“I guess I am,” admitted the young bank clerk. “I wasn’t made for such work as this.”
He turned away to catch his pony and did not even look at Frances. If he had, he would have seen her eyes illuminated with a radiant admiration that would almost have stunned him.
“If daddy had seen him do that,” whispered Frances to herself, “I’m sure he would have a better opinion of Pratt than he has. I am certain that nobody with so tender a heart could be really bad.”
But the incident separated the range girl from the young man from Amarillo for the time being. Silent Sam and Frances had some trouble in getting the dogs off the antelope trail.
When they started the next bunch of jack-rabbits from the brush, Frances was with the foreman and the Mexican boy, and acted with them as beaters. The visitors had great fun bagging the animals.
Frances, rather glad to escape from the crowd for a time, spurred Molly down the far side of the stream, having crossed it in a shallow place. She was out of sight of the hunters, and soon out of sound. They had turned back and were going up stream again.
The ranchman’s daughter pulled in Molly at the brink of a little hollow beside the stream. There was a cleared space in the centre and–yes–there was a fireplace and ashes. Thick brush surrounded the camping place save on the side next to the stream.
“Wonder who could have been here? And recently, too. There’s smoke rising from those embers.”
This was Frances’ unspoken thought. She let Molly step nearer. Trees overhung the place. She saw that it was as secret a spot as she had seen along the river side, and her thought flashed to Pete, the ex-orderly of the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home.
Then she turned in her saddle suddenly and saw the very man standing near her, rifle in hand. His leering smile frightened her.
Although he said never a word, Frances’ hand tightened on Molly’s rein. The next moment she would have spurred the pinto up the hill; but a drawling voice within a yard of her spoke.
“How-do, Frances? ’Light, won’t yer?” and there followed Ratty M’Gill’s well-known laugh. “We didn’t expect ye; but ye’re welcome just the same.”
Ratty’s hand was on Molly’s bridle-rein. Frances knew that she was a prisoner.
The party of visitors to the Edwards ranch tired of jack-shooting and jack-running before noon. José Reposa had cached a huge hamper of lunch which the Bar-T cook had put up, and he softly suggested to Mrs. Edwards that the company be called together and luncheon made ready, with hot coffee for all.
“But where’s Pratt?” cried somebody.
“And Miss Rugley?” asked another.
“Oh, I guess you’ll find them together somewhere,” snapped Sue Latrop.
She had felt neglected by her “hero” for the last hour, and was in the sulks, accordingly.
Pratt, however, came in alone. He had bagged several jacks. Altogether Silent Sam and the Mexican had destroyed more than a score of the pests, and the dogs had torn to pieces two or three beside. The canines were satiated with the meat, and were glad to lie down, panting, and watch the preparations for luncheon.
“I have not seen Miss Frances since she caught the antelope,” Pratt declared.
Sue began to laugh–but it wasn’t a nice laugh at all. “Guess she got mad and went home. You, letting that animal go the way you did! I never heard of such a foolish thing!”
Pratt said nothing. He sat down on the other side of the fire from the girl from Boston. He took it for granted that Franceshadgone home.
For, remembering as he did, that Frances was a range girl, and had lived out-of-doors and undoubtedly among rough men, a good part of her life, the young fellow thought that, very probably, Frances had been utterly disgusted with him when he showed so much tenderness for the innocent little antelope.
Since that moment of weakness he had been telling himself:
“She thinks me a softy. I am. What kind of a hunter did I show myself to be? Pooh! she must be disgusted with my weakness.”
Nevertheless, he would have done the same thing over again. It was his nature not to wish to see dumb creatures in pain, or to inflict pain on them himself.
Killing the jack-rabbits was a necessity as well as a sport. Even chasing a poor, unfortunate little fox, as Sue had done in the East, might be madeto seem a commendable act, for the foxes, when numerous, are a nuisance around the poultry runs.
But by no possible reasoning could Pratt have ever excused his killing of the pretty, innocent antelope. They did not need it for food, and it was one of the most harmless creatures in the world.
To tell the truth, Pratt was glad Frances was not present at the luncheon. He cared a good deal less about Sue’s saucy tongue than he did for the range girl’s opinion of him.
During these weeks that he had known Frances Rugley, he had come to see that hers was a most vigorous and interesting character. Pratt was a thoughtful young man. There was nothing foolish about his interest in Frances, but hedidcrave her friendship and liking.
Some of the other men rallied him on his sudden silence, and this gave Sue Latrop an opportunity to say more sarcastic things.
“He misses that ‘cattle queen,’” she giggled, but was careful that Mrs. Edwards did not hear what she said. “Too bad; poor little boy! Why didn’t you ride after her, Pratt?”
“I might, had I known when she went home,” replied Pratt, cheerfully.
“I beg the Señor’s pardon,” whispered José,who was gathering up the plates. “Theseñoritadid not go home.”
