'!"
+
+He chuckled at that, and began to eye Sue Latrop with more interest.
+When the shuffle-footed Ming called them to luncheon, he kept close to
+the girl from Boston, and sat with her and Mrs. Bill Edwards at one of
+the small tables.
+
+"I reckon you're not used to this sort of slapdash eating, Miss?"
+suggested Captain Rugley, with perfect gravity, as he saw Sue casting
+doubtful glances about the inner garden.
+
+The fountain was playing, the trees rustled softly overhead, a little
+breeze played in some mysterious way over the court, and from the
+distance came the tinkle of some Mexican mandolins, for Frances had
+hidden Jose and his brother in one of the shadowy rooms.
+
+"Oh, it's quite _al fresco_, don't you know," drawled Sue.
+"Altogether novel and chawming--isn't it, Mrs. Edwards?"
+
+The neighboring rancher's wife had originally come from the East
+herself; but she had lived long enough in the Panhandle to have quite
+rubbed off the veneer of that "culchaw" of which Sue was an exponent.
+
+"The Bar-T is the show place of the Panhandle," she said, promptly. "We
+are rather proud of it--all of us ranchers."
+
+"Indeed? I had no idea!" cooed the girl from Boston. "And I thought all
+you ranch folk had your wealth in cattle, and re'lly had no time for
+much social exchange."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, "when we have folks come to see us we
+manage to treat 'em with our best."
+
+Sue was obliged to note that the service and the napery were dainty, and
+what she had seen of the furnishings of the darkened hall amazed her--as
+it had Pratt on his first visit. The food was, of course, good and well
+prepared, for San Soo was "A Number One, topside" cook, as he would have
+himself expressed it in pigeon English.
+
+Yet Sue could not satisfy herself that these "cattle people" were really
+worthy of her attention. Had she not been with Mrs. Edwards she would
+have made open fun of the old Captain and his daughter.
+
+Frances of the ranges looked a good deal like a girl on a moving picture
+screen. She was in her riding dress, short skirt, high gaiters,
+tight-fitting jacket, and with her hair in plaits.
+
+The Captain looked as though he had never worn anything but the loose
+alpaca coat he now had on, with the carpet-slippers upon his
+blue-stockinged feet.
+
+"Re'lly!" Sue whispered to Pratt, as they all arose to return to the
+front of the house, "they are quite too impossible, aren't they?"
+
+"Who?" asked Pratt, with narrowing gaze.
+
+"Why--er--this cowgirl and her father."
+
+"I only see that they are very hospitable," the young man said,
+pointedly, and he kept away from the Boston girl for the remainder of
+their visit to the Bar-T ranch-house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY
+
+
+Silent Sam had reported some jack-rabbits on one of the southern ranges,
+and the Captain thought it would interest the party from the Edwards
+ranch to come over the next day and help run them.
+
+Jack-rabbits have become such a nuisance in certain parts of the West of
+late years that a price has been set upon their heads, and the farmers
+and ranchmen often organize big drives to clear the ranges of the pests.
+
+This was only a small drive on the Bar-T; but Captain Rugley had several
+good dogs, and the occasion was an interesting one--for everybody but
+the jacks.
+
+Of course, the old ranchman could not go; but Frances and Sam were at
+Cottonwood Bottom soon after sunrise, waiting for the party from Mr.
+Bill Edwards' ranch.
+
+Jose Reposa had the dogs in leash--two long-legged, sharp-nosed,
+mouse-colored creatures, more than half greyhound, but with enough
+mongrel in their make-up to make them bite when they ran down the
+long-eared pests that they were trained to drive.
+
+The branch of the river that ran through Cottonwood Bottom was too
+shallow--at least, at this season--to float even a punt. Frances gazed
+down the wooded and winding hollow and asked Silent Sam a question:
+
+"Do you know of any place along the river where a man might hide
+out--that fellow who stopped us at the ford the other evening, for
+instance?"
+
+"There's a right smart patch of small growth down below Bill Edwards'
+line," said Sam. "The boys from Peckham's, with that Pratt Sanderson,
+didn't more'n skirt that rubbish, I reckon, by what Mack said," Sam
+observed. "Mebbe that hombre might have laid up there for a while."
+
+"Before or after he robbed us?" Frances asked quietly.
+
+"Wal, now!" ejaculated Sam. "If he took that chest aboard the punt, and
+the punt was found below the ford----"
+
+"You know, Sam," said the girl, thoughtfully, "that he might have poled
+up stream a way, put the chest ashore, and then let the punt drift
+down."
+
+"Reckon that's so," grunted the foreman.
+
+He said no more, and neither did Frances. But the brief dialogue gave
+the girl food for thought, and her mind was quite full of the idea when
+the crowd from the Edwards ranch came into view.
+
+The boys were armed with light rifles or shotguns, and even some of the
+girls were armed, as well as Mrs. Edwards herself.
+
+But Sue Latrop had never fired a gun in her life, and she professed to
+be not much interested in this hunt.
+
+"Oh, I've fox-hunted several times. That is real sport! But we don't
+shoot foxes. The dogs kill them--if there re'lly _is_ a fox."
+
+"Humph!" asked one of the local boys, with wonder, "what do the dogs
+follow, if there's no fox? What scent do they trail, I mean?"
+
+"Oh," said Sue, "a man rides ahead dragging an aniseed bag. Some dogs
+are trained to follow that scent and nothing else. It's very exciting, I
+assure you."
+
+"Well! what do you know about that?" gasped the questioner.
+
+"Say! was this around Boston?" asked Pratt, his eyes twinkling.
+
+"Oh, yes. There is a fine pack of hounds at Arlington," drawled Sue.
+
+"Sho!" chuckled Pratt. "I should think they'd teach the dogs around
+Boston to follow the trail of a bean-bag. Wouldn't it be easier?"
+
+"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Latrop. "Don't you think you are witty?
+And look at those dogs!"
+
+"What's the matter with them?" asked one of the girls.
+
+"Why, they are all limbs! What perfectly spidery-looking animals! Did
+you ever----"
+
+"You wait a bit," laughed Mrs. Edwards. "Those long-legged dogs are just
+what we need hunting the jacks. And if we didn't have guns, at that,
+there would be few of the rabbits caught. All ready, Sam Harding?"
+
+"Jest when Miss Frances says the word, Ma'am," returned the foreman,
+coolly.
+
+"Of course! Frances is mistress of the hunt," said the ranchman's wife,
+good-naturedly.
+
+Sue Latrop had been coaxed to leave her Eastern-bred horse behind on
+this occasion, and was upon one of the ponies broken to side-saddle
+work. The tall bay would scarcely know how to keep his feet out of
+gopher-holes in such a chase as was now inaugurated.
+
+"Be careful how you use your guns," Frances said, quietly, when Sam and
+the Mexican, with the dogs, started off to round a certain
+greasewood-covered mound and see if they could start some of the
+long-eared animals.
+
+"Never fire across your pony's neck unless you are positive that no
+other rider is ahead of you on either hand. Better take your rabbit head
+on; then the danger of shooting into some of the rest of us will be
+eliminated."
+
+Sue sniffed at this. She had no gun, of course, but almost wished she
+had--and she said as much to one of her friends. She'd show that range
+girl that she couldn't boss her!
+
+"Why! that's good advice about using our guns," said this girl to whom
+Sue complained, surprised at the objection.
+
+"Pooh! what does she know about it? She puts herself forward too much,"
+replied the girl from Boston.
+
+It is probable that Sue would have talked about any other girl in the
+party who seemed to take the lead. Sue was used to being the leader
+herself, and if she couldn't lead she didn't wish to follow. There are
+more than a few people in the world of Sue's temperament--and very
+unpleasant people they are.
+
+But it was Frances who got the first jack. The creature came leaping
+down the slope, having broken cover at the brink and quite unseen by the
+rest of the hunters.
+
+This was business to Frances, instead of sport. If allowed to multiply
+the jack-rabbits were not only a pest to the farmers, but to everybody
+else. Frances raised the light firearm she carried and popped Mr.
+Longears over "on the fly."
+
+"Glory! that's a good one!" shouted Pratt, enthusiastically.
+
+"A clean hit, Frances," said Mrs. Edwards. "You are a splendid shot,
+child."
+
+Miss Boston sniffed!
+
+The dogs did not bay. But in a minute or two a pair of the rabbits
+appeared over the rise, and then the two long-legged canines followed in
+their tracks.
+
+"Wait till the jacks see us and dodge," called out Frances, in a low
+tone. "Then you can fire without getting the dogs in line."
+
+Mrs. Edwards was a good shot. She got one of the rabbits. After several
+of the others snapped at the second one, and missed him, Frances brought
+him down just as he leaped toward a clump of sagebrush. Behind it he
+would have been lost to them.
+
+"My goodness!" murmured Pratt. "What a shot you are, Frances!"
+
+"She's quite got the best of us in shooting," complained one of the
+other girls. "She'll bag them all."
+
+Frances laughed, and spurred Molly out of the group, "I'll put away my
+gun and use my rope instead," she remarked. "Perhaps I have a handicap
+over the rest of you with a rifle. Father taught me, and he is
+considered the best rifle shot in the Panhandle."
+
+"My goodness, Frances," said Pratt again. "What isn't there that you
+don't do better than most of 'em?"
+
+"Parlor tricks!" flashed back the girl of the ranges, half laughing, but
+half in earnest, too. "I know I should be just a silly with a lorgnette,
+or trying to tango."
+
+"Well!" gasped the young fellow, "who isn't silly under those
+circumstances, I would like to know."
+
+Mixing talk of lorgnettes and dancing with shooting jack-rabbits did not
+suit very well, for the next pair of the long-eared animals that the
+dogs started got away entirely.
+
+They rode on down the edge of the hollow through which the stream
+flowed. The dogs beat the bushes and cottonwood clumps. Suddenly a
+small, graceful, spotted animal leaped from concealment and came up the
+slope of the long river-bank ahead of both the dogs and almost under the
+noses of some of the excited ponies.
+
+"Oh! an antelope!" shrieked two or three of the young people,
+recognizing the graceful creature.
+
+"Don't shoot it!" cried Mrs. Edwards. "I am not sure that the law will
+let us touch antelopes at this season.
+
+"You needn't fear, Mrs. Edwards," said the girl from Boston, laughing.
+"Nobody is likely to get near enough to shoot that creature. Wonderful!
+see how it leaps. Why! those funny dogs couldn't even catch it."
+
+Frances had had no idea of touching the antelope. But suddenly she
+spurred Molly away at an angle from the bank, and called to the dogs to
+keep on the trail of the little deer.
+
+"Ye-hoo! Go for it! On, boys!" she shouted, and already the rope was
+swinging about her head.
+
+Pratt spurred after her, and by chance Sue Latrop's pony got excited and
+followed the two madly. Sue could not pull him in.
+
+The antelope did not seem to be half trying, he bounded along so
+gracefully and easily. The long-limbed dogs were doing their very best.
+The ponies were coming down upon the quarry at an acute angle.
+
+The antelope's beautiful, spidery legs flashed back and forth like
+piston-rods, or the spokes of a fast-rolling wheel. They could scarcely
+be seen clearly. In five minutes the antelope would have drawn far
+enough away from the chase to be safe--and he could have kept up his
+pace for half an hour.
+
+Frances was near, however. Molly, coming on the jump, gave the girl of
+the ranges just the chance that she desired. She arose suddenly in her
+saddle, leaned forward, and let the loop fly.
+
+Like a snake it writhed in the air, and then settled just before the
+leaping antelope. The creature put its forelegs and head fairly into the
+whirring circle!
+
+The moment before--figuring with a nicety that made Pratt Sanderson gasp
+with wonder--Frances had pulled back on Molly's bit and jerked back her
+own arm that controlled the lasso.
+
+Molly slid on her haunches, while the loop tightened and held the
+antelope in an unbreakable grip.
+
+"Quick, Pratt!" cried the girl of the ranges, seeing the young man
+coming up. "Get down and use your knife. He'll kick free in a second."
+
+As Pratt obeyed, leaping from his saddle before the grey pony really
+halted, Sue Latrop raced up on her mount and stopped. Frances was
+leaning back in her saddle, holding the rope as taut as possible. Pratt
+flung himself upon the struggling antelope.
+
+And then rather a strange and unexpected thing happened. Pratt had the
+panting, quivering, frightened creature in his arms. A thrust of his
+hunting knife would have put it out of all pain.
+
+Sue was as eager as one of the hounds which were now coming up with
+great leaps. Pratt glanced around a moment, saw the dogs coming, and
+suddenly loosened the noose and let the antelope go free.
+
+"What are you doing?" shrieked the girl from Boston. "You've let it go!"
+
+"Yes," said Pratt, quietly.
+
+"But what for?" demanded Sue, quite angrily. "Why! you had it."
+
+"Yes," said Pratt again, as the two girls drew near to him.
+
+"You--you--why! what for?" repeated Sue, half-bewildered.
+
+"I couldn't bear to kill it, or let the dogs tear it," said Pratt,
+slowly. The antelope was now far away and Frances had commanded the dogs
+to return.
+
+"Why not?" asked Sue, grimly.
+
+"Because the poor little thing was crying--actually!" gasped Pratt, very
+red in the face. "Great tears were running out of its beautiful eyes. I
+could have killed a helpless baby just as easily."
+
+Frances coiled up her line and never said a word. But Sue flashed out:
+
+"Oh, you gump! I've been in at the death of a fox a number of times and
+seen the brush cut off and the dogs worry the beast to death. That's
+what they are for. Well, you are a softy, Pratt Sanderson."
+
+"I guess I am," admitted the young bank clerk. "I wasn't made for such
+work as this."
+
+He turned away to catch his pony and did not even look at Frances. If he
+had, he would have seen her eyes illuminated with a radiant admiration
+that would almost have stunned him.
+
+"If daddy had seen him do that," whispered Frances to herself, "I'm sure
+he would have a better opinion of Pratt than he has. I am certain that
+nobody with so tender a heart could be really bad."
+
+But the incident separated the range girl from the young man from
+Amarillo for the time being. Silent Sam and Frances had some trouble in
+getting the dogs off the antelope trail.
+
+When they started the next bunch of jack-rabbits from the brush, Frances
+was with the foreman and the Mexican boy, and acted with them as
+beaters. The visitors had great fun bagging the animals.
+
+Frances, rather glad to escape from the crowd for a time, spurred Molly
+down the far side of the stream, having crossed it in a shallow place.
+She was out of sight of the hunters, and soon out of sound. They had
+turned back and were going up stream again.
+
+The ranchman's daughter pulled in Molly at the brink of a little hollow
+beside the stream. There was a cleared space in the centre
+and--yes--there was a fireplace and ashes. Thick brush surrounded the
+camping place save on the side next to the stream.
+
+"Wonder who could have been here? And recently, too. There's smoke
+rising from those embers."
+
+This was Frances' unspoken thought. She let Molly step nearer. Trees
+overhung the place. She saw that it was as secret a spot as she had seen
+along the river side, and her thought flashed to Pete, the ex-orderly of
+the Bylittle Soldiers' Home.
