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 behindthem–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 ittakes 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 thewagon 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 growingrapidly. 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!”
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 ofrawhide 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 firetraveled 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 fromthe 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 areout 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 werescorched, 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 topof 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.”
“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 themandate 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’tanythingruffle 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 andkept 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 wasto 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 anxiousto 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 thehouse 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 upto 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.
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, shewished 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. Atleast, 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 braceletI 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 ortwo 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 thehacienda, 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 notmind 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 José and his brother in one of the shadowy rooms.
“Oh, it’s quiteal 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 thefurnishings 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.
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.
José 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 theyran 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. Butthe 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’llyisa 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 youare 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 ahandicap 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. “Iam 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’swhat they are for. Well, you are a softy, Pratt Sanderson.”