Pratt looked at the boy, sharply. “Sure?” he asked.
“Quite so–si, señor.”
“Where did she go?”
“Quien sabe?” retorted José Reposa, with a shrug of his shoulders. “She crossed the river yonder and rode east.”
So did the party from the Edwards ranch a little later. Silent Sam Harding had already ridden back to the Bar-T. José gathered up the hamper and its contents and started home on mule-back.
Pratt had curiosity enough, when the party went over the river, to look for the prints of Molly’s hoofs.
There they were in the soft earth on the far edge of the stream. Frances had ridden down stream at a sharp pace. Where had she gone?
“It was odd for her to leave us in that way,” thought Pratt, turning the matter over in his mind, “and not to return. In a way she was our hostess. I did not think Frances would fail in any matter of courtesy. How could she with Captain Dan Rugley for a father?”
The old ranchman was the soul of hospitality. That Frances should seem to ignore her duty as ahostess stung Pratt keenly. He heard Sue Latrop speaking about it.
“Went off mad. What else could you expect of a cowgirl?” said the girl from Boston, in her very nastiest tone.
The fact that Sue seemed so sure Frances was derelict in her duty made Pratt more confident that something untoward had occurred to the girl of the ranges to keep her from returning promptly to the party.
Of course, the young man suspected nothing of the actual situation in which Frances at that very moment found herself. Pratt dreamed of a broken cinch, or a misstep that might have lamed Molly.
Instead, Frances Rugley was sitting with her back against a stump at the edge of the clearing where she had come so suddenly upon the campfire, with her ungloved hands lying in her lap so that Ratty’s bright eyes could watch them continually.
Pete had taken away her gun. Molly was hobbled with the men’s horses on the other side of the hollow. The two plotters had rekindled the fire and were whispering together about her.
Had Pete had his way he would have tied Frances’ hands and feet. But the ex-cowpuncher of the Bar-T ranch would not listen to that.
Although Pete was the leading spirit, Ratty M’Gill turned ugly when his mate attempted to touch the girl; so they had left her unbound. But not unwatched–no, indeed! Ratty’s beadlike eyes never left her.
Not much of their conversation reached the ears of Frances, although she kept very still and tried to hear. She could read Ratty’s lips a little, for he had no mustache; but the bearded Pete’s lips were hidden.
“I’ve got to have a good piece of it myself, if I’m going to take a chance like that!” was one declaration of the ex-cowpuncher’s that she heard clearly.
Again Ratty said: “They’ll not only suspect me, they’llknow. Won’t the girl tell them? I tell you I want to see my getaway before I make a stir in the matter–you can bet on that!”
Finally, Frances saw the ex-orderly of the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home produce a pad of paper, an envelope, and pencil. He was plainly a ready writer, for he went to work with the pencil at once, while Ratty rolled a fresh cigarette and still watched their captive.
Pete finished his letter, sealed it in the envelope, and addressed it in a bold hand.
“That’ll just about fix the business, I reckon,” said Pete, scowling across at Frances. “Thatgal’s mighty smart–with her trunk full of junk and all—”
Ratty burst into irrepressible laughter. ‘You sure got Pete’s goat when you played him that trick, Frances. He fair killed himself puntin’ that trunk up the river and hiding it, and then taking the punt back and letting it drift so as to put Peckham’s crew off the scent.
“And when he busted it open—” Ratty burst into laughter again, and held his sides. Pete looked surly.
“We’ll make the old man pay for her cuttin’ up them didoes,” growled the bewhiskered rascal. “And my horse and wagon, too. I b’lieve she and that man with her set the fire that burned up my outfit.”
Frances herewith took part in the conversation.
“Who set the grass-fire, in the first place?” she demanded. “I believe you did that, Ratty M’Gill. You were just reckless enough that day.”
“Aw, shucks!” said the young man, sheepishly.
“But you haven’t the same excuse to-day for being reckless,” the girl said, earnestly. “You have not been drinking. What do you suppose Sam and the boys will do to you for treating me in this manner?”
“Now, that will do!” said Pete, hoarsely “You hold your tongue, young woman!”
But Ratty only laughed. He accepted the letter, took off his sombrero, tucked it under the sweatband, and put on the hat again. Then he started lazily for the pony that he rode.
“Now mind you!” he called back over his shoulder to Pete, “I’m not going to risk my scalp going to the ranch-house with this yere billy-do–not much!”
“Why not?” asked Pete, angrily. “We got to move quick.”
“We’ll move quick later; we’ll go sure and steady now,” chuckled the cowboy. “I’ll send it in by one of the Mexicans. Say it was give to me by a stranger on the trail. I ain’t welcome at the Bar-T, and I know it.”
He leaped into his saddle and spurred his horse away, quickly getting out of sight. Frances knew that the letter he carried, and which Pete had written, was to her father.