+
+Then she turned in her saddle suddenly and saw the very man standing
+near her, rifle in hand. His leering smile frightened her.
+
+Although he said never a word, Frances' hand tightened on Molly's rein.
+The next moment she would have spurred the pinto up the hill; but a
+drawling voice within a yard of her spoke.
+
+"How-do, Frances? 'Light, won't yer?" and there followed Ratty M'Gill's
+well-known laugh. "We didn't expect ye; but ye're welcome just the
+same."
+
+Ratty's hand was on Molly's bridle-rein. Frances knew that she was a
+prisoner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+WHAT PRATT THOUGHT
+
+
+The party of visitors to the Edwards ranch tired of jack-shooting and
+jack-running before noon. Jose Reposa had cached a huge hamper of lunch
+which the Bar-T cook had put up, and he softly suggested to Mrs. Edwards
+that the company be called together and luncheon made ready, with hot
+coffee for all.
+
+"But where's Pratt?" cried somebody.
+
+"And Miss Rugley?" asked another.
+
+"Oh, I guess you'll find them together somewhere," snapped Sue Latrop.
+
+She had felt neglected by her "hero" for the last hour, and was in the
+sulks, accordingly.
+
+Pratt, however, came in alone. He had bagged several jacks. Altogether
+Silent Sam and the Mexican had destroyed more than a score of the pests,
+and the dogs had torn to pieces two or three beside. The canines were
+satiated with the meat, and were glad to lie down, panting, and watch
+the preparations for luncheon.
+
+"I have not seen Miss Frances since she caught the antelope," Pratt
+declared.
+
+Sue began to laugh--but it wasn't a nice laugh at all. "Guess she got
+mad and went home. You, letting that animal go the way you did! I never
+heard of such a foolish thing!"
+
+Pratt said nothing. He sat down on the other side of the fire from the
+girl from Boston. He took it for granted that Frances _had_ gone
+home.
+
+For, remembering as he did, that Frances was a range girl, and had lived
+out-of-doors and undoubtedly among rough men, a good part of her life,
+the young fellow thought that, very probably, Frances had been utterly
+disgusted with him when he showed so much tenderness for the innocent
+little antelope.
+
+Since that moment of weakness he had been telling himself:
+
+"She thinks me a softy. I am. What kind of a hunter did I show myself to
+be? Pooh! she must be disgusted with my weakness."
+
+Nevertheless, he would have done the same thing over again. It was his
+nature not to wish to see dumb creatures in pain, or to inflict pain on
+them himself.
+
+Killing the jack-rabbits was a necessity as well as a sport. Even
+chasing a poor, unfortunate little fox, as Sue had done in the East,
+might be made to seem a commendable act, for the foxes, when numerous,
+are a nuisance around the poultry runs.
+
+But by no possible reasoning could Pratt have ever excused his killing
+of the pretty, innocent antelope. They did not need it for food, and it
+was one of the most harmless creatures in the world.
+
+To tell the truth, Pratt was glad Frances was not present at the
+luncheon. He cared a good deal less about Sue's saucy tongue than he did
+for the range girl's opinion of him.
+
+During these weeks that he had known Frances Rugley, he had come to see
+that hers was a most vigorous and interesting character. Pratt was a
+thoughtful young man. There was nothing foolish about his interest in
+Frances, but he _did_ crave her friendship and liking.
+
+Some of the other men rallied him on his sudden silence, and this gave
+Sue Latrop an opportunity to say more sarcastic things.
+
+"He misses that 'cattle queen,'" she giggled, but was careful that Mrs.
+Edwards did not hear what she said. "Too bad; poor little boy! Why
+didn't you ride after her, Pratt?"
+
+"I might, had I known when she went home," replied Pratt, cheerfully.
+
+"I beg the Senor's pardon," whispered Jose, who was gathering up the
+plates. "The _senorita_ did not go home."
+
+Pratt looked at the boy, sharply. "Sure?" he asked.
+
+"Quite so--_si, senor_."
+
+"Where did she go?"
+
+"_Quien sabe?_" retorted Jose Reposa, with a shrug of his
+shoulders. "She crossed the river yonder and rode east."
+
+So did the party from the Edwards ranch a little later. Silent Sam
+Harding had already ridden back to the Bar-T. Jose gathered up the
+hamper and its contents and started home on mule-back.
+
+Pratt had curiosity enough, when the party went over the river, to look
+for the prints of Molly's hoofs.
+
+There they were in the soft earth on the far edge of the stream. Frances
+had ridden down stream at a sharp pace. Where had she gone?
+
+"It was odd for her to leave us in that way," thought Pratt, turning the
+matter over in his mind, "and not to return. In a way she was our
+hostess. I did not think Frances would fail in any matter of courtesy.
+How could she with Captain Dan Rugley for a father?"
+
+The old ranchman was the soul of hospitality. That Frances should seem
+to ignore her duty as a hostess stung Pratt keenly. He heard Sue Latrop
+speaking about it.
+
+"Went off mad. What else could you expect of a cowgirl?" said the girl
+from Boston, in her very nastiest tone.
+
+The fact that Sue seemed so sure Frances was derelict in her duty made
+Pratt more confident that something untoward had occurred to the girl of
+the ranges to keep her from returning promptly to the party.
+
+Of course, the young man suspected nothing of the actual situation in
+which Frances at that very moment found herself. Pratt dreamed of a
+broken cinch, or a misstep that might have lamed Molly.
+
+Instead, Frances Rugley was sitting with her back against a stump at the
+edge of the clearing where she had come so suddenly upon the campfire,
+with her ungloved hands lying in her lap so that Ratty's bright eyes
+could watch them continually.
+
+Pete had taken away her gun. Molly was hobbled with the men's horses on
+the other side of the hollow. The two plotters had rekindled the fire
+and were whispering together about her.
+
+Had Pete had his way he would have tied Frances' hands and feet. But the
+ex-cowpuncher of the Bar-T ranch would not listen to that.
+
+Although Pete was the leading spirit, Ratty M'Gill turned ugly when his
+mate attempted to touch the girl; so they had left her unbound. But not
+unwatched--no, indeed! Ratty's beadlike eyes never left her.
+
+Not much of their conversation reached the ears of Frances, although she
+kept very still and tried to hear. She could read Ratty's lips a little,
+for he had no mustache; but the bearded Pete's lips were hidden.
+
+"I've got to have a good piece of it myself, if I'm going to take a
+chance like that!" was one declaration of the ex-cowpuncher's that she
+heard clearly.
+
+Again Ratty said: "They'll not only suspect me, they'll _know_.
+Won't the girl tell them? I tell you I want to see my getaway before I
+make a stir in the matter--you can bet on that!"
+
+Finally, Frances saw the ex-orderly of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home
+produce a pad of paper, an envelope, and pencil. He was plainly a ready
+writer, for he went to work with the pencil at once, while Ratty rolled
+a fresh cigarette and still watched their captive.
+
+Pete finished his letter, sealed it in the envelope, and addressed it in
+a bold hand.
+
+"That'll just about fix the business, I reckon," said Pete, scowling
+across at Frances. "That gal's mighty smart--with her trunk full of junk
+and all----"
+
+Ratty burst into irrepressible laughter. 'You sure got Pete's goat when
+you played him that trick, Frances. He fair killed himself puntin' that
+trunk up the river and hiding it, and then taking the punt back and
+letting it drift so as to put Peckham's crew off the scent.
+
+"And when he busted it open----" Ratty burst into laughter again, and
+held his sides. Pete looked surly.
+
+"We'll make the old man pay for her cuttin' up them didoes," growled the
+bewhiskered rascal. "And my horse and wagon, too. I b'lieve she and that
+man with her set the fire that burned up my outfit."
+
+Frances herewith took part in the conversation.
+
+"Who set the grass-fire, in the first place?" she demanded. "I believe
+you did that, Ratty M'Gill. You were just reckless enough that day."
+
+"Aw, shucks!" said the young man, sheepishly.
+
+"But you haven't the same excuse to-day for being reckless," the girl
+said, earnestly. "You have not been drinking. What do you suppose Sam
+and the boys will do to you for treating me in this manner?"
+
+"Now, that will do!" said Pete, hoarsely "You hold your tongue, young
+woman!"
+
+But Ratty only laughed. He accepted the letter, took off his sombrero,
+tucked it under the sweatband, and put on the hat again. Then he started
+lazily for the pony that he rode.
+
+"Now mind you!" he called back over his shoulder to Pete, "I'm not going
+to risk my scalp going to the ranch-house with this yere billy-do--not
+much!"
+
+"Why not?" asked Pete, angrily. "We got to move quick."
+
+"We'll move quick later; we'll go sure and steady now," chuckled the
+cowboy. "I'll send it in by one of the Mexicans. Say it was give to me
+by a stranger on the trail. I ain't welcome at the Bar-T, and I know
+it."
+
+He leaped into his saddle and spurred his horse away, quickly getting
+out of sight. Frances knew that the letter he carried, and which Pete
+had written, was to her father.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER
+
+
+The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M'Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow
+stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top
+of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that
+there was something down stream that he ought to look into.
+
+Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or
+passed, on the river bank?
+
+Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards' place, Pratt
+was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he
+waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he
+turned his grey pony's head back toward the river.
+
+"Where are you going, Pratt?" demanded one of his friends.
+
+"I've forgotten something," the young man from Amarillo replied.
+
+"Oh, dear me!" cried Sue Latrop. "He's forgotten his cute, little cattle
+queen. Give her my love, Pratt."
+
+The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been
+of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made
+herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his
+estimation--that was sure!
+
+He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could
+be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had
+crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the
+direction from which Ratty M'Gill had come.
+
+Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly's hoofs. But
+when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept
+on.
+
+He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and
+the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his
+ears forward.
+
+Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey's nostrils between thumb and
+finger. In the distance a pony whinnied. Was it Molly?
+
+"You just keep still, you little nuisance!" whispered Pratt to his
+mount. "Don't want you whinnying to any strange horse."
+
+He got out of the saddle and led his pony for some rods. The brush was
+thick and there was no bridle-path. He feared to go farther without
+knowing what and who was ahead, and he tied the grey--taking pattern by
+Frances and tying his head up-wind.
+
+The young fellow hesitated about taking the shotgun he had used in the
+jack-rabbit hunt. There was a sheath fastened to his saddle for the
+weapon, and he finally left it therein.
+
+Pratt really thought that nothing of a serious nature had happened to
+his girl friend. Seeing Ratty M'Gill had reminded him that the
+cowpuncher had once troubled Frances, and Pratt had ridden down this way
+to offer his escort to the old ranchman's daughter.
+
+He had no thought of the man who had held them up at the lower ford,
+toward Peckham's, the evening of the prairie fire; nor did he connect
+the cowpuncher and that ruffian in his mind.
+
+"If I take that gun, the muzzle will make a noise in the bushes, or the
+hammer will catch on something," thought Pratt.
+
+So he left the shotgun behind and went on unarmed toward the place where
+Frances was even then sitting under the keen eye of Pete.
+
+"You keep where ye are, Miss," growled that worthy when Ratty rode away.
+"I will sure tie ye if ye make an attempt to get away. You have fell
+right into my han's, and I vow you'll make me some money. Your father's
+got a plenty----"
+
+"You mean to make him ransom me?" asked Frances, quietly.
+
+"That's the ticket," said Pete, nodding, and searching his ragged
+clothing for a pipe, which he finally drew out and filled. "He's got
+money. I've spent what I brought up yere to the Panhandle with me. And I
+b'lieve you made me lose my wagon and that other horse."
+
+Frances made no rejoinder to this last, but she said:
+
+"Father may be willing to pay something for my release. But you and
+Ratty will suffer in the end."
+
+"We'll risk that," said the man, puffing at his pipe, and nodding
+thoughtfully.
+
+"You'd better let me go now," said the girl, with no display of fear.
+"And you'd better give up any further attempt to get at the old chest
+that Mr. Lonergan talked about."
+
+"Hey!" exclaimed the man, startled. "What d'ye know about Lonergan?"
+
+"He will be at the ranch in a few days, and if there is any more
+treasure than you found in that old trunk you stole from me, he will get
+his share and there will no longer be any treasure chest. Make up your
+mind to that."
+
+"You know who I am and what I come up yere for?" demanded Pete, eying
+her malevolently.
+
+"Yes. I know you are the man who tried to steal in over the roof of our
+house, too. If you make my father any angrier with you than he is now,
+he will prosecute you all the more sharply when you are arrested."
+
+"You shut up!" growled Pete. "I ain't going to be arrested."
+
+"Both you and Ratty will be punished in the end," said Frances, calmly.
+"Men like you always are."
+
+"Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don't you be too sassy, understand?
+I could squeeze yer breath out!"
+
+He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb
+and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first
+thing that really frightened the girl--it was so wicked!
+
+She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life
+before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization
+that she was in this man's power, and that he had reason to hate her,
+shook her usually steady nerves.
+
+After all, Ratty M'Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this
+older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his
+pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a
+bald-headed buzzard, such as she had seen roosting on dead trees or old
+barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo.
+
+Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then
+arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when
+he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze--and perhaps the fellow knew
+it.
+
+It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way.
+Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She
+knew that she was at his mercy.
+
+When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms
+and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go
+faintly in her cheeks.
+
+Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with--for from
+babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and
+corral--she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment
+which is natural to men of the open.
+
+Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon
+the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very
+highest instincts of the race.
+
+Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the
+cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men she
+expected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man
+is noted.
+
+But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances
+had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of
+him.
+
+And he realized her attitude of fear and worked upon her emotions until
+she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams.
+
+Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near
+her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name.
+
+"Frances! what is the matter with you?"
+
+"Oh!" she gasped. "Pratt!"
+
+The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had
+been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look
+so strange.
+
+"You haven't been thrown, Frances, have you?" asked Pratt, solicitously.
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+Then the girl's frightened gaze, or some rustle of Pete's movement, made
+Pratt Sanderson turn. Pete had reached for his rifle and secured it. And
+by so doing he completely mastered the situation.
+
+"Put your hands over your head, young feller!" he growled, swinging the
+muzzle of the heavy gun toward Pratt. "And keep 'em there till I've seen
+what you carry in your pockets."
+
+He strode toward the surprised Pratt, who obeyed the order with becoming
+promptness.
+
+"Don't you make no move, neither, Miss," growled the man, darting a
+glance in Frances' direction.
+
+"Why--why---- What do you mean?" demanded Pratt, recovering his breath
+at last. "Do you dare hold this young lady a prisoner?"
+
+"Yep. That's what I dare," sneered Pete. "And it looks like I'd got you,
+too. What d'ye think you're going to do about it?"
+
+"Isn't this the fellow who robbed us at the river that time, Frances?"
+cried Pratt.
+
+The girl nodded. Just then she could not speak.
+
+"And that fellow Ratty was with him this time?"
+
+Again the girl nodded.
+
+"Then they shall both be arrested and punished," declared Pratt. "I
+never heard of such effrontery. Do you know who this young lady is,
+man?" he demanded of Pete.
+
+"Jest as well as you do. And her pa's going to put up big for to see her
+again--unharmed," snarled the man.
