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,didstartle 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?”
“Youarefeverish,” 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 outthere. 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 areyou out of your bed, sir–with your rheumatism?” she retorted.
“Good reason. Thought I heard something,” growled the Captain.
“Good reason. Thought Isawsomething,” 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 anythingforhim–and do know one thingagainsthim,” 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 abouthim. 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 reallyisa 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–ratheran 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.
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 bethatparticular? If so, Iamgetting 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 thatmysterious 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 nowthat 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 girlspeak 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, turneda 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; butthatwas 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.
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 Baldfacegot 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 oftheir 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 withsome 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 againto 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 thanme. 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 perfecttomboy. 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, andofficiating 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.Idon’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 thehaciendaitself, 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 tendertie 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!’”
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” weresupposed 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 thehaciendaat 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:
“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 Señor 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 cañon which he calls Dry Bone Cañon.“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 Señor 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 doesnot 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.
“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 Señor 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 cañon which he calls Dry Bone Cañon.
“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 Señor 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 doesnot 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.
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 Spanishchest–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 Señor Milo Morales’hacienda.
“We got onto their plans, and we rode hard to thehaciendato 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. Señor 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 thepeonis 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 thehacienda. 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 Señor–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 thevaqueros, had joined the outlaws, and thehaciendawas 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 degreeremoved 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 Cañon, 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 necessaryto 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 thehaciendaroof or not, Captain Rugley took to his bed. The physician pronounced it rheumatic fever, and a very serious case indeed.
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 “goingto 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 Señor’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 Cañon, 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. Somethinghadto 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, shescarcely 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 longmiles 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 bootswere 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 upright 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, “José 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 thathacienda.”
“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.