The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M’Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that there was something down stream that he ought to look into.
Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or passed, on the river bank?
Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards’ place, Pratt was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he turned his grey pony’s head back toward the river.
“Where are you going, Pratt?” demanded one of his friends.
“I’ve forgotten something,” the young man from Amarillo replied.
“Oh, dear me!” cried Sue Latrop. “He’s forgotten his cute, little cattle queen. Give her my love, Pratt.”
The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his estimation–that was sure!
He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the direction from which Ratty M’Gill had come.
Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly’s hoofs. But when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept on.
He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his ears forward.
Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey’s nostrils between thumb and finger. In the distance a pony whinnied. Was it Molly?
“You just keep still, you little nuisance!” whispered Pratt to his mount. “Don’t want you whinnying to any strange horse.”
He got out of the saddle and led his pony for some rods. The brush was thick and there was no bridle-path. He feared to go farther withoutknowing what and who was ahead, and he tied the grey–taking pattern by Frances and tying his head up-wind.
The young fellow hesitated about taking the shotgun he had used in the jack-rabbit hunt. There was a sheath fastened to his saddle for the weapon, and he finally left it therein.
Pratt really thought that nothing of a serious nature had happened to his girl friend. Seeing Ratty M’Gill had reminded him that the cowpuncher had once troubled Frances, and Pratt had ridden down this way to offer his escort to the old ranchman’s daughter.
He had no thought of the man who had held them up at the lower ford, toward Peckham’s, the evening of the prairie fire; nor did he connect the cowpuncher and that ruffian in his mind.
“If I take that gun, the muzzle will make a noise in the bushes, or the hammer will catch on something,” thought Pratt.
So he left the shotgun behind and went on unarmed toward the place where Frances was even then sitting under the keen eye of Pete.
“You keep where ye are, Miss,” growled that worthy when Ratty rode away. “I will sure tie ye if ye make an attempt to get away. You have fell right into my han’s, and I vow you’ll make me some money. Your father’s got a plenty—”
“You mean to make him ransom me?” asked Frances, quietly.
“That’s the ticket,” said Pete, nodding, and searching his ragged clothing for a pipe, which he finally drew out and filled. “He’s got money. I’ve spent what I brought up yere to the Panhandle with me. And I b’lieve you made me lose my wagon and that other horse.”
Frances made no rejoinder to this last, but she said:
“Father may be willing to pay something for my release. But you and Ratty will suffer in the end.”
“We’ll risk that,” said the man, puffing at his pipe, and nodding thoughtfully.
“You’d better let me go now,” said the girl, with no display of fear. “And you’d better give up any further attempt to get at the old chest that Mr. Lonergan talked about.”
“Hey!” exclaimed the man, startled. “What d’ye know about Lonergan?”
“He will be at the ranch in a few days, and if there is any more treasure than you found in that old trunk you stole from me, he will get his share and there will no longer be any treasure chest. Make up your mind to that.”
“You know who I am and what I come up yere for?” demanded Pete, eying her malevolently.
“Yes. I know you are the man who tried to steal in over the roof of our house, too. If you make my father any angrier with you than he is now, he will prosecute you all the more sharply when you are arrested.”
“You shut up!” growled Pete. “I ain’t going to be arrested.”
“Both you and Ratty will be punished in the end,” said Frances, calmly. “Men like you always are.”
“Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don’t you be too sassy, understand? I could squeeze yer breath out!”
He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first thing that really frightened the girl–it was so wicked!
She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization that she was in this man’s power, and that he had reason to hate her, shook her usually steady nerves.
After all, Ratty M’Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a bald-headed buzzard, such as shehad seen roosting on dead trees or old barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo.
Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze–and perhaps the fellow knew it.
It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way. Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She knew that she was at his mercy.
When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go faintly in her cheeks.
Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with–for from babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and corral–she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment which is natural to men of the open.
Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very highest instincts of the race.
Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men sheexpected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man is noted.
But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of him.
And he realized her attitude of fear and worked upon her emotions until she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams.
Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name.
“Frances! what is the matter with you?”
“Oh!” she gasped. “Pratt!”
The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look so strange.
“You haven’t been thrown, Frances, have you?” asked Pratt, solicitously. “Are you hurt?”
Then the girl’s frightened gaze, or some rustle of Pete’s movement, made Pratt Sanderson turn. Pete had reached for his rifle and secured it. And by so doing he completely mastered the situation.
“Put your hands over your head, young feller!” he growled, swinging the muzzle of the heavy guntoward Pratt. “And keep ’em there till I’ve seen what you carry in your pockets.”
He strode toward the surprised Pratt, who obeyed the order with becoming promptness.
“Don’t you make no move, neither, Miss,” growled the man, darting a glance in Frances’ direction.
“Why–why— What do you mean?” demanded Pratt, recovering his breath at last. “Do you dare hold this young lady a prisoner?”