+
+"What do you mean?" gasped Pratt, his face blazing and his fists
+clenched. "You dare harm her----"
+
+Pete was slapping him about the pockets to make sure he carried no
+weapon. Now he struck Pratt a heavy blow across the mouth, cutting his
+lips and making his ears ring.
+
+"Shut up, you young jackanapes!" commanded the man. "I'll hurt her and
+you, too, if I like."
+
+"And Captain Dan Rugley won't rest till he sees you well punished if you
+harm her," mumbled Pratt.
+
+Pete struck at him again. Pratt dodged back. And at that moment Frances
+disappeared!
+
+The man had only had his eyes off her for half a minute. He gasped, his
+jaw dropped, and his bloodshot eyes roved all about, trying to discover
+Frances' whereabouts.
+
+He had not realized that, despite her fear, the girl of the ranges had
+had her limbs drawn up and her muscles taut ready for a spring.
+
+His attention given for the moment to Pratt Sanderson, Frances had risen
+and dodged behind the bole of the tree against which she was leaning, a
+carefully watched prisoner.
+
+She would never have escaped so easily had it been Ratty in charge; for
+his mental processes were quicker than those of Pete.
+
+Flitting from tree to tree, keeping one or more of the big trunks
+between her and Pete's roving eyes while still he was speechless, she
+was traveling farther and farther from the camp.
+
+She might have set forth running almost at once, and so escaped. But she
+could not leave Pratt to the heavy hand of Pete. Nor could she abandon
+Molly.
+
+Frances, therefore, began encircling the opening where the fire burned;
+but she kept well out of Pete's sight.
+
+She heard him utter a bellow which would have done credit to a mad
+steer. That came when he saw Pratt was about to escape, too.
+
+The young fellow was creeping away, stooping and on tiptoe. Pete uttered
+a frightful imprecation and sprang after him with his rifle clubbed and
+raised above his head.
+
+"Stand where you are!" he commanded, "or I'll bat your foolish head in!"
+
+And he looked enraged enough to do it. Pratt dared not move farther; he
+crouched in terror, expecting the blow.
+
+He had bravely assailed Pete with his tongue when Frances seemed in
+danger; but the girl had escaped now and Pratt hoped she was each minute
+putting rods between this place and herself.
+
+Pete suddenly dropped his rifle and sprang at the young man. Pratt's
+throat was in the vicelike grip of Pete on the instant. Both his wrists
+were seized by the man's other hand.
+
+Such feeble struggles as Pratt made were abortive. His breath was shut
+off and he felt his senses leaving him.
+
+But as his eyes rolled up there was a crash in the brush and a pony
+dashed into the open. It was Molly and her mistress was astride her.
+
+Frances had lost her hat; her hair had become loosened and was tossed
+about her pale face. But her eyes glowed with the light of determination
+and she spurred the pony directly at the two struggling figures in the
+middle of the hollow.
+
+"I'm coming, Pratt!" she cried. "Hold on!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A GOOD DEAL OF EXCITEMENT
+
+
+Pete twisted himself around to look over his shoulder, but still kept
+his clutch on the breathless young man. However, Pratt feebly dragged
+his wrists out of the man's grasp.
+
+Frances was riding the pinto directly at them. Under her skillful
+guidance the pony's off shoulder must collide with Pete, unless the man
+dropped Pratt entirely and sprang aside.
+
+The man did this, uttering a yell of anger. Pratt staggered the other
+way and Frances brought Molly to a standstill directly between the two.
+
+"You let him alone!" the girl commanded, gazing indignantly at the
+rascally man. "Oh! you shall be paid in full for all you have done this
+day. When Captain Rugley hears of this.
+
+"Quick, Pratt!" she shrieked. "That rifle!"
+
+Pete was bent over reaching for the weapon. Frances jerked Molly around,
+but she could not drive the pony against the man in time to topple him
+over before his wicked fingers closed on the barrel of the gun.
+
+It was Pratt who made the attack in this emergency. He had played on the
+Amarillo High football eleven and he knew how to "tackle."
+
+Before Pete could rise up with the recovered weapon in his grasp Pratt
+had him around the legs. The man staggered forward, trying to kick away
+the young fellow; but Pratt clung to him, and his antagonist finally
+fell upon his knees.
+
+Quick as a flash Pratt sprang astride his bowed back. He kicked Pete's
+braced arms out from under him and the man fell forward, screaming and
+threatening the most awful punishment for his young antagonist.
+
+Frances could not get into the melee with Molly. The two rolled over and
+over on the ground and suddenly Pete gave vent to a shriek of pain. He
+had rolled on his back into the fire!
+
+"Quick, Pratt!" begged Frances. "Get away from him! He will do you some
+dreadful harm!"
+
+She believed Pete would, too. As Pratt leaped aside, the man bounded up
+from the bed of hot coals, his shirt afire, and he unable to reach it
+with his beating hands!
+
+Pratt ran to Frances' side. She pulled Molly's head around and the pony
+trotted across the clearing, with Pratt staggering along at the stirrup
+and striving to get his breath.
+
+As they passed the spot where the battle had begun, Pratt stooped and
+secured the rifle. Pete, in rage awful to see, was tearing the
+smouldering shirt from his back. Then Pete dashed after the escaping
+pair.
+
+The rifle encumbered the young man; but if he dropped it he knew the man
+would hold them at his mercy. So, swinging the weapon up by its barrel,
+he smashed the stock against a tree trunk.
+
+Again and again he repeated the blow, until the tough wood splintered
+and the mechanism of the hammer and trigger was bent and twisted. Pete
+almost caught him. Pratt dashed the remains of the rifle in his face and
+ran on after Frances.
+
+"I'll catch you yet!" yelled Pete. "And when I do----"
+
+The threat was left incomplete; but the man ran for his own horse.
+
+If Frances had only thought to drive Molly that way and slip the hobbles
+of Pete's nag, much of what afterward occurred in this hollow by the
+river bank would never have taken place. She and Pratt would have been
+immediately free.
+
+It was hours afterward--indeed, almost sunset--that old Captain Rugley,
+sitting on the broad veranda of the Bar-T ranch-house and expecting
+Frances to appear at any moment, raised his eyes to see, instead,
+Victorino Reposa slouching up the steps.
+
+"Hello, Vic!" said the Captain. "What do you want?"
+
+"Letter, _Capitan_," said the Mexican, impassively, removing his
+big hat and drawing a soiled envelope from within.
+
+"Seen anything of Miss Frances?" asked the ranchman, reaching lazily for
+the missive.
+
+"No, _Capitan_," responded the boy, and turned away.
+
+The superscription on the envelope puzzled Captain Dan Rugley. "Here,
+Vic!" he cried after the departing youth. "Where'd you get this? 'Tisn't
+a mailed letter."
+
+"It was give to me on the trail, _Capitan_," said Victorino,
+softly. "As I came back from the horse pasture."
+
+"Who gave it to you?" demanded the ranchman, beginning to slit the flap
+of the envelope.
+
+"I am not informed," said Victorino, still with lowered gaze. "The Senor
+who presented it declare' it was give to heem by a strange hand at
+Jackleg. He say he was ride this way----"
+
+The Captain was not listening. Victorino saw that this was a fact and he
+allowed his words to trail off into nothing, while he, himself, began
+again to slip away.
+
+The old ranchman was staring at the unfolded sheet with fixed attention.
+His brows came together in a portentous frown; and perhaps for the first
+time in many years his bronzed countenance was washed over by the sickly
+pallor of fear.
+
+Victorino, stepping softly, had reached the compound gate. Suddenly the
+forelegs of the ranchman's chair hit the floor of the veranda, and he
+roared at the Mexican in a voice that made the latter jump and drop the
+brown paper cigarette he had just deftly rolled.
+
+"You boy! Come back here!" called Captain Rugley. "I want to know what
+this means."
+
+"Me, _Capitan_?" asked Victorino, softly, and hesitated at the
+gate. With his employer in this temper he was half-inclined to run in
+the opposite direction.
+
+"Come here!" commanded the ranchman again. "Who gave you this?" rapping
+the open letter with a hairy forefinger.
+
+"I do not know, _Capitan_. A strange man--_si_."
+
+"Never saw him before?"
+
+"No, _Capitan_. He was ver' strange to me," whined Victorino, too
+frightened to tell the truth.
+
+"What did he look like?" shot back the Captain, holding himself in
+splendid control now. Only his eyes glittered and his lips under the big
+mustache tightened perceptibly.
+
+"He was beeg man, _Capitan_; rode bay pony; much wheeskers on
+face," declared Victorino, glibly.
+
+The Captain was silent for half a minute. Then he snapped: "Run find
+Silent Sam and tell him I want him _pronto_. _Sabe?_ Tell Joe
+to saddle Cherry, and Sam's horse, and you get a saddle on your own,
+Vic. I'll want you and about half a dozen of the boys who are hanging
+around the bunk-house. Tell 'em it's important and tell them--yes!--tell
+them to come armed. In fifteen minutes. Understand?"
+
+"_Si, Capitan_," whispered Victorino, glad to get out from under
+the ranchman's eye for the time being.
+
+He was the oldest of the Mexican boys employed at the Bar-T, and he had
+been very friendly with Ratty M'Gill while that reckless individual had
+belonged to the outfit.
+
+It was Victorino who had let Ratty drive the buckboard to the railroad
+station one particular day when the cowpuncher wished to meet his
+friend, Pete, at Cottonwood Bottom.
+
+Now, unthinking and unknowing, he had been drawn by Ratty into a serious
+trouble. Victorino did not know what it was; but he trembled. He had
+never seen "_El Capitan_" look so fierce and strange before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+A PLOT THAT FAILED
+
+
+Captain Dan Rugley seemed to forget his rheumatism. Excitement is often
+a strong mental corrective; and with his mind upon the dearest
+possession of his old age, the ranchman forgot all bodily ills.
+
+Victorino was scarcely out of the compound when the Captain had summoned
+Ming from the dining-room and San Soo from his pots and pans.
+
+"Put off dinner. Maybe we won't have any dinner to-night, San Soo," said
+the owner of the Bar-T. "We're in trouble. You and Ming shut the doors
+when I go out and bar them. Stand watch. Don't let a soul in unless I
+come back or Miss Frances appears. Understand, boys?"
+
+"Can do," declared the bigger Chinaman, with impassive face.
+
+"Me understland Clapen velly well," said Ming, who wished always to show
+that he "spoke Melican."
+
+"All right," returned Captain Rugley. "Help me with this coat, San.
+Ming! Bring me my belt and gun. Yes, that's it. It's loaded. Plenty of
+cartridges in that box? So. Now I'm off," concluded the Captain, and
+went to the door again to meet Silent Sam Harding, the foreman.
+
+"Read this," jerked out the ranchman, and thrust the crumpled letter
+into Sam Harding's hand.
+
+Without a word the foreman spread open the paper and studied it. In
+perfectly plain handwriting he read the following astonishing epistle:
+
+    "Captain Dan Rugley,
+      "Bar-T Ranch.
+
+    "We've got your girl. She will be held prisoner exactly
+    twenty-four hours from time you receive this. Then, if you have
+    not made arrangements to pay our agent $5,000 (five thousand
+    dolls.), something will happen to your girl. We are willing to
+    put our necks in a noose for the five thousand. Come across, and
+    come across quick. No check. Cash does it. You can get cash at
+    branch bank in Jackleg. We will know when you get cash and then
+    you'll be told who to hand money to and how to find your girl.
+    Remember, we mean business. You try to trail us, or rescue your
+    daughter without paying five thousand and we'll get square with
+    you by fixing the girl. That's all at present."
+
+This threatening missive was unsigned. Silent Sam read it twice. Then he
+handed it back to the Captain.
+
+"Does it look like a joke to you--a poor sort of a joke?" whispered the
+ranchman.
+
+"I wouldn't say so," muttered Sam.
+
+"I'm going after them," said Captain Rugley, with determination.
+
+"How?"
+
+"Somebody handed Vic this on the trail. He'll show us where. We'll try
+to pick up the man's traces. Of course it was one of the scoundrels
+handed the letter to Vic."
+
+"Who do ye think they are?" asked Sam, slowly.
+
+"I don't know," said the worried ranchman. "But whoever they are they
+shall suffer if they harm a hair of her head!"
+
+"That's what," said Sam, quietly. "But ain't you an idee who they be?"
+
+"That fellow who took the old trunk away from Frances?"
+
+"Might be. And he must have partners."
+
+"So I've said right along," declared the ranchman, vigorously. "Where
+did you leave Frances, Sam?"
+
+"After the jack hunt? Right thar with Miz' Edwards and her crowd."
+
+"Was young Pratt Sanderson with them?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"That's it!" growled Captain Dan Rugley, smiting one palm with his other
+fist. "She'd ride off with him. Thinks him all right----"
+
+"Ye don't mean to say ye think he's in this mean mess?"
+
+"I don't know. He's turned up whenever we've had trouble lately. If it
+wasn't so far to Bill Edwards' I'd ride that way and find out if the
+fellow is there, or what they know about him."
+
+Silent Sam earned his nickname, if ever, during the next hour. He did
+not say ten words; but his efficient management got a posse of the most
+trustworthy men together, and they rode away from the ranch-house.
+
+There was no use advising the Captain not to accompany the party. Nobody
+dared thwart him after a glance into his grim face.
+
+The hard-bitted Cherry which he always rode was held down to the pace of
+the other horses with an iron hand. The Captain rode as securely in his
+saddle as he had before rheumatism seized upon his limbs.
+
+How long this false strength, inspired by his fear and indignation,
+would remain with him the others did not know. Sam and his mates watched
+"the Old Cap" with wonder.
+
+Victorino's gaze was fixed upon the doughty ranchman's back with many
+different emotions in his trouble-torn mind. He was wondering what would
+happen to him if Captain Rugley ever learned that he had told a
+falsehood about that note.
+
+He was so scared that he dared not lead the party to a false trail. He
+told them just where he had met Ratty M'Gill; but he stuck to his
+imaginary description of the person who had entrusted the letter to him.
+
+"Going, west, you say?" said Captain Rugley. "It might be to lead us off
+the trail. And then again, he might be going right back to whatever
+place they have Frances hidden.
+
+"I fear we'll have a hard time following a trail to-night, anyway. But
+Sam says he left the folks after the jack hunt over there by Cottonwood
+Bottom. I think we'd better search the length of that stream first."
+
+Sam spoke up suddenly: "Frances asked me if there were any close
+thickets where a man might hide out, along those banks."
+
+"She did?"
+
+"Yes. It just come to me," said the foreman. "When we were beating up
+those jacks."
+
+"Enough said!" ejaculated the ranchman. "Come on, boys!"
+
+Through the dusk they rode straight away toward the ford. And although
+the old Captain could hardly hope it, every moment the horse was bearing
+him nearer and nearer to his lost daughter.
+
+Dusk had long since fallen; but there was a faint moon and a multitude
+of stars. On the open plain the shadows of the horses and riders moved
+in grotesque procession. In the hollow far down the stream, where Pete
+had made his camp, the shadows were deep and oppressive.