“Yep. That’s what I dare,” sneered Pete. “And it looks like I’d got you, too. What d’ye think you’re going to do about it?”
“Isn’t this the fellow who robbed us at the river that time, Frances?” cried Pratt.
The girl nodded. Just then she could not speak.
“And that fellow Ratty was with him this time?”
Again the girl nodded.
“Then they shall both be arrested and punished,” declared Pratt. “I never heard of such effrontery. Do you know who this young lady is, man?” he demanded of Pete.
“Jest as well as you do. And her pa’s going to put up big for to see her again–unharmed,” snarled the man.
“What do you mean?” gasped Pratt, his faceblazing and his fists clenched. “You dare harm her—”
Pete was slapping him about the pockets to make sure he carried no weapon. Now he struck Pratt a heavy blow across the mouth, cutting his lips and making his ears ring.
“Shut up, you young jackanapes!” commanded the man. “I’ll hurt her and you, too, if I like.”
“And Captain Dan Rugley won’t rest till he sees you well punished if you harm her,” mumbled Pratt.
Pete struck at him again. Pratt dodged back. And at that moment Frances disappeared!
The man had only had his eyes off her for half a minute. He gasped, his jaw dropped, and his bloodshot eyes roved all about, trying to discover Frances’ whereabouts.
He had not realized that, despite her fear, the girl of the ranges had had her limbs drawn up and her muscles taut ready for a spring.
His attention given for the moment to Pratt Sanderson, Frances had risen and dodged behind the bole of the tree against which she was leaning, a carefully watched prisoner.
She would never have escaped so easily had it been Ratty in charge; for his mental processes were quicker than those of Pete.
Flitting from tree to tree, keeping one or moreof the big trunks between her and Pete’s roving eyes while still he was speechless, she was traveling farther and farther from the camp.
She might have set forth running almost at once, and so escaped. But she could not leave Pratt to the heavy hand of Pete. Nor could she abandon Molly.
Frances, therefore, began encircling the opening where the fire burned; but she kept well out of Pete’s sight.
She heard him utter a bellow which would have done credit to a mad steer. That came when he saw Pratt was about to escape, too.
The young fellow was creeping away, stooping and on tiptoe. Pete uttered a frightful imprecation and sprang after him with his rifle clubbed and raised above his head.
“Stand where you are!” he commanded, “or I’ll bat your foolish head in!”
And he looked enraged enough to do it. Pratt dared not move farther; he crouched in terror, expecting the blow.
He had bravely assailed Pete with his tongue when Frances seemed in danger; but the girl had escaped now and Pratt hoped she was each minute putting rods between this place and herself.
Pete suddenly dropped his rifle and sprang at the young man. Pratt’s throat was in the vicelikegrip of Pete on the instant. Both his wrists were seized by the man’s other hand.
Such feeble struggles as Pratt made were abortive. His breath was shut off and he felt his senses leaving him.
But as his eyes rolled up there was a crash in the brush and a pony dashed into the open. It was Molly and her mistress was astride her.
Frances had lost her hat; her hair had become loosened and was tossed about her pale face. But her eyes glowed with the light of determination and she spurred the pony directly at the two struggling figures in the middle of the hollow.
“I’m coming, Pratt!” she cried. “Hold on!”
Pete twisted himself around to look over his shoulder, but still kept his clutch on the breathless young man. However, Pratt feebly dragged his wrists out of the man’s grasp.
Frances was riding the pinto directly at them. Under her skillful guidance the pony’s off shoulder must collide with Pete, unless the man dropped Pratt entirely and sprang aside.
The man did this, uttering a yell of anger. Pratt staggered the other way and Frances brought Molly to a standstill directly between the two.
“You let him alone!” the girl commanded, gazing indignantly at the rascally man. “Oh! you shall be paid in full for all you have done this day. When Captain Rugley hears of this.
“Quick, Pratt!” she shrieked. “That rifle!”
Pete was bent over reaching for the weapon. Frances jerked Molly around, but she could not drive the pony against the man in time to topple him over before his wicked fingers closed on the barrel of the gun.
It was Pratt who made the attack in this emergency. He had played on the Amarillo High football eleven and he knew how to “tackle.”
Before Pete could rise up with the recovered weapon in his grasp Pratt had him around the legs. The man staggered forward, trying to kick away the young fellow; but Pratt clung to him, and his antagonist finally fell upon his knees.
Quick as a flash Pratt sprang astride his bowed back. He kicked Pete’s braced arms out from under him and the man fell forward, screaming and threatening the most awful punishment for his young antagonist.
Frances could not get into the melee with Molly. The two rolled over and over on the ground and suddenly Pete gave vent to a shriek of pain. He had rolled on his back into the fire!
“Quick, Pratt!” begged Frances. “Get away from him! He will do you some dreadful harm!”
She believed Pete would, too. As Pratt leaped aside, the man bounded up from the bed of hot coals, his shirt afire, and he unable to reach it with his beating hands!
Pratt ran to Frances’ side. She pulled Molly’s head around and the pony trotted across the clearing, with Pratt staggering along at the stirrup and striving to get his breath.
As they passed the spot where the battle hadbegun, Pratt stooped and secured the rifle. Pete, in rage awful to see, was tearing the smouldering shirt from his back. Then Pete dashed after the escaping pair.
The rifle encumbered the young man; but if he dropped it he knew the man would hold them at his mercy. So, swinging the weapon up by its barrel, he smashed the stock against a tree trunk.
Again and again he repeated the blow, until the tough wood splintered and the mechanism of the hammer and trigger was bent and twisted. Pete almost caught him. Pratt dashed the remains of the rifle in his face and ran on after Frances.
“I’ll catch you yet!” yelled Pete. “And when I do—”
The threat was left incomplete; but the man ran for his own horse.
If Frances had only thought to drive Molly that way and slip the hobbles of Pete’s nag, much of what afterward occurred in this hollow by the river bank would never have taken place. She and Pratt would have been immediately free.
It was hours afterward–indeed, almost sunset–that old Captain Rugley, sitting on the broad veranda of the Bar-T ranch-house and expecting Frances to appear at any moment, raised his eyes to see, instead, Victorino Reposa slouching up the steps.
“Hello, Vic!” said the Captain. “What do you want?”
“Letter,Capitan,” said the Mexican, impassively, removing his big hat and drawing a soiled envelope from within.
“Seen anything of Miss Frances?” asked the ranchman, reaching lazily for the missive.
“No,Capitan,” responded the boy, and turned away.
The superscription on the envelope puzzled Captain Dan Rugley. “Here, Vic!” he cried after the departing youth. “Where’d you get this? ’Tisn’t a mailed letter.”
“It was give to me on the trail,Capitan,” said Victorino, softly. “As I came back from the horse pasture.”
“Who gave it to you?” demanded the ranchman, beginning to slit the flap of the envelope.
“I am not informed,” said Victorino, still with lowered gaze. “The Señor who presented it declare’ it was give to heem by a strange hand at Jackleg. He say he was ride this way—”
The Captain was not listening. Victorino saw that this was a fact and he allowed his words to trail off into nothing, while he, himself, began again to slip away.
The old ranchman was staring at the unfolded sheet with fixed attention. His brows cametogether in a portentous frown; and perhaps for the first time in many years his bronzed countenance was washed over by the sickly pallor of fear.
Victorino, stepping softly, had reached the compound gate. Suddenly the forelegs of the ranchman’s chair hit the floor of the veranda, and he roared at the Mexican in a voice that made the latter jump and drop the brown paper cigarette he had just deftly rolled.
“You boy! Come back here!” called Captain Rugley. “I want to know what this means.”
“Me,Capitan?” asked Victorino, softly, and hesitated at the gate. With his employer in this temper he was half-inclined to run in the opposite direction.
“Come here!” commanded the ranchman again. “Who gave you this?” rapping the open letter with a hairy forefinger.
“I do not know,Capitan. A strange man–si.”
“Never saw him before?”
“No,Capitan. He was ver’ strange to me,” whined Victorino, too frightened to tell the truth.
“What did he look like?” shot back the Captain, holding himself in splendid control now. Only his eyes glittered and his lips under the big mustache tightened perceptibly.
“He was beeg man,Capitan; rode bay pony;much wheeskers on face,” declared Victorino, glibly.
The Captain was silent for half a minute. Then he snapped: “Run find Silent Sam and tell him I want himpronto.Sabe?Tell Joe to saddle Cherry, and Sam’s horse, and you get a saddle on your own, Vic. I’ll want you and about half a dozen of the boys who are hanging around the bunk-house. Tell ’em it’s important and tell them–yes!–tell them to come armed. In fifteen minutes. Understand?”
“Si, Capitan,” whispered Victorino, glad to get out from under the ranchman’s eye for the time being.
He was the oldest of the Mexican boys employed at the Bar-T, and he had been very friendly with Ratty M’Gill while that reckless individual had belonged to the outfit.
It was Victorino who had let Ratty drive the buckboard to the railroad station one particular day when the cowpuncher wished to meet his friend, Pete, at Cottonwood Bottom.
Now, unthinking and unknowing, he had been drawn by Ratty into a serious trouble. Victorino did not know what it was; but he trembled. He had never seen “El Capitan” look so fierce and strange before.
Captain Dan Rugley seemed to forget his rheumatism. Excitement is often a strong mental corrective; and with his mind upon the dearest possession of his old age, the ranchman forgot all bodily ills.
Victorino was scarcely out of the compound when the Captain had summoned Ming from the dining-room and San Soo from his pots and pans.