+
+The fellow kept alive but a spark of fire. Now and then he threw on a
+stick for replenishing. Outside the feeble light cast by the flickering
+flames, one could scarcely see at all.
+
+But there were two faintly outlined forms near the fire beside that of
+the burly Pete. Occasionally a groan issued from the lips of Pratt
+Sanderson, for he lay senseless, a great bruise upon his head, his
+wrists and ankles tied with painful security.
+
+The other form was that of Frances herself. She did not speak nor moan,
+although she was quite wide awake. She, too, was tied up in such a way
+that she could not possibly free herself.
+
+And she was frightened--desperately frightened!
+
+She had reason to be. The ex-orderly from the Bylittle Soldiers' Home
+had proved himself to be a perfect madman when he found that the girl
+and Pratt were really escaping.
+
+Evidently he had seized upon the desperate attempt to hold Frances for
+ransom as a last resort. She had played into his hands by riding down
+into this hollow.
+
+Pratt Sanderson's interference had enraged the fellow to the limit. And
+when the young man had momentarily gotten the best of him, Pete was
+fairly insane for the time being.
+
+With his rifle broken the man was unable to shoot, for Frances' revolver
+which he had obtained at the beginning of the scuffle was empty. The
+small gun she had used shooting jacks had been sent back with Sam to the
+ranch.
+
+The girl was urging Molly through the brush and Pratt was tearing after
+her, their direction bringing them nearer and nearer to the young man's
+grey pony, when suddenly Frances heard Pratt scream.
+
+She glanced back, pulling in the excited pinto with a strong hand. Her
+friend was pitching forward to the ground. He had been struck by her
+pistol, which Pete had flung with all his might.
+
+The next moment with an exultant cry the man sprang from his horse upon
+the prostrate Pratt.
+
+"Get off him! Go away!" cried Frances, pulling Molly around.
+
+But the brush was too thick, and the pinto got tangled up in it. Fearful
+for Pratt's safety, and never thinking of her own, the girl sprang from
+the saddle and ran back.
+
+This was what Pete was expecting. Pratt was safe enough--senseless and
+moaning on the ground.
+
+When the girl came near Pete leaped up, seized her by the wrists, jerked
+her toward him, and held her firmly with one hand while he produced a
+soiled bandanna, with which he quickly knotted her wrists together.
+
+No matter how hard she fought, he was so much more powerful than she
+that the ranchman's daughter could not break his hold. In five minutes
+she was tied and thrown to the ground, quite as helpless as Pratt
+himself.
+
+Pete left her lying where she fell and picked up Pratt first. Him the
+fellow carried back to the campfire and tied both hand and foot before
+he returned for Frances.
+
+All the time the man uttered the most fearful imprecations, and showed
+so much callousness toward the injured young man that the girl begged
+him, with tears, to do something to ease Pratt.
+
+"Let him lie there and grunt," growled Pete. "Didn't he chuck me into
+that fire? My back's all blistered."
+
+He pulled on a coat, for his clothes had been quite torn away above his
+waist at the back when he was putting out the fire.
+
+Frances suffered keenly herself, for the man had tied her wrists and
+ankles so tightly that the cords cut into the flesh whenever she tried
+to move them. Beside, she lay in a most uncomfortable position.
+
+But to hear Pratt groan was terrible. The blow on the head had seriously
+hurt him--of that there could be no doubt. When she called to him he did
+not answer, and finally Pete commanded her to keep silence.
+
+"Ye want to make a fuss so as to draw somebody down here--I kin see what
+you are up to."
+
+Frances had a wholesome fear of him by this time. She had seen Pete at
+his worst--and had felt his heavy hand, too. She was bruised and
+suffering pain herself. But Pratt's case was much worse than her own
+just then and her whole heart went out to the young man from Amarillo.
+
+Pete sat over his little fire and smoked. He was evidently expecting
+Ratty M'Gill to return; but for some reason Ratty was delayed.
+
+Doubtless the two plotters had proposed to themselves that Captain
+Rugley would be too ill to take the lead in any chase after the
+kidnappers. Perhaps Pete even hoped that the old ranchman would agree
+immediately to the terms of ransom set forth in the note Ratty had taken
+to the Bar-T.
+
+The ex-cowpuncher was to linger around and see what would be done about
+the message to the Captain; then come here and report to Pete. And as
+the hours dragged by, and it drew near midnight, with no appearance of
+the messenger, the chief plotter grew more anxious.
+
+He huddled over the fire, almost enclosing it with his arms and legs for
+warmth. Frances, lying beyond, and out of the puny radiance of its
+warmth, felt the chill of the night air keenly. Pete did not even offer
+her a blanket.
+
+But her attention was engaged by thoughts of Pratt Sanderson's
+sufferings. The young man groaned faintly from time to time, but he gave
+no other sign of life.
+
+As Frances lay shivering on the ground her keen senses suddenly
+apprehended a new sound. She raised her head a little and the sound was
+absent. She dropped back upon the earth again and it returned--a
+throbbing sound, distant, faint but insistent.
+
+What could it be? Frances was first startled, then puzzled by it. Each
+time that she raised her head the noise drifted away; then it returned
+when her ear was against the ground.
+
+"It's a horse--it's several horses," she finally whispered to herself.
+"Can it be----?"
+
+She sat up suddenly. Pete immediately commanded her to lie down.
+
+"I'm cramped," said the girl, speaking clearly. "Can't you change these
+cords? I won't try to run away."
+
+"I'd hurt you if you did," growled the fellow. "And I ain't going to
+change them cords."
+
+"Oh, do!" cried Frances, more loudly.
+
+"Shut up and lay down there!" ordered Pete, raising his own voice.
+
+"No, I will not!" retorted the girl, deliberately tempting Pete into one
+of his rages. If he became angry and yelled at her all the better!
+
+"Do what I tell ye!" exclaimed the man. "Ain't ye l'arned that I mean
+what I say yet?"
+
+"I must move my limbs. They're cramped and co-o-old!" wailed Frances,
+and she put a deal of energy into her cry.
+
+Pete began to get stiffly to his feet. "Do like I tell ye, and lie
+down--or I'll knock ye down!" he threatened.
+
+At that the girl risked uttering a cry and shrank back with a semblance
+of fear. Aye, there was more than a semblance of fear in the attitude,
+for she believed he would strike her. She had shrieked, however, at the
+top of her voice.
+
+"Shut your mouth, ye crazy thing!" exclaimed the man, and he leaped
+toward her.
+
+Frances threw herself back upon the ground. She heard the clatter of
+hoofbeats approaching. They could be mistaken for no other sound.
+
+"Daddy! Daddy! Help! Help!"
+
+Her voice was piercing. The cry for her father was involuntary, for she
+believed him too ill to leave the ranch-house.
+
+But the answering shout that came down the wind was unmistakable.
+
+"Daddy! Daddy!" Frances cried again, eagerly, loudly.
+
+Pete was about to strike her; but he darted back and stood erect. The
+horses were plunging madly down the hillside through the brush. The
+party of rescue was already upon the camp.
+
+The scoundrelly Pete leaped away to reach his own horse. He must have
+found the creature quickly in the darkness; for before the men from the
+Bar-T pulled in their horses before the smouldering campfire, Frances
+heard the rush of Pete's old pony as it dashed away down the stream.
+
+"Daddy!" cried Frances for a third time. "We're here--Pratt and I. Look
+out for Pratt; he's hurt. I'm all right."
+
+"Somebody throw some brush on that fire!" commanded the old ranchman.
+"Let's see what's been doing here."
+
+"Sam, take a couple of the boys and go after that fellow. You can follow
+that horse by sound."
+
+He climbed stiffly out of his own saddle, and when the firelight flashed
+up revealing the little glade to better purpose, it was Captain Dan
+Rugley who lifted Frances to her feet and cut her bonds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+FRANCES IN SOFTER MOOD
+
+
+It was the next day but one and the _hacienda_ and compound lay
+bathed in the hot sun of noon-day. Captain Dan Rugley was leaning back
+in his usual hard chair and in his usual attitude on the veranda, fairly
+soaking up the rays of the orb of day.
+
+"Beats all the medicine for rheumatism in the doctor's shop!" he was
+wont to declare.
+
+Since his night ride to rescue his daughter he had become more like his
+old self than he had been for weeks. The excitement seemed to have
+chased away the last twinges of pain for the time being, and he was
+without fever.
+
+Now he was watching a swift pony-rider coming his way along the trail
+and listening to the patter of light footsteps coming down the broad
+stairway behind him.
+
+"Here comes Sam, Frances," the ranchman said, in a low voice. "I reckon
+he'll have some news."
+
+The girl came to the door. She had discarded her riding habit and was
+dressed in a soft, clinging house gown, cut low at the throat and giving
+her arms freedom to the elbow. She wore pretty stockings and pretty
+slippers on her feet. Instead of a quirt she carried a fan in her hand
+and there was a handkerchief tucked into her belt.
+
+The chrysalis of the cowgirl had burst and this butterfly had emerged.
+Of late it was not often that Frances had "dolled up," as the old
+Captain called it. Now he said, enthusiastically:
+
+"My! you do look sweet! What's all the dolling up for? Me? The Chinks?
+Or maybe that boy upstairs, eh?"
+
+"For myself," said Frances, quietly. "Pratt is too sick to notice much
+what I wear, I guess. But I find that I have been paying too little
+attention to dress."
+
+"Huh!" snorted the old ranchman.
+
+"It is a woman's duty to make herself as beautiful and attractive as
+possible," said Frances, with a bright smile. "You know, I read that in
+a woman's paper."
+
+"You surely did!" agreed the ranchman, and then turned to meet Silent
+Sam as that individual drew up to the step.
+
+"What's the good word, Sam?" inquired the Captain.
+
+"Got that Ratty. He's in the jail at Jackleg. Like you said, I never
+told nobody but the sheriff what 'twas for you wanted him."
+
+"That's right," said the Captain, gravely. "If the boys understood he
+was mixed up with this kidnapping business, I don't know what they would
+do."
+
+"Right, Captain," said the foreman. "So the sheriff took him for being
+all lit up. Ratty won't sleep it off before to-morrow."
+
+"And if they could catch that Pete What's-his-name by then----"
+
+"Ain't found hide nor hair of him," answered Silent Sam.
+
+"Where do you reckon he went to, Sam?"
+
+"He didn't go with his horse, Captain. He fooled us."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That's so. Horse was found yisterday evenin' down beyand
+Peckham's--scurcely breathed. He'd run fur, but he didn't have nobody on
+his back."
+
+"I see!" ejaculated the ranchman, smiting one doubled fist upon the
+other palm. "That Pete has fooled us from the start."
+
+"Sure did," admitted Sam.
+
+"He never mounted his horse at all?" cried Frances, deeply interested.
+
+"That's it," said her father. "We ought to have known that at the time.
+No horse could have gone smashing through the brush the way that one did
+without knocking his rider's head off."
+
+"Sure," agreed Sam again.
+
+"And he was right there near the place he held Pratt and me captive all
+the time we were making a stretcher for poor Pratt," said Frances.
+
+"Or hiking up stream," said the foreman, preparing to ride down to the
+corral.
+
+"Lucky the boy broke the fellow's gun as he did," said Captain Rugley,
+thoughtfully, turning to his daughter. "Otherwise some of us might have
+been popped off from the bushes."
+
+"Oh, Daddy!"
+
+"When a man's as mean as that scalawag," said her father,
+philosophically, "there's no knowing to what lengths he will go. I
+shan't feel that you are safe on the ranges until he's found and
+jailed."
+
+"And I shan't feel that we're out of trouble until your friend Mr.
+Lonergan comes here and you divide and get rid of that silly old
+treasure," declared Frances, and she pouted a little.
+
+"What's that, Frances?" gasped the old Captain. "All those jewels and
+stuff? Why, don't you care anything for them?"
+
+"I care more for my peace of mind," she said, decidedly. "And see what
+it's brought poor Pratt to."
+
+"Well," said her father, subsiding. "The boy did git the dirty end of
+the stick, for a fact. I'm sorry he was hurt----"
+
+"And you are sorry you thought so ill of him, too, Daddy--you know you
+are," whispered Frances, one arm stealing over the Captain's shoulder.
+
+"Well----"
+
+"Now, ''fessup!'" she laughed, softly. "He's a good boy to risk himself
+for me."
+
+"I wouldn't have thought much of him if he hadn't," said the old
+ranchman, stubbornly.
+
+"What could you really expect when you consider that he has lived all
+his life in a city----"
+
+"And works in a bank," finished the Captain, with a sly grin. "But I
+reckon I have got to take off my hat to him. He's a hero."
+
+"He is a good boy," Frances said, cheerfully. "And I hope that he will
+recover all right, as the doctor says he will."
+
+"I don't know how fast he'll mend," chuckled the Captain. "If I were he,
+and getting the attention he is----"
+
+"From whom?" demanded Frances, turning on him sharply.
+
+"From Ming, of course," responded her father, soberly, but with his eyes
+a-twinkle.
+
+And then Frances fled upstairs again, her cheeks burning as she heard
+the old ranchman's mellow laughter.
+
+Pratt lay on his bed with his head swathed in bandages and his shoulder
+in a brace. He had suffered a dislocation as well as the bruises and the
+cut in his head. From the time he had been struck from behind by the
+man, Pete, the young fellow had known nothing at all until he awoke to
+find himself stretched upon this bed in the Bar-T ranch-house.
+
+The old Captain, with Ming's help, had disrobed Pratt and put him to
+bed; but when the doctor came early in the morning, he put the patient
+in Frances' hands.
+
+"What he needs is good nursing. Don't leave him to the men," said the
+doctor. "Your father says he's cured himself by getting out on
+horseback. If it didn't kill him, I admit it's aiding in his cure for
+him to be more active again.
+
+"But I depend upon you, my dear, to keep this patient as quiet as
+possible. I hate having my patients get away from me," added the
+physician with twinkling eye. "And this lad is mine for some time. He
+has sure been badly shaken up."
+
+He was afraid at first that there was concussion of the brain; but after
+a few hours the young bank clerk became lucid in his speech and the
+fever began to decrease.
+
+The doctor had not left the ranch until the evening before this day when
+Frances stole up the stair again to peer into the room to see how her
+patient was.
+
+"Oh, I'm awake!" cried Pratt, cheerfully. "You don't expect me to sleep
+all the time, do you, Frances?"
+
+"Sleep is good for you," declared the girl of the ranges, with a sober
+smile. "The doctor says you are to keep very quiet."
+
+"Goodness! I might as well be buried and so save my board," grumbled
+Pratt. "When is he going to let me get up out of this?"
+
+"Not for a long, long time yet," said Frances, seriously.
+
+"What? Why, I could get up now----"
+
+"With those shingles plastered to your shoulder?" asked the girl,
+smiling again, but somewhat roguishly.
+
+"Oh--well--have those boards actually got to stay on?"
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Till the doctor removes them, Pratt. Now, be a good boy."
+
+"I'll never be able to get out of bed," grumbled the patient, "if he
+keeps me here much longer, I'll be bedridden."