“Put off dinner. Maybe we won’t have any dinner to-night, San Soo,” said the owner of the Bar-T. “We’re in trouble. You and Ming shut the doors when I go out and bar them. Stand watch. Don’t let a soul in unless I come back or Miss Frances appears. Understand, boys?”
“Can do,” declared the bigger Chinaman, with impassive face.
“Me understland Clapen velly well,” said Ming, who wished always to show that he “spoke Melican.”
“All right,” returned Captain Rugley. “Help me with this coat, San. Ming! Bring me mybelt and gun. Yes, that’s it. It’s loaded. Plenty of cartridges in that box? So. Now I’m off,” concluded the Captain, and went to the door again to meet Silent Sam Harding, the foreman.
“Read this,” jerked out the ranchman, and thrust the crumpled letter into Sam Harding’s hand.
Without a word the foreman spread open the paper and studied it. In perfectly plain handwriting he read the following astonishing epistle:
“Captain Dan Rugley,“Bar-T Ranch.
“Captain Dan Rugley,“Bar-T Ranch.
“We’ve got your girl. She will be held prisoner exactly twenty-four hours from time you receive this. Then, if you have not made arrangements to pay our agent $5,000 (five thousand dolls.), something will happen to your girl. We are willing to put our necks in a noose for the five thousand. Come across, and come across quick. No check. Cash does it. You can get cash at branch bank in Jackleg. We will know when you get cash and then you’ll be told who to hand money to and how to find your girl. Remember, we mean business. You try to trail us, or rescue your daughter without paying five thousand and we’ll get square with you by fixing the girl. That’s all at present.”
“We’ve got your girl. She will be held prisoner exactly twenty-four hours from time you receive this. Then, if you have not made arrangements to pay our agent $5,000 (five thousand dolls.), something will happen to your girl. We are willing to put our necks in a noose for the five thousand. Come across, and come across quick. No check. Cash does it. You can get cash at branch bank in Jackleg. We will know when you get cash and then you’ll be told who to hand money to and how to find your girl. Remember, we mean business. You try to trail us, or rescue your daughter without paying five thousand and we’ll get square with you by fixing the girl. That’s all at present.”
This threatening missive was unsigned. Silent Sam read it twice. Then he handed it back to the Captain.
“Does it look like a joke to you–a poor sort of a joke?” whispered the ranchman.
“I wouldn’t say so,” muttered Sam.
“I’m going after them,” said Captain Rugley, with determination.
“How?”
“Somebody handed Vic this on the trail. He’ll show us where. We’ll try to pick up the man’s traces. Of course it was one of the scoundrels handed the letter to Vic.”
“Who do ye think they are?” asked Sam, slowly.
“I don’t know,” said the worried ranchman. “But whoever they are they shall suffer if they harm a hair of her head!”
“That’s what,” said Sam, quietly. “But ain’t you an idee who they be?”
“That fellow who took the old trunk away from Frances?”
“Might be. And he must have partners.”
“So I’ve said right along,” declared the ranchman, vigorously. “Where did you leave Frances, Sam?”
“After the jack hunt? Right thar with Miz’ Edwards and her crowd.”
“Was young Pratt Sanderson with them?”
“Sure.”
“That’s it!” growled Captain Dan Rugley, smiting one palm with his other fist. “She’d ride off with him. Thinks him all right—”
“Ye don’t mean to say ye think he’s in this mean mess?”
“I don’t know. He’s turned up whenever we’ve had trouble lately. If it wasn’t so far to Bill Edwards’ I’d ride that way and find out if the fellow is there, or what they know about him.”
Silent Sam earned his nickname, if ever, during the next hour. He did not say ten words; but his efficient management got a posse of the most trustworthy men together, and they rode away from the ranch-house.
There was no use advising the Captain not to accompany the party. Nobody dared thwart him after a glance into his grim face.
The hard-bitted Cherry which he always rode was held down to the pace of the other horses with an iron hand. The Captain rode as securely in his saddle as he had before rheumatism seized upon his limbs.
How long this false strength, inspired by his fear and indignation, would remain with him the others did not know. Sam and his mates watched “the Old Cap” with wonder.
Victorino’s gaze was fixed upon the doughty ranchman’s back with many different emotions in his trouble-torn mind. He was wondering what would happen to him if Captain Rugley ever learned that he had told a falsehood about that note.
He was so scared that he dared not lead the party to a false trail. He told them just where he had met Ratty M’Gill; but he stuck to his imaginary description of the person who had entrusted the letter to him.
“Going, west, you say?” said Captain Rugley. “It might be to lead us off the trail. And then again, he might be going right back to whatever place they have Frances hidden.
“I fear we’ll have a hard time following a trail to-night, anyway. But Sam says he left the folks after the jack hunt over there by Cottonwood Bottom. I think we’d better search the length of that stream first.”
Sam spoke up suddenly: “Frances asked me if there were any close thickets where a man might hide out, along those banks.”
“She did?”
“Yes. It just come to me,” said the foreman. “When we were beating up those jacks.”
“Enough said!” ejaculated the ranchman. “Come on, boys!”
Through the dusk they rode straight away toward the ford. And although the old Captain could hardly hope it, every moment the horse was bearing him nearer and nearer to his lost daughter.
Dusk had long since fallen; but there was a faint moon and a multitude of stars. On the open plain the shadows of the horses and riders moved in grotesque procession. In the hollow far down the stream, where Pete had made his camp, the shadows were deep and oppressive.
The fellow kept alive but a spark of fire. Now and then he threw on a stick for replenishing. Outside the feeble light cast by the flickering flames, one could scarcely see at all.
But there were two faintly outlined forms near the fire beside that of the burly Pete. Occasionally a groan issued from the lips of Pratt Sanderson, for he lay senseless, a great bruise upon his head, his wrists and ankles tied with painful security.
The other form was that of Frances herself. She did not speak nor moan, although she was quite wide awake. She, too, was tied up in such a way that she could not possibly free herself.
And she was frightened–desperately frightened!
She had reason to be. The ex-orderly from the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home had proved himself tobe a perfect madman when he found that the girl and Pratt were really escaping.
Evidently he had seized upon the desperate attempt to hold Frances for ransom as a last resort. She had played into his hands by riding down into this hollow.
Pratt Sanderson’s interference had enraged the fellow to the limit. And when the young man had momentarily gotten the best of him, Pete was fairly insane for the time being.
With his rifle broken the man was unable to shoot, for Frances’ revolver which he had obtained at the beginning of the scuffle was empty. The small gun she had used shooting jacks had been sent back with Sam to the ranch.
The girl was urging Molly through the brush and Pratt was tearing after her, their direction bringing them nearer and nearer to the young man’s grey pony, when suddenly Frances heard Pratt scream.
She glanced back, pulling in the excited pinto with a strong hand. Her friend was pitching forward to the ground. He had been struck by her pistol, which Pete had flung with all his might.
The next moment with an exultant cry the man sprang from his horse upon the prostrate Pratt.
“Get off him! Go away!” cried Frances, pulling Molly around.
But the brush was too thick, and the pinto got tangled up in it. Fearful for Pratt’s safety, and never thinking of her own, the girl sprang from the saddle and ran back.
This was what Pete was expecting. Pratt was safe enough–senseless and moaning on the ground.
When the girl came near Pete leaped up, seized her by the wrists, jerked her toward him, and held her firmly with one hand while he produced a soiled bandanna, with which he quickly knotted her wrists together.
No matter how hard she fought, he was so much more powerful than she that the ranchman’s daughter could not break his hold. In five minutes she was tied and thrown to the ground, quite as helpless as Pratt himself.
Pete left her lying where she fell and picked up Pratt first. Him the fellow carried back to the campfire and tied both hand and foot before he returned for Frances.
All the time the man uttered the most fearful imprecations, and showed so much callousness toward the injured young man that the girl begged him, with tears, to do something to ease Pratt.
“Let him lie there and grunt,” growled Pete. “Didn’t he chuck me into that fire? My back’s all blistered.”
He pulled on a coat, for his clothes had been quite torn away above his waist at the back when he was putting out the fire.
Frances suffered keenly herself, for the man had tied her wrists and ankles so tightly that the cords cut into the flesh whenever she tried to move them. Beside, she lay in a most uncomfortable position.
But to hear Pratt groan was terrible. The blow on the head had seriously hurt him–of that there could be no doubt. When she called to him he did not answer, and finally Pete commanded her to keep silence.
“Ye want to make a fuss so as to draw somebody down here–I kin see what you are up to.”
Frances had a wholesome fear of him by this time. She had seen Pete at his worst–and had felt his heavy hand, too. She was bruised and suffering pain herself. But Pratt’s case was much worse than her own just then and her whole heart went out to the young man from Amarillo.
Pete sat over his little fire and smoked. He was evidently expecting Ratty M’Gill to return; but for some reason Ratty was delayed.
Doubtless the two plotters had proposed to themselves that Captain Rugley would be too ill to take the lead in any chase after the kidnappers. Perhaps Pete even hoped that the old ranchman would agree immediately to the terms of ransomset forth in the note Ratty had taken to the Bar-T.
The ex-cowpuncher was to linger around and see what would be done about the message to the Captain; then come here and report to Pete. And as the hours dragged by, and it drew near midnight, with no appearance of the messenger, the chief plotter grew more anxious.
He huddled over the fire, almost enclosing it with his arms and legs for warmth. Frances, lying beyond, and out of the puny radiance of its warmth, felt the chill of the night air keenly. Pete did not even offer her a blanket.