+
+"Nonsense," said Frances, with a very superior air. "You haven't been
+here two days yet."
+
+"And when is the doctor coming again?" went on Pratt.
+
+"He said he'd come within the week," replied the girl, demurely.
+
+"Good-night, nurse!" groaned Pratt. "A whole week? Why, I'll die in that
+time--positively."
+
+"You only think so," said Frances, coolly.
+
+"You don't know how hard it is to lie here with nothing to do."
+
+"You don't appreciate your good fortune, I am afraid," returned the
+girl, more gravely. "You might have been much more seriously hurt----"
+
+"You don't suppose I care about being hurt, do you?" he cried, with some
+excitement. "I'd go through it a dozen times to the same end,
+Frances----"
+
+"Now, stop!" she said, commandingly, and raising an admonitory finger.
+"If you show any excitement I will go out of the room and leave
+Ming----"
+
+"Don't!" groaned Pratt.
+
+"I shall certainly leave him in charge of you. You won't talk to him."
+
+"No. If he doesn't sit silent like a yellow graven image, he scatters
+'l's' all about the room until I want to get out of bed and sweep 'em
+up," declared Pratt.
+
+The ranchman's daughter smiled at him, but shook her head. "Now! no more
+talking. I'll sit here and promise not to scatter any of the alphabet
+broadcast; but you must keep still."
+
+"That's mighty hard," muttered the patient. "Sit over by the window.
+There! right in the sun. I like to see your hair when the sun burnishes
+it."
+
+Frances promptly removed her seat to the shady side of the room.
+
+"Oh, please!" begged Pratt. "I'm sick, you know. You really ought to
+humor me."
+
+"And you really ought not to jolly me!" laughed the range girl. "I think
+you are a tease, Pratt."
+
+"Honest! I mean it."
+
+She looked at him with a roguish smile. "What did you say to Miss Latrop
+about her hair? Isn't it a lovely blond?"
+
+"Oh! I never looked at it twice. Molasses color," declared Pratt. "I
+don't like such light hair."
+
+"Now, be still. Mrs. Edwards sent over word they are coming to see you
+to-morrow. If you are feverish I shan't let them in."
+
+"My goodness!" gasped Pratt. "Not all of them coming, I hope?"
+
+"Mrs. Edwards and Miss Latrop, anyway," said Frances, seriously. "Now
+keep still."
+
+Pratt digested this for a while; then he held up one arm and waved it.
+
+"Well? What is it?" asked the stern nurse.
+
+"Please, teacher!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"May I say one thing?"
+
+"Just one. Then silence for an hour."
+
+"If that girl from Boston comes I'm going to have a fever--understand? I
+don't want her up here. Now, that's all there is about it."
+
+"Hush, small boy! You don't know what is good for you. You must leave it
+to the doctor and me," said Frances, but she kept her head turned from
+the bed so that Pratt would not see her eyes.
+
+By and by Pratt waved his hand again like a pupil in school and even
+snapped his fingers to attract her attention.
+
+"Please, teacher!" he begged when she looked up from the pad on her knee
+over which her pencil had been traveling so rapidly.
+
+"I'm nurse, not teacher," Frances said, firmly.
+
+"Nurse, then. Is that the plan for the pageant you are writing?"
+
+"A part of it," she admitted. "Some ideas that came to me the time I
+went to Amarillo."
+
+"With the make-believe treasure chest?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Read it to me, will you, Miss Nurse?" he asked.
+
+"If you will keep still. I never did see such a chatterbox!" exclaimed
+Frances, in vexation.
+
+"I'll be just as still as still!" he promised. "Maybe it will put me to
+sleep."
+
+"Mercy! I hope it isn't as dull as all that," she said, and began to
+read the pages she had written.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+A DINNER DANCE IN PROSPECT
+
+
+The girl from Boston did not come over to see Pratt that very next day;
+but soon she, as well as the remainder of the young people who had been
+the guests of Mr. Bill Edwards and his hospitable wife, were stopping at
+the Bar-T daily and inquiring for Pratt; and as soon as he could be
+helped downstairs and out upon the veranda, he held a general reception
+all day long.
+
+In the afternoon when the Edwards crowd was over, the old
+_hacienda_ took on a liveliness of aspect that it had never known
+before. The veranda was gay with bright frocks and the air resounded
+with laughter.
+
+The boys gathered around Pratt and plans for future hunts and other
+junkets were made--for the young bank clerk was rapidly recovering. The
+girls meanwhile made much of the old Captain--all but Sue Latrop. But
+she did not count for as much as she had at the beginning of her visit
+at the Edwards ranch. The other young folk had begun to find her out.
+
+The punchers who were off duty were attracted to this gay party on the
+porch, as naturally as flies gravitate to molasses. The Amarillo
+girls--and, of course, Mrs. Bill Edwards--saw nothing out of the way in
+Captain Rugley's hands lounging up to the _hacienda_ to talk. Most
+of them were young fellows of neighboring families, and quite as well
+known as were the visitors themselves. Sue Latrop's amazement at this
+familiarity only made the other girls laugh.
+
+Unless she would be left alone on the veranda with Pratt (which she
+considered very bad form) she was obliged one afternoon to go down to
+the corral with the crowd to see a bunch of ponies fresh from the range.
+
+Some of the half-wild ponies rolled their eyes, snorted, and galloped to
+the far side of the corral the instant the visitors appeared.
+
+"Get your reserved seats, gals!" cried Fred Purchase, preparing to open
+the gate. "Roost all along the rail up there and watch the fun. I bet
+Fatty Obendorf falls off and breaks a suspender-button--fust throw out
+of the box!"
+
+"Oh my! you don't mean for us to climb up _there_?" gasped Sue, as
+one or two of her friends tucked up their skirts and started to mount
+the fence.
+
+"Sure. Reserved seats at the top," laughed Mrs. Edwards, likewise
+mounting the barrier.
+
+"Why! I am afraid I could never do it," murmured the Boston girl.
+
+"You'll miss a lot of fun, then," declared one of the Amarillo girls,
+callously. They were all getting a little tired of Sue Latrop and her
+pose.
+
+Finding herself the only one on the ground, Sue scrambled up very
+clumsily and just in time to see Fatty rope the first pony out of the
+bunch that was now racing around and around the corral.
+
+This was a black and white rascal with a high head and rolling eye, that
+looked as though he had never been bridled in his life. But it was only
+that he had been some months on the range, and freedom had gone to his
+head.
+
+Fatty lay back on the lariat and dug his high heels into the sod. When
+the pony felt the noose he leaped into it, it tightened around his neck,
+and the creature came to the ground, kicking and squealing.
+
+"By hicketty!" yelled Purchase. "Ain't lil' old Fatty good for suthin'?
+Yuh could suah use him tuh tie a steamboat tuh--what!"
+
+For all the fun the other punchers made of Fatty Obendorf, he had his
+selection out of the herd blindfolded, bridled, and saddled, before any
+other pony was noosed.
+
+"Good for you, Fatty!" cried Frances, who was perched on the corral
+fence with the other girls. "And that's a good horse, too; only you want
+to 'ware heels. I remember that he's a kicker."
+
+"Oh! Fatty don't keer if his fust name's Kickapoo," jeered Fred.
+
+The black and white pony gave Obendorf all the work he wanted for some
+minutes, however, and afforded the spectators much excitement. He wasn't
+a bucking bronco, but he showed plainly his dislike for human
+management. Spur and bit and quirt, however, was a combination that the
+pony was quickly forced to give in to.
+
+Fred himself straddled a speckled, ugly-looking animal, and put it
+through its paces in short order. It was a spectacular exhibition; but
+some of the other punchers laughed uproariously.
+
+"What's the matter with you fellers, anyway?" demanded Fred,
+complainingly. "Ain't you a-gwine to accord me no praise? Don't I look
+as purty on hawseback as that fat chunk does?" he added, referring to
+Obendorf.
+
+"You know very well," called Frances, from the seat of judgment, "that I
+drove that speckled pony to my little jumpcart two years ago. That's
+Chippy--and he's almost as big a bluff, Fred, as you are! He looks
+savage enough to eat you up, and is really as tame as tame can be."
+
+"Hi, Teddie! she's got yuh throwed, tied, an' branded, all right!"
+shouted one of the other punchers.
+
+The girls on the fence welcomed each feat of horsemanship with great
+applause. Some of the ponies "acted up," as Tom Gallup called it, "to
+the queen's taste."
+
+"Whatever that may mean, Tom," Mrs. Edwards said, dryly. "Why don't you
+try your 'prentice hand on that buckskin? He's dodged the lariat a dozen
+times."
+
+"Why, that Bucky is a regular rocking-horse, I bet," declared Tom, who,
+for a city boy, was a pretty good rider.
+
+"Get down and ride him, Tommy," urged Sue. "Can't you ride as well as
+these country boys?"
+
+"I never said I could," retorted Tom, doubtfully. "You girls are guying
+the punchers, too. Why don't one o' you get down and show 'em what you
+can do?"
+
+"Frances can beat all you boys riding, Tommy," Mrs. Edwards cried.
+
+"Bet she couldn't even get aboard of that Bucky," young Gallup instantly
+responded.
+
+"You're not going to take a dare like that, are you, Frances?" demanded
+Mrs. Edwards.
+
+Sue became disdainful the moment Frances came into the argument. She had
+nothing further to say.
+
+"I believe the boys are all holding back on that little buckskin," said
+Frances, laughing.
+
+"Step right this way, Ma'am, step right this way," urged Fred Purchase,
+bowing low and offering his lariat. "Here's my rope and I'll lend ye
+anything else ye may need if ye wanter try that Bucky. He's some bronco,
+believe me!"
+
+Frances got down off the fence.
+
+"Oh! don't you try it, Frances!" cried one nervous girl. "That pony
+looks wicked!"
+
+"Let her break her neck, if she wants to make a fool of herself!"
+snapped Sue, _sotto voce_.
+
+Nobody heard her. All were watching too closely the range girl approach
+the buckskin pony. She had accepted Fred's lariat and the coil of it
+began to whirl about her head.
+
+"There it goes!" cried Tom Gallup.
+
+The buckskin started on a long, swinging lope; but it could not get out
+from under the coil of the lariat. The noose fell and the plunging pony
+went head and forefeet into it. Frances leaped with both feet upon the
+rope, just as it snapped taut. Bucky went on his head, kicking all four
+feet in the air.
+
+"Got him! got him!" shrieked the excited Tom, and the girls cheered
+likewise.
+
+And then the lariat snapped in two!
+
+Muddied and scratched, the buckskin scrambled to his feet, his eyes
+blazing, nostrils distended, and as wild a horse as ever came off the
+range.
+
+"Look out, Miss Frances!" yelled Mack Hinkman, who had just come upon
+the scene. "That thar buckskin hawse is a bad actor."
+
+"Oh! the dear girl! Whatever did possess me to urge her on?" cried Mrs.
+Edwards. "Boys! Save her!"
+
+But it was all over before any of the punchers, or the visitors on the
+fence, could go to Frances' rescue.
+
+The buckskin rose on his hind legs and struck at the girl desperately.
+She had gathered in the slack of the broken lariat and she swung it
+sharply across the pony's face, leaping sideways to avoid him.
+
+The pony whirled and struck again, whistling shrilly, the foam flying
+from his jaws. Once more Frances avoided him.
+
+Tom Gallup was yelling like a wild boy on the fence. Sue could scarcely
+catch her breath for fear. She would not have admitted it for the world;
+but the courage of the range girl amazed her. Her own rescue from the
+charge of the little black bullock by Frances had not impressed Sue
+Latrop as did this battle with the pony in the arena of the horse
+corral.
+
+Fred Purchase ran with another lariat. Frances seized it, flung the
+noose over the upraised head of the pony, took a swift turn around a
+shed post, and brought the "bad actor" up short.
+
+She insisted, too, on cinching on the saddle and putting the bit in the
+pony's mouth. Then she mounted him and as he tore around the corral, the
+girl sitting as though she were a part of the creature, the boys and
+girls joined the punchers in cheering her.
+
+It was not in this way, however, that the girl visitors to the ranges
+learned the true worth of Frances Rugley. They were, after all, only
+"porch acquaintances." Once only had the party been invited into the
+inner court for luncheon, and their brief calls to the ranch-house
+offered little opportunity for the girls to really see Frances' home.
+
+They had met her so much in riding costume that, like Pratt Sanderson,
+they were amazed when she appeared in a pretty house dress. And they
+were really a bit awed by her, for although the range girl was of a
+naturally cheerful disposition, she possessed, too, more than her share
+of dignity.
+
+"You don't flit about like these other girls, Frances," said the old
+ranchman, who was very observant. "You grow to look and seem more like
+your mother every day. But the goodness knows I don't want you to grow
+into a woman ahead of your time."
+
+"I reckon I won't do that, Dad," she said, laughing at him fondly.
+
+"I don't know. I reckon you've had too much responsibility on those
+shoulders of yours. You left school too young, too. That's what these
+other girls say. Why, that Boston girl is going to school now!
+
+"But, shucks! she wouldn't know enough to hurt her if she attended
+school from now till the end of time!"
+
+Frances laughed again. "That is pretty harsh, father. Now, I think I
+have had quite schooling enough to get along. I don't need the higher
+branches of education to help you run this ranch. Do I?"
+
+"By mighty!" exploded the Captain. "I don't know whether I have been
+doing right by you or not. I've been talking to Mrs. Bill Edwards about
+it. I loved you so, Frances, that I hated to have you out of my sight.
+But----"
+
+"Now, now!" cried the girl. "Let's have no more of that. You and I have
+only each other, and I couldn't bear to be away from you long enough to
+go to a boarding school."
+
+"Yes--I know," went on Captain Rugley. "But there are ways of getting
+around _that_. We'll see."
+
+One thing he was determined on was Captain Dan Rugley. He proposed to
+have "some doings" at the ranch-house before Pratt was well enough to be
+discharged from "St. Frances' Hospital," as he called the
+_hacienda_.
+
+The old ranchman worked up the idea with Mrs. Edwards before Frances
+knew anything about it.
+
+"They call it a 'dinner dance,'" he confided to Frances at length, when
+the main plan was already made. "At least that's what Mrs. Edwards
+says."
+
+"A 'dinner dance'?" repeated his daughter, not sure for the moment that
+she wished to have so much confusion in the house when there was so much
+to do.
+
+"Yes! Now, it isn't one of those dances you read about out East, where
+folks drink a cup of tea, and then get up and dance around, and then
+take a sandwich and the orchestra strikes up another tune," chuckled
+Captain Rugley.
+
+"No, it isn't like that. I couldn't stand any such doings. I'd never
+know when I'd had enough to eat; every dance would shake down the
+courses so that my stomach would be packed as hard as a cement
+sidewalk."
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" said Frances, half laughing at him.
+
+"No. This dinner dance idea is all right," declared the ranchman. "We
+give a dinner to the whole crowd--all the girls and boys that have been
+coming over here for the past two or three weeks."
+
+"It will make fifteen at table," said the practical Frances, thinking
+hard of the resources of the household.
+
+"That's all right. I'll get in the Reposa boys to help San Soo and
+Ming."
+
+"Victorino, too?" asked his daughter, curiously.
+
+"Yes," declared the Captain, stoutly. "He's sorry he mixed up with Ratty
+M'Gill. Vic isn't a bad boy. Well, that's help enough, and San Soo can
+outdo himself on his dinner."
+
+"That part of it will be all right--and the service, too, for Jose and
+Victorino are handy boys," admitted Frances.
+
+"We'll have out the best tableware we own. That silver stuff that came
+from Don Morales will knock their eyes out----"
+
+"Oh, Daddy!" cried Frances, going off into a gale of laughter. "You
+picked up that expression from Tom Gallup."
+
+"That's the slangy boy--yes," admitted the old ranchman, with a broad
+smile. "But some of his slang just hits things off right. Some of those
+girls think you're 'country,' I know. We'll show them!"
+
+Frances sighed. She knew it meant that she must dress the part of a
+barbarian princess to please her father. But she made no objection. If
+she tried to show him that the jewels and ornaments were not fit for her
+to wear, he would be hurt.
+
+"Yes!" exclaimed Captain Rugley, evidently much pleased with the idea of
+a social time that he had evolved with Mrs. Edwards' help, "we'll have
+as nice a dinner as San Soo can make. After dinner we'll have dancing,
+I'll get the string band from Jackleg. Jackleg's getting to be quite a
+social centre, Mrs. Edwards says."
+
+Frances laughed again. "I expect," she said, "that Mrs. Edwards is eager
+to have a dance, and the Jackleg string band _is_ a whole lot
+better than Bob Jones' accordion and Perry's old fiddle."
+
+"Oh, well! Of course, an accordion and fiddle are all right for a cowboy
+dance, but this is going to be the real thing!" declared her father.
+
+"Aren't you going to invite the boys as usual?" asked Frances, quickly.
+
+"Not to the dinner!" gasped her father. "But that's all right. To the
+dance, afterward. Some of them are mighty good dancers, and there aren't
+boys enough in Mrs. Edwards' crowd to go round. It's quite the thing at
+a dinner dance, she says, to invite extra people to come in after the
+dinner is over."
+
+"All right," said Frances, suppressing another sigh.
+
+"And I'm going to send off for half a carload of potted palms, and other
+plants. We'll decorate like the Town Hall. You'll see!" exclaimed the
+old ranchman, as eager as a boy about it all.
+
+Frances hadn't the heart to make any objection, but she was afraid that
+the affair would be a disappointment to him. She did not think the boys
+from the ranges, and Sue Latrop and her girl friends, would mix well.
+
+But the Captain went ahead with his preparations with his usual energy.
+He had Mrs. Edwards as chief adviser. But Frances overlooked the plans
+in the household in her usually capable way.
+
+The big drawing-room was thoroughly cleaned and the floor waxed. The
+scratches made by Ratty M'Gill's spurs were eliminated. When the potted
+plants came--a four-mule wagon-load--Frances arranged them about the
+dancing floor and dining-room.
+
+She found her father practising his steps in the hall one morning before
+breakfast. "Goodness, Daddy," she cried. "Do be careful of your weak
+leg."
+
+"Don't you worry about me," he chuckled. "I'm going to give old Mr.
+Rheumatism a black eye this time. I'm going to 'shake a leg' at this
+dance if it's the last act of my life."
+
+"Don't be too reckless," she told him, with a worried little frown on
+her brow. "I want you to be able to ride to Jackleg to see the pageant.
+And that comes the very day but one after our dance."
+
+"I'll be all right," he assured her. "I have a dance promised from Mrs.
+Edwards and each of the girls but that Boston one, right now. And I
+wouldn't miss your show in Jackleg, Frances, for a penny!
+
+"I only wish Lon were here to enjoy it. I got a letter from that
+minister saying that Lon and he will reach here next week. If they'd
+come early in the week they'd get here in time for the pageant, anyway."
+
+With so much bustle and preparation about the Bar-T ranch-house, there
+was not much likelihood of anybody being reckless enough to attempt
+stealing the old Spanish chest, or its contents.
+
+These days the Captain kept the room in which the chest of treasure lay
+double-locked, and at night slept in the room himself. From sunset to
+sunrise a relay of cowboys rode around the huge house and compound, and
+although Pete Marin, as Ratty M'Gill's friend from Mississippi was
+called, was still at large, there was no fear that he, or anybody else,
+would get into the _hacienda_ at night.
+
+Frances, with all her duties, had less time to devote to Pratt's
+entertainment now. In truth, as soon as he was able to get downstairs by
+himself he complained that he lost his nurse.
+
+When the crowd came over from the Edwards ranch, and sat around on the
+porch, Frances was not always with them. One afternoon--the very day
+before the dinner and dance, in fact--she came through one of the long,
+open windows upon the veranda, right behind a group of three of the
+girls. It was by chance she heard one of them say:
+
+"Well, I don't care, Sue, I think she is real nice. You are awfully
+critical."
+
+"I can't bear dowdy people," drawled Sue Latrop. "I know she'll be a
+sight at that dinner to-morrow night. My goodness! if for nothing else
+I'd come to see how she looks in her 'best bib and tucker' and how that
+queer old man acts when he is what he calls 'all dolled up.'"
+
+"Sh!" warned the third girl. "Somebody will hear you."
+
+"Pooh! If they do?" returned Sue Latrop, carelessly.
+
+"If I were you," said the other girl, with warmth, "I wouldn't accept an
+invitation to dine with people whom I expected to make fun of."
+
+"Silly!" laughed the girl from Boston. "I've got to find enjoyment
+somewhere--and there's little enough of it in this Panhandle. I'll be
+glad when father writes saying that I can come home once again."
+
+"How about your going to this dance, Sue?" chuckled one of the girls,
+suddenly. "I thought your doctor had forbidden dancing for this summer?"
+
+"I think I see myself dancing with these cowboys that they are going to
+invite," scoffed Sue. "And Pratt can't dance yet. There isn't anybody
+worth dancing with in our crowd now."
+
+"Hasn't the Captain asked you for a dance?" queried her friend,
+roguishly.
+
+"I should say not!" gasped Sue. "Fancy!"
+
+"You must not act as though his invitation insulted you, Sue Latrop,"
+said one of the other girls, rather tartly. "You might as well
+understand, first as last, that we are all fond of Captain Rugley.
+Besides, he's a very influential man and one of the wealthiest in this
+part of the Panhandle."
+
+"_Nouveau-riche_," sniffed Miss Sue, with a toss of her head.
+
+"If that means newly rich, why, he's not!" exclaimed the other girl,
+with continued warmth. "It's true, he didn't make his money baking
+beans, or bean-pots; nor by drying and selling pollock and calling it
+'codfish.' I believe one has to make his money in some such way to break
+into Boston society?"
+
+"Something like that," responded Sue, calmly.
+
+"Well, the old Captain is very, very wealthy," went on his champion. "If
+you'd ever been much inside this big house, you'd see it is so. And they
+say he has a treasure chest containing jewels of fabulous value."
+
+"A treasure chest!" ejaculated the Boston girl.
+
+"Yes, Ma'am!"
+
+"Now you are trying to fool me," declared Sue Latrop.
+
+"You wait! I expect Frances will wear at the dinner some of those
+wonderful old jewels the Captain digs out of his chest once in a while.
+I've heard they are really amazing----
+
+"Jewels to deck out the Cattle Queen!" interrupted Sue, tauntingly.
+"Nose ring and anklets included, I s'pose?"
+
+"Now, Sue! how can you be so mean?" cried one of the other girls.
+
+"Pshaw! I suppose she'll be a wondrous sight in her 'best bib and
+tucker.' Loaded down with silver ornaments, like a Mexican belle at a
+fair, or an Indian squaw at a poodle-dog feast. She will undoubtedly
+throw all us girls in the shade," and Sue burst into a gale of laughter.
+
+"I declare! you're cruel, Sue!" cried one of the girls from Amarillo.
+
+"I'd like to know how you make that out, Miss?" demanded the girl from
+Boston.
+
+"Frances has never done you a bit of harm. Why! you are accepting her
+hospitality this very moment. And yet, you haven't a good word to say
+for her."
+
+"I don't see that I am called upon to give her a good word," sneered
+Miss Latrop. "She is a rough, rude, quite impossible person. I fail to
+see wherein she deserves any consideration at my hands. I declare! to
+hear you girls, one would think this cowgirl was of some importance."
+
+Frances came quietly away from the window, postponing her dusting in
+that quarter until later. But she was tempted--very sorely tempted
+indeed.
+
+Sue expected her to look like a cross between an Indian squaw and a
+Mexican belle at dinner--and Frances was sorely tempted to fulfil the
+Boston girl's idea of what a "cattle queen" should look like at a
+society function!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+THE BURSTING OF THE CHRYSALIS
+
+
+Frances Durham Rugley was growing up. At least, she felt a great many
+years older now than she did that day so short a time before when,
+riding along the trail, she had heard Pratt and the mountain lion
+fighting in Brother's Coulie.
+
+She looked at her reflection in the long dressing-mirror in her own
+room, and could not see that she had added to her stature in this time
+"one jot or tittle." But inside she felt worlds older.
+
+It was the afternoon of the dinner-party day. She had come upstairs to
+make ready to receive her guests. The dinner was for seven and Frances
+had given herself plenty of time to dress.
+
+Pratt was off on his pony, "getting the stiffness out of himself," he
+declared. The old Captain was just as busy as a bee, and just as fussy
+as a clucking hen, about the last preparations for the party.
+
+And meanwhile Frances was undecided. She almost wished she might run
+away from the ordeal before her. To face all these people whom, after
+all, she knew so slightly, and play hostess at her father's table, and
+be criticised by them all, was an ordeal hard for the range girl to
+face.
+
+She was not particularly shy; but she shrank from unkind remarks, and
+she was sure of having at least one critic-extraordinary at the
+table--Sue Latrop.
+
+This was really Frances' "coming out party" but she didn't want to "come
+out" at all!
+
+"Oh! I wish they had never come here. I wish daddy had not asked them to
+this dinner. Dear me!" groaned the girl of the ranges, "I almost wish I
+had never met Pratt at all."
+
+For, looking into the future, she saw a long vista of range work and
+quiet living, with merely the minor incidents of ranch life to break the
+monotony. This "dip" into society would not even leave a pleasant
+remembrance, she was afraid.
+
+And it might be years before she would be called upon to play hostess in
+such a way as this again. She sighed and unbraided her hair. At that
+moment there sounded a knock upon her door.
+
+She ran to open it to her father.
+
+"Here you are, Frances," said the old ranchman, jovially. "Never mind if
+Lon hasn't got here yet; I've gone deeper into the treasure chest. I
+want you to be all dolled up to-night."
+
+His hands were fairly ablaze--or looked to be. He had his great palms
+cupped, and that cup was full of gems in all sorts of ancient
+settings--shooting sparks of all colors in the dimly lighted room.
+
+"There's a handful of stuff to make you pretty," he said, proudly.
+
+The ancient belt dangled over his arm. He placed all the things on her
+dressing-table, and stood off to admire their brilliancy. Frances
+swallowed a lump in her throat. How could she disappoint him! How could
+she try to tell him how unsuitable these gems were for a young girl in
+her teens! He would be heart-broken if she did not wear them.
+
+"You are a dear, Daddy!" she murmured, and kissed him. "Now run away and
+let me dress."
+
+He tiptoed out, all a-smile. His wife's dressing-room had been a "holy
+of holies" to this simple-minded old man, and Frances reminded him every
+day, more and more strongly, of the woman whom he had worshiped for a
+few happy years.
+
+Frances did not hasten with her preparations, however. She sat down and
+spread the gewgaws out before her on the dresser. The belt, Spanish
+earrings of fabulous value and length, rings that almost blinded her
+when she held the stones in the sunlight, a great oval brooch,
+bracelets, and a necklace of matched stones that made her heart beat
+almost to suffocation when she tried it on her brown throat.
+
+She had it in her power to "knock their eyes out," as daddy (and Tom
+Gallup) had expressed it. She could bedeck herself like a queen. She
+knew that Sue Latrop worshiped the tangible signs of wealth, as she
+understood them.
+
+Cattle, and range lands, and horses, and a great, rambling house like
+this at the Bar-T, impressed the girl from Boston very little. But
+jewels would appeal to her empty head as nothing else could.
+
+Frances knew this very well. She knew that she could overawe the Boston
+girl with a display of these gems. And she would please her father, too,
+in loading her fingers and ears and neck and arms with the brilliants.
+
+And then, before she got any farther in her dressing, or had decided in
+her troubled mind what really to do, there came another, and lighter,
+tapping on her door.
+
+"Who's there?" asked Frances.
+
+"It's only me, Frances," said Pratt.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked, calmly, rising and approaching the door.
+
+"Got something for you--if you want them," the young man said, in a low
+voice.
+
+"What is it?" she queried.
+
+"Open the door and see," and he laughed a little nervously.
+
+Frances drew her gown closer about her throat, and turned the knob.
+Instantly a great bunch of fragrant little blossoms--the wild-flowers so
+hard to find on the plains and in the foothills--were thrust into her
+hands.
+
+"Oh, _Pratt!_" shrieked the girl in delight.
+
+She clasped the blossoms to her bosom; she buried her face in them.
+Pratt watched her with smiling lips, and wonderingly.
+
+How pretty and girlish she was! The grown-up air that responsibilities
+had lent her fell away like a cloak. She was just a simple,
+enthusiastic, delighted girl, after all!
+
+"Like them?" asked the young man, laconically.
+
+"I _love_ them!" Frances declared.
+
+Pratt was thinking how wonderful it was that a girl could seize a big
+bunch of posies like that, and hug them, and press them to her face, and
+still not crush the fragile things.
+
+"Why," he thought, "I've had to handle them like eggs all the way here,
+to keep from spoiling them beyond repair. Aren't girls wonders?"
+
+You see, Pratt Sanderson was beginning to be interested in the mysteries
+of the opposite sex.
+
+"Run away now, like a good boy," she said to him, as she had to her
+father, and closed the door once more.
+
+She ran to her bathroom and filled two vases with water and put the
+flower stems in, that they might drink and keep the blossoms fresh.
+
+Then, with a lighter air and tread, she went about her dressing for the
+party.
+
+She put up her hair, deftly copying the fashion that Sue Latrop--that
+mirror of Eastern fashion--affected. And the new mode became Frances
+vastly.
+
+Her new dress--the one she had had made for the pageant--had already
+come home from the city dressmaker who had her measurements. She spread
+it upon the bed and got her skirts and other linen.
+
+Half an hour later she was out of her bath and ready for the dress
+itself. It went on and fitted perfectly.
+
+"I am sure anybody must admire this," she told herself. She was sure
+that none of the girls at the dinner and dance would be more fitly
+dressed than herself--if she stopped right here!
+
+But now she returned to the dresser and looked at the blazing gems from
+the old Spanish chest. If only daddy did not want her to wear them!