But her attention was engaged by thoughts of Pratt Sanderson’s sufferings. The young man groaned faintly from time to time, but he gave no other sign of life.
As Frances lay shivering on the ground her keen senses suddenly apprehended a new sound. She raised her head a little and the sound was absent. She dropped back upon the earth again and it returned–a throbbing sound, distant, faint but insistent.
What could it be? Frances was first startled, then puzzled by it. Each time that she raised her head the noise drifted away; then it returned when her ear was against the ground.
“It’s a horse–it’s several horses,” she finally whispered to herself. “Can it be—?”
She sat up suddenly. Pete immediately commanded her to lie down.
“I’m cramped,” said the girl, speaking clearly. “Can’t you change these cords? I won’t try to run away.”
“I’d hurt you if you did,” growled the fellow. “And I ain’t going to change them cords.”
“Oh, do!” cried Frances, more loudly.
“Shut up and lay down there!” ordered Pete, raising his own voice.
“No, I will not!” retorted the girl, deliberately tempting Pete into one of his rages. If he became angry and yelled at her all the better!
“Do what I tell ye!” exclaimed the man. “Ain’t ye l’arned that I mean what I say yet?”
“I must move my limbs. They’re cramped and co-o-old!” wailed Frances, and she put a deal of energy into her cry.
Pete began to get stiffly to his feet. “Do like I tell ye, and lie down–or I’ll knock ye down!” he threatened.
At that the girl risked uttering a cry and shrank back with a semblance of fear. Aye, there was more than a semblance of fear in the attitude, for she believed he would strike her. She had shrieked, however, at the top of her voice.
“Shut your mouth, ye crazy thing!” exclaimed the man, and he leaped toward her.
Frances threw herself back upon the ground. She heard the clatter of hoofbeats approaching. They could be mistaken for no other sound.
“Daddy! Daddy! Help! Help!”
Her voice was piercing. The cry for her father was involuntary, for she believed him too ill to leave the ranch-house.
But the answering shout that came down the wind was unmistakable.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Frances cried again, eagerly, loudly.
Pete was about to strike her; but he darted back and stood erect. The horses were plunging madly down the hillside through the brush. The party of rescue was already upon the camp.
The scoundrelly Pete leaped away to reach his own horse. He must have found the creature quickly in the darkness; for before the men from the Bar-T pulled in their horses before the smouldering campfire, Frances heard the rush of Pete’s old pony as it dashed away down the stream.
“Daddy!” cried Frances for a third time. “We’re here–Pratt and I. Look out for Pratt; he’s hurt. I’m all right.”
“Somebody throw some brush on that fire!” commanded the old ranchman. “Let’s see what’s been doing here.”
“Sam, take a couple of the boys and go afterthat fellow. You can follow that horse by sound.”
He climbed stiffly out of his own saddle, and when the firelight flashed up revealing the little glade to better purpose, it was Captain Dan Rugley who lifted Frances to her feet and cut her bonds.
It was the next day but one and thehaciendaand compound lay bathed in the hot sun of noon-day. Captain Dan Rugley was leaning back in his usual hard chair and in his usual attitude on the veranda, fairly soaking up the rays of the orb of day.
“Beats all the medicine for rheumatism in the doctor’s shop!” he was wont to declare.
Since his night ride to rescue his daughter he had become more like his old self than he had been for weeks. The excitement seemed to have chased away the last twinges of pain for the time being, and he was without fever.
Now he was watching a swift pony-rider coming his way along the trail and listening to the patter of light footsteps coming down the broad stairway behind him.
“Here comes Sam, Frances,” the ranchman said, in a low voice. “I reckon he’ll have some news.”
The girl came to the door. She had discardedher riding habit and was dressed in a soft, clinging house gown, cut low at the throat and giving her arms freedom to the elbow. She wore pretty stockings and pretty slippers on her feet. Instead of a quirt she carried a fan in her hand and there was a handkerchief tucked into her belt.
The chrysalis of the cowgirl had burst and this butterfly had emerged. Of late it was not often that Frances had “dolled up,” as the old Captain called it. Now he said, enthusiastically:
“My! you do look sweet! What’s all the dolling up for? Me? The Chinks? Or maybe that boy upstairs, eh?”
“For myself,” said Frances, quietly. “Pratt is too sick to notice much what I wear, I guess. But I find that I have been paying too little attention to dress.”
“Huh!” snorted the old ranchman.
“It is a woman’s duty to make herself as beautiful and attractive as possible,” said Frances, with a bright smile. “You know, I read that in a woman’s paper.”
“You surely did!” agreed the ranchman, and then turned to meet Silent Sam as that individual drew up to the step.
“What’s the good word, Sam?” inquired the Captain.
“Got that Ratty. He’s in the jail at Jackleg.Like you said, I never told nobody but the sheriff what ’twas for you wanted him.”
“That’s right,” said the Captain, gravely. “If the boys understood