+
+A ring, one bracelet, possibly the brooch. She might wear those without
+shocking good taste. All were beautiful; but the heavy settings, the
+great belt of gold and emeralds, the necklace of sparkling
+brilliants--all, all were too rich and too startling for a girl of her
+age, and well Frances knew it.
+
+With sinking heart and trembling fingers she adorned herself with the
+heaviest weight of trouble she had ever borne.
+
+A little later she descended the stairs, slowly, regally, bearing her
+head erect, and looking like a little tragedy queen as she appeared in
+the soft evening glow at the foot of the stairs.
+
+Pratt's gasp of wonder and amazement made the old Captain turn to look.
+
+Above her brow was a crescent of sparkling stones. The long, graceful
+earrings lay lovingly upon the bared, velvet shoulders of the girl.
+
+The bracelets clasped the firm flesh of her arms warmly. The collar of
+gems sparkled at her throat. The brooch blazed upon her bosom. And
+around her slender waist was the great belt of gold.
+
+She was a wonderful sight! Pratt was dazzled--amazed. The old ranchman
+poked him in the ribs.
+
+"What do you think of _that_?" he demanded. "Went right down to the
+bottom of the chest to get all that stuff. Isn't she the whole show?"
+
+And Frances had hard work to keep back the tears. She knew that was
+exactly what she was--a show.
+
+She could see the change slowly grow in Pratt's features. His wonder
+shifted to disapproval. After the first shock he realized that the
+exhibition of the gems on such an occasion as this was in bad taste.
+
+Why! she was like a jeweler's window! The gems were wonderfully
+beautiful, it was true. But they would better be on velvet cushions and
+behind glass to be properly appreciated.
+
+"Do you like me, Daddy?" she asked, softly.
+
+"My mercy, Frances! I scarcely know you," he admitted. "You certainly
+make a great show."
+
+"Are you satisfied?" she asked again.
+
+"I--I'd ought to be," he breathed, solemnly. "You--you're a beauty!
+Isn't she, Pratt?"
+
+"Save my blushes," Frances begged, but not lightly. "If I suit you
+exactly, Daddy, I shall appear at dinner this way."
+
+"Sure! Show them to our guests. There's not another woman in the
+Panhandle can make such a show."
+
+Frances, with a sharp pain at her heart, thought this was probably true.
+
+"Wait, Daddy," she said. "Let me run back and make one little change.
+You wait there in the cool reception-room, and see how I look next
+time."
+
+She could no longer bear the expression of Pratt's eyes. Turning, she
+gathered up her skirts and scuttled back to her room. Her cheeks were
+afire. Her lips trembled. She had to fight back the tears.
+
+One by one she removed the gaudy ornaments. She left the crescent in her
+wavy brown hair and the old-fashioned brooch at her breast. Everything
+else she stripped off and flung into a drawer, and locked it.
+
+These two pieces of jewelry might be heirlooms that any young girl could
+wear with taste at her "coming out" party.
+
+She ran to the vases and took a great bunch of Pratt's flowers which she
+carried in her gloved hand when she went down for the second time to
+show herself to her father.
+
+This time she tripped lightly. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed. Her
+bare throat, brown and firm, rose from the soft laces of her dress in
+its unadorned beauty. The very dress she wore seemed more simple and
+girlish--but a thousand times more fitting for her wearing.
+
+"Daddy!"
+
+She burst into the dimly lighted room. He wheeled in his chair, removed
+the pipe from his mouth, and stared at her again.
+
+This time there was a new light in his eyes, as there was in hers. He
+stood up and something caught him by the throat--or seemed to--and he
+swallowed hard.
+
+"How do you like me now?" she whispered, stretching her arms out to him.
+
+"My--my little girl!" murmured the old Captain, and his voice broke.
+"Then--then you are not grown up, after all?"
+
+"Nor do I want to be, for ever and ever so long yet, Daddy!" she cried,
+and ran to enfold him in her warm embrace.
+
+"Humph!" said the old Captain, confidentially. "I was half afraid of
+that young person who was just down here, Frances. I can kiss you now
+without mussing you all up, eh?"
+
+Pratt had stolen out of the room through one of the windows to the
+veranda.
+
+His heart was swelling and salt tears stung his eyes.
+
+Like the old Captain, the youth had felt some awe of the richly-bedecked
+young girl who had displayed to such advantage the stunning and
+wonderful old jewelry that had once adorned Spanish senoras or Aztec
+princesses. Despite the fact that he disapproved of such a barbarous
+display, Pratt had been impressed.
+
+He had an inkling, too, as to Sue Latrop's attitude toward the range
+girl and believed that some unkind expression of the Boston girl's
+feelings had tempted Frances to show herself in barbaric guise at the
+dinner. Pratt could not have blamed the Western girl if she had "knocked
+their eyes out," to use Tom Gallup's expression, with an exhibition of
+the gorgeous jewels Captain Rugley had got out of the treasure chest.
+
+Without much doubt the old ranchman would have been very proud of his
+daughter's beauty, set off by the glitter of the wonderful old gems. It
+was his nature to boast of his possessions, although his pride in them
+was innocent enough. His wealth would never in this wide world make
+Captain Dan Rugley either purse-proud or arrogant!
+
+The old man's sweetness of temper, kindliness of manner, and
+open-handedness had been inherited by Frances. She was a true daughter
+of her father. But she was her mother's child, too. The well-bred,
+quiet, tactful lady whom the old Border fighter had married had left her
+mark upon the range girl. Frances possessed natural refinement and good
+taste. It was that which had caused her to go to her chamber after the
+display of the jewels, and return for a second "review."
+
+The appearance of the simply-dressed girl who had come downstairs the
+second time had so impressed Pratt Sanderson that he wished to get off
+here on the porch by himself for a minute or two.
+
+The first load of visitors was just driving up to the gate of the
+compound.
+
+He watched the girls from Amarillo, and Sue, and all the others descend,
+shake out their ruffles, and run up the steps.
+
+"My!" sighed Pratt Sanderson in his soul. "Frances has got them all beat
+in every little way. That's as sure as sure!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"THE PANHANDLE--PAST AND PRESENT"
+
+
+Jackleg was in holiday attire. It was a raw Western settlement, it was
+true; but there was more business ambition and public spirit in the
+place than in half a dozen Eastern towns of its population.
+
+The schoolhouse was a long, low structure, seating as many people as the
+ordinary town hall. It was situated upon a flat bit of prairie on the
+outskirts of the town. Rather, the town had grown from the schoolhouse
+to the railroad station, on either side of a long, dusty street.
+Railroads in the West do not go out of their way to touch immature
+settlements. The settlements have to stretch tentacles out to the place
+where the railroad company determines to build a station.
+
+This was so at Jackleg, but it gave a long vista of Main Street from the
+heart of the town to its outlying suburbs. This street was now gay with
+flags and bunting, while there were many arches of colored electric
+lights to burn at night.
+
+Almost before the plans for the pageant had been formed, the business
+men of Jackleg had subscribed a liberal sum to defray expenses. As the
+plans for the entertainment progressed, and it was whispered about what
+a really fine thing it was to be, more subscriptions rolled in.
+
+But Captain Dan Rugley had deposited a guarantee with the Committee that
+he would pay any debts over the subscriptions received, therefore
+Frances and her helpers had gone ahead along rather lavish lines.
+
+The end wall of the school building had been actually removed. The
+framework of the wall was rearranged by the carpenters like the
+proscenium arch of a stage, and a drop of canvas faced the spectators
+where the teacher's desk and platform had been.
+
+Behind the schoolhouse was a vacant lot. This had been surrounded with a
+high board fence. The enclosure made the great stage for the spectacle
+which the Jackleg people, the ranchers and farmers from around about,
+and the visitors from Amarillo and other towns, had come to see.
+
+At the back of this enclosure, or stage, was a big sheet, or screen, on
+which moving pictures could be thrown. On a platform built outside, and
+over the open end of the building, were two moving picture machines with
+operators who had come on from California where some of the pictures had
+been made by a very famous film company.
+
+Some of the pictures had been made in Oklahoma, too, where one
+public-spirited American citizen has saved a herd of the almost extinct
+bison that once roamed our Western plains in such numbers.
+
+At either side of the fenced yard behind the schoolhouse stood the
+actors in the spectacle--both human and dumb--with all the
+paraphernalia. A director had come on from the film company to stage the
+show; but the story as developed was strictly in accordance with Frances
+Rugley's "plans and specifications."
+
+"She's a wonder, that little girl," declared the professional. "She'd
+make her mark as a scenario writer--no doubt of that. I'd like to get
+her for our company; but they say her father is one of the richest men
+in the Panhandle."
+
+Pratt Sanderson, to whom he happened to say this, nodded. "And one of
+the best," he assured the Californian. "Captain Dan Rugley is a noble
+old man, a gentleman of the old school, and one who has seen the West
+grow up and develop from the times of its swaddling clothes until now."
+
+"Wonderful country," sighed the director. "Look at its beginnings almost
+within the memory of the present generation, and now--why! there's half
+a hundred automobiles parked right outside this show to-night!"
+
+Captain Dan Rugley secured a front seat. He was as excited as a boy over
+the event. He admitted to Mrs. Bill Edwards that he hadn't been to a
+"regular show" a dozen times in his life.
+
+"And I expect this is going to knock the spots out of anything I ever
+saw--even the Grand Opera at Chicago, when my wife and I went on our
+honeymoon."
+
+The young folks from the Edwards ranch were scattered about the old
+Captain. Sue Latrop had assumed her most critical attitude. But Sue had
+been wonderfully silent about Frances and her father since the dinner
+dance.
+
+That occasion had turned out to be something entirely different from
+what the girl from Boston expected. In the first place, her young
+hostess was better and more tastefully--though simply--dressed than any
+of her guests.
+
+Her adornments had been only a crescent in her hair and a brooch; but
+Sue had been forced to admire the beauty and value of these. Beside
+Frances, the other girls seemed overdressed. The range girl had dignity
+enough to carry off her part perfectly.
+
+Under the soft glow of the candles in the wonderful old candelabra, to
+which the Captain referred as "a part of the loot of Senor Morales'
+_hacienda_," Frances of the ranges sat as hostess, calmly
+beautiful, and governing the course of the dinner without the least
+hesitancy or confusion.
+
+She looked out for every guest's needs and directed the two Mexican boys
+and Ming in their service with all the calmness and judgment of a
+hostess who was long used to dinner parties. Indeed, Sue Latrop was
+forced to admit in her secret soul that she had never seen any hostess
+manage better at an entertainment of this kind.
+
+At the upper end of the table, the old Captain fairly beamed his
+hospitality and delight. He kept the boys in a gale of laughter, and the
+girls seemed all to enjoy themselves, too. Critical Miss Latrop could
+throw no wet blanket upon the proceedings; to tell the truth, her sour
+face was quite overlooked by the other guests, and about all the
+attention she attracted was when Mrs. Bill Edwards asked her if she had
+the toothache.
+
+"No, I have no toothache!" snapped Sue. "I don't see why you should
+ask."
+
+"Well, my dear," said the lady, soothingly, "something must surely be
+the matter. I never saw a person at dinner with so miserable a
+countenance. Does something pinch you?"
+
+Yes! it was Sue's vanity pinching her, if the truth were known. Her
+diatribes about Frances and the old Captain were not to be easily
+forgotten by the girl from Boston. Not so much was she smitten because
+of her unkindness; but she felt that she had played the fool!
+
+Her friends from Amarillo must be quietly laughing in secret over what
+Sue had said regarding the uncouthness of the Captain and the lack of
+breeding of the "Cattle Queen." Sue felt that she had laid herself open
+to ridicule, and it did hurt Sue Latrop to think that her young friends
+were laughing at her.
+
+As for the dinner, that was a revelation to the girl from Boston. The
+service, if a bit odd, was very good. And the silver, cut glass, napery,
+and all were as rich as Sue had ever seen.
+
+After the dinner, and the other guests began to arrive, and the band
+struck up behind the palms in the inner court of the _hacienda_,
+Sue continued to be surprised, though she failed to admit it to her
+friends.
+
+It was true the boys came up from the bunk-house without evening dress.
+But their black clothes were clean and well brushed, and those who wore
+the usual kerchief about their necks sported silk ones and carried their
+bullion-loaded sombreros in their hands.
+
+And they could all dance. Sue refused the first few dances and tried to
+sit and look on in a superior way; but she presently failed to make good
+at this.
+
+When the kindly old ranchman considered her a wall-flower and came and
+begged her to "give him a whirl," Sue had to break through her "icy
+reserve."
+
+Although they did not dance the more modern dances, she found that
+Captain Rugley knew his steps and was as light on his feet as a man half
+his age.
+
+"I have given Mr. Rheumatism the time of his life to-night!" declared
+the owner of the Bar-T brand. "That's what I told Frances I would do."
+
+And Captain Rugley suffered no ill effects from the dance, as was shown
+by his appearance here at the Jackleg schoolhouse to-night, when the
+canvas curtain slowly rolled up to reveal first the painted curtain
+behind it, on which was a picture of the meeting of Cortez and the Aztec
+princes soon after the Conqueror's arrival in Mexico.
+
+The school teacher read the prologue, and the spectators settled down to
+listen and to see. His explanation of what was to follow was both
+concise and well written, and the whisper went around:
+
+"And she's only a girl! Yes, Miss Rugley wrote it all."
+
+Sue sniffed. The teacher stepped back into the shadow and the painted
+curtain rolled up.
+
+There was a gasp of amazement when the audience saw what was revealed
+behind the painted sheet. One of the moving picture machines was already
+running, and on the great screen was thrown a representation of the
+staked plains of the Panhandle as they were in the days before the white
+man ever saw them.
+
+Far, far away appeared a band of painted and feather-bedecked Indians,
+riding their mustangs, and sweeping down toward the immediate foreground
+of the picture with a vividness that was almost startling.
+
+Into that foreground was drifting a herd of buffaloes. They started, the
+bulls giving the signal as the enemy approached, and the end of that
+section was the scampering of the great, hairy beasts, with the Indians
+in full chase, brandishing their spears.
+
+Immediately the scene changed and a train of a different kind broke into
+view in the dim perspective. The moving figures grew clearer as the
+moments passed. Over a similar part of the staked plain came the
+exploring Spaniards, with their cattle and caparisoned horses, their
+enslaved Aztecs, their priests bearing the Cross before.
+
+The moving procession came closer and closer until suddenly the whirring
+of the picture machine stopped, a great searchlight was turned upon the
+dusky yard between the screen and the open end of the school building,
+and with a gasp of amazement the audience saw there the double of the
+procession which had just been pictured on the moving picture screen.
+
+The actors in this part of the pageant crowded across the desert, were
+stopped by a stampede of Indian ponies, and later made friends of the
+wondering savages.
+
+From this point on the history of the Panhandle developed rapidly. The
+spectators saw the crossing of the plains by the early pioneers, both in
+picture and by actual people, a train of prairie schooners drawn by
+oxen, and a sham battle between the pioneers and the Indians.
+
+The buffaloes disappeared from the picture and the wide-horned cattle
+took their place. A picture of a famous round-up was shown, and then a
+real herd of cattle was driven into the enclosure (they wore the Bar-T
+brand) and several cowboys displayed their skill in roping and tying.
+
+The curtain was dropped, there was a swift change, and it arose again on
+a hastily-built frontier town--a town of one-story shacks with two-story
+false fronts, dance and gambling halls, saloons, a pitiful hotel, and
+all the crude and ugly building expressions of a raw civilization.
+
+"My mighty!" gasped Captain Dan Rugley. "That's Amarillo--Amarillo as I
+first saw it, twenty-five years ago."
+
+People appeared in the street, and rough enough they were. A band of
+cowpunchers rode in, with yells and pistol shots. The rough life of that
+early day was displayed in some detail.
+
+And then, after a short intermission, pictures were displayed again of
+great droves of cattle on the trail, bound for the shipping points;
+following which came pictures of the new wheat fields--that march of the
+agricultural regime that is to make the Panhandle one of the wealthiest
+sections of our great country.
+
+A great reaper was shown at work; likewise a traction gang-plow and a
+motor threshing machine. The progress in agriculture in the Panhandle
+during the last half dozen years really excited some of the older
+residents.
+
+"Did you ever see the beat of that?" demanded Captain Rugley. "I'm blest
+if I wouldn't like to own one of them. See those little dinguses turn up
+the ribbons of sod! I don't know but that Frances can encourage me to be
+that kind of a farmer, after all! There's something big about riding a
+reaper like that one. And that threshing machine, too! Did you see the
+straw blowing out of the pipes as though a cyclone was whirling it away?
+
+"By mighty! I wish Lon could have been here to see this, I certainly
+do!"
+
+For the last time the curtain was lowered and then rose again. On the
+screen was pictured Amarillo as it is to-day.
+
+First a panorama of the town and its outskirts. Then "stills" of its
+principal buildings, and its principal citizens.
+
+Then the main streets, full of business life, autos chugging, electric
+cars clanging back and forth, all of the bustle of a modern town that is
+growing rich and growing rapidly.
+
+The contrast between what the spectators had seen early in the spectacle
+and this final scene made them thoughtful. There had been plenty of
+applause all through the show; but when "Good-night" was shown upon the
+screen, nobody moved, and Pratt raised the shout for:
+
+"Miss Rugley!"
+
+She would not appear before the curtain save with the other members of
+the committee. But the cheering was for her and she had to run away to
+hide her blushes and her tears of happiness.
+
+"Wake up, Sue, it's over!" exclaimed one of the other girls, shaking the
+young lady from Boston.
+
+Sue Latrop came to herself slowly. She had never realized the Spirit of
+the West before, nor appreciated what it meant to have battled for and
+grown up with a frontier community.
+
+"Is--is that all true?" she whispered to Pratt.
+
+"Is what all true?" he asked, rather blankly.
+
+"That there have been such improvements and changes here in so few
+years?"
+
+"You bet!" exclaimed Pratt, with emphasis.
+
+"Well--re'lly--it's quite wonderful," admitted Sue, slowly. "I had no
+idea it was like that!"
+
+"So you think better of our 'crude civilization,' do you?" laughed one
+of her girl friends.
+
+"Why--why, it is quite surprising," said Sue, again, and still quite
+breathless.
+
+"And what do you think of our Frances?" demanded Mrs. Bill Edwards,
+proudly. "There's nobody in Boston's Back Bay, even, who could do better
+than she?"
+
+And Sue Latrop was--for the time being, at least--completely silenced.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+A REUNION
+
+
+There had been a delay on the railroad caused by a washout; therefore
+Jonas Lonergan and Mr. Decimus Tooley, the chaplain of the Bylittle
+Soldiers' Home, did not arrive at Jackleg in time for the night of the
+spectacle of the Pageant of the Panhandle.
+
+But the party from the Bar-T Ranch, after the show was over and Frances
+and the Captain had both been congratulated, rode down to the station to
+meet the belated train to which was attached the special car Captain
+Rugley had engaged for the service of his old partner and the minister.
+
+With the Bar-T party was Pratt, although he proposed going back to the
+Edwards ranch that night. He wanted to get away from the crowd of
+enthusiastic and excited young people who had accompanied Mr. and Mrs.
+Bill Edwards into town to the show.
+
+This train that was stopping to cast loose the special car at Jackleg
+was the last to stop at that station at night. Some few of the
+spectators of the pageant would board it for stations farther west; so
+there was a small group on the station platform.
+
+The young folk, Pratt and Frances, sighted the headlight up the track.
+They were walking up and down the platform, arm in arm and talking over
+the successful completion of the play, when they spied it.
+
+"It's coming, Daddy!" cried Frances, running into the station to warn
+the old Captain.
+
+To tell the truth, he had been leaning back against the wall--in a hard
+and straight-backed chair, of course--taking a "cat-nap." But he awoke
+instantly and with all his senses alert.
+
+"All right, Frances--all right, my girl," he said. "I'm with you.
+Hurrah! My old partner will be as glad to see me as I am to see him."
+
+But when the train rolled in there was some delay. The special car had
+to be shunted onto the siding before Captain Rugley could go aboard.
+
+"Come on, Frances," urged her father, as eager as a boy. He ran across
+the tracks and Frances dutifully followed him. Pratt remained on the
+platform and looked rather wistfully after her. Their conversation had
+been broken off abruptly. He had not had an opportunity to say all that
+he wanted to say and he was to go back to Amarillo the next day.
+
+He saw the Captain and his daughter climb the steps, helped by the negro
+porter. They disappeared within the lighted car. Pratt still lingered.
+His pony was hitched up the street a block or so. There really was
+nothing further for him to wait for.
+
+Suddenly shadows appeared on a curtain of one section of the car. The
+shade flew up and the window was raised.
+
+The young man from Amarillo stood right where the lamplight fell upon
+his features. He found himself staring into the face of a grey-visaged,
+sharp-eyed old man, who had a great shock of grey hair on the top of his
+head like a cockatoo's tuft.
+
+The stranger stared at Pratt earnestly, and then beckoned him with both
+hands, shouting:
+
+"Hey, you boy! You there, with the plaid cap. Come here!"
+
+Rather startled, and not a little amused, Pratt started slowly in the
+direction of the car.
+
+"Hey! Lift your feet there," called out the old man. "You act like you
+had the hookworm. Git a move on!"
+
+"What do you want?" demanded Pratt, coming under the window. He could
+see into the lighted car now, and he observed Frances and her father
+standing back of the stranger, the Captain broadly agrin.
+
+The man reached down suddenly and grabbed Pratt by the lobe of his right
+ear--pinching it between thumb and finger.
+
+"Say! what are you about?" demanded Pratt. But for a very good reason he
+did not seek to pull away.
+
+"Let me look at you again," commanded the man who had taken this
+liberty. "Turn your face up this way--you hear me? My soul! I knew I
+couldn't be mistaken. What did you say this boy's name was, Dan?" he
+shot at the Captain over his shoulder.
+
+"That's Pratt Sanderson," chuckled Captain Rugley. "Something of a
+tenderfoot, but a good lad, Lon, a good lad."
+
+"You bet he is!" declared Jonas P. Lonergan, vigorously. "I knew his
+name when you spoke it, and now I know his face. He's the image of his
+mother--that's what he is."
+
+Then he turned to Pratt again and roared: "Do you know who I am, boy?"
+
+"I fancy you are the--the old partner of Captain Rugley whom he has
+expected so long," Pratt said, puzzled but smiling. He had never chanced
+to hear the expected guest called by any other name than "Lon."
+
+"I'm Jonas P. Lonergan!" exclaimed the old man. "_Now_ do you know
+me. I'm your mother's half-brother. I knew you folks lived out this way
+somewhere, but I've not seen you since you were a little shaver.
+
+"But I'll never forget how my little half-sister used to look, and you
+are just like her when she was young," declared Mr. Lonergan. "Come in
+here, you young rascal, and let me get a closer look at you."
+
+"My Uncle Jonas?" gasped Pratt, in amazement.
+
+"That's what I am!" declared Mr. Lonergan. "Your old uncle who never did
+much of anything for you--or the rest of the fam'ly--all his life. But
+he's goin' to be able to do something now.
+
+"Listen here: Captain Dan Rugley says the treasure chest old Senor
+Morales gave us so long ago is all right. It's chock-full of jewels and
+gold and money---- Shucks! I'm as crazy as a child about it," laughed
+the old man.
+
+"After bein' through what I have, and livin' poor so many years, it's
+enough to scatter the brains of an old man like me to come into a
+fortune. Yes, sir! And what's mine is yours, Pratt. They tell me you are
+a mighty good boy. Captain Dan speaks well of you----"
+
+"And I ought to," growled the old ranchman from the background. "I owe
+something to him, too, for what he did for Frances."
+
+"Heh?" exclaimed Lonergan. He turned short around and stared at the
+blushing Frances. "She's a mighty fine girl, I reckon?"
+
+"The best in the Panhandle," declared the old ranchman, nodding
+understandingly.
+
+"And this boy of my sister's is a pretty good fellow, Dan?" asked
+Lonergan.
+
+"Mighty fine--mighty fine," admitted Captain Dan Rugley.
+
+"I tell you what," whispered Jonas, in the Captain's ear, "this dividin'
+up the contents of that old treasure chest will only be temporary after
+all--just temporary, eh?"
+
+"We'll see--we'll see, Lon," said Captain Dan, carefully. "They're young
+yet, they're over-young. But 'twould certain sure be a romantic outcome
+of all our adventures together years ago, eh?"
+
+"Right you are, Captain, right you are!" agreed Lonergan.
+
+Frances and Pratt heard none of this. Pratt had entered the car and the
+two young people were talking to the Reverend Mr. Tooley, who was a
+demure little man in clerical black, who seemed quite happy over the
+reunion of the two old friends, Captain Dan Rugley and Jonas P.
+Lonergan.
+
+Lonergan was a lean old man who walked with a crutch. Although he had a
+very vigorous voice, he showed his age and his state of ill health when
+he began to move about.
+
+"But we'll fix all that, Lon," the Captain assured him. "Once we get you
+out to the Bar-T we'll build you up in a jiffy. We'll get you out of
+doors. Humph! soldiers' home, indeed! Why, you've got a long stretch of
+life ahead of you yet. I've beat out old Mr. Rheumatism myself these
+last few weeks.
+
+"We'll fight our bodily ills and old age together, Lon--just as we used
+to fight other enemies. Back to back and never give up or ask for
+quarter, eh?"
+
+"That's the talk, Dan!" cried the other old fellow.
+
+But Mr. Lonergan was glad to ride out to the Bar-T in the
+comfortably-cushioned carriage that Mack Hinkman had driven to town. The
+party arrived at the ranch-house--Mr. Tooley and all--after daybreak.
+The Captain had insisted upon Pratt's going, too.
+
+"What?" Lonergan demanded. "_You_ a bank clerk, looking out through
+the wires of a cage like a monkey in the Zoo we saw years ago at Kansas
+City?"
+
+"That _is_ a nice job for your nephew, hey Lon?" put in the
+Captain.
+
+"Drop it, boy, drop it. You're the heir of a rich man now--isn't that
+so, Captain?"
+
+"That's so," agreed Captain Dan Rugley. "He'd better write in to his
+bank and tell 'em to excuse him indefinitely; and write to his mother to
+come out here and visit a spell with her brother. The Bar-T's big
+enough, I should hope--hey, Frances? What do you say?"
+
+"I am sure it would be nice to have Pratt's mother with us. I'd be
+delighted to have somebody's mother in the house, Daddy," said Frances,
+smiling. "You know, you're the best father that ever lived; but you
+can't be mother, too."
+
+"It's what you've missed since you were a tiny little girl, Frances,"
+agreed Captain Rugley, gravely. "But just the same--I want 'em to show
+me a girl in all this blessed Panhandle that's a better or finer girl
+than my Frances. Am I right, Pratt?"
+
+"You most certainly are, Captain," the young man agreed. "Or anywhere
+outside the Panhandle."
+
+Frances smiled at him roguishly. "Even from Boston, Pratt?" she
+whispered.
+
+But Pratt forgave her for that.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another picture of the Bar-T ranch-house on a late afternoon. The
+slanting rays of a westering sun lie across the floor of the main
+veranda. The family party idling there need no introduction save in a
+single particular.
+
+A tall, well-built lady in black, and with grey hair, and who looks so
+much like Pratt Sanderson that the relationship between them could be
+seen at a glance, has the chair of honor. Mrs. Sanderson is making her
+first of many visits to the Bar-T.
+
+Old Jonas P. Lonergan, his crutch beside him, is lying comfortably in
+another lounging chair. But he already looks much more vigorous.
+
+Captain Dan Rugley, as ever, is tipped back against the wall in his
+favorite position. Frances is with her sewing at a low table, while
+Pratt is lying on the rug at his mother's feet.
+
+"What's that Mr. Tooley said in his letter, Frances?" asked Pratt. "Is
+he sure the man who was killed on the railroad when he went home from
+here was a man named Pete Marin, who once was orderly at the soldiers'
+home?"
+
+"Yes," said Frances, gravely. "He was walking the track, they thought.
+Either he was intoxicated or he did not hear the train. Poor fellow!"
+
+"Blamed rascal!" ejaculated Jonas P. Lonergan.
+
+"He made us some trouble--but it's over," said Pratt.
+
+"You showed what sort of stuff you were made of, young man," said the
+Captain, thoughtfully, "at that very time. Maybe you've got something to
+thank that Pete for."
+
+"And Ratty M'Gill?" asked Pratt, smiling.
+
+"Poor Ratty!" said Frances again.
+
+"He's gone down to the Pecos country," said the Captain, briskly. "Best
+place for him. Maybe he will know enough not to get in with such fellows
+as that Pete again."
+
+"I should have been much afraid had I known what Pratt was getting into
+out here," Mrs. Sanderson ventured.
+
+"Now, now, Sister! Don't try to make a mollycoddle out o' the boy," said
+Jonas P. Lonergan. "I tell you we're going to make a man out o' Pratt
+here. I've bought an interest in the Bar-T for him. He's going to take
+some of the work off the Captain's shoulders when we get him broke in,
+hey, Dan?"
+
+"Right you are, Lon!" agreed the other old man.
+
+Frances smiled quietly to hear them plan. She put her needle in and out
+of the work she was doing slowly. By and by her fingers stopped
+altogether and she looked away across the ranges.
+
+She, too, was planning. She was seeing herself living in a college town
+the next winter, with daddy for company, while Mr. Lonergan and Pratt
+and his mother remained on at the Bar-T.
+
+She saw herself graduating after a few years from some advanced school,
+quite the equal of Pratt in education. Meanwhile he would be learning to
+change the vast Bar-T ranges into wheat and milo fields, and taking up
+the new farming that is revolutionizing the Panhandle.
+
+And after that--and after that----?
+
+"How about Ming bringing us a pitcher of nice cool lemonade, eh,
+Frances?" said the Captain, breaking in upon her day-dream.
+
+"All right, Daddy. I'll tell him," said Frances of the Ranges.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Frances of the Ranges, by Amy Bell Marlowe
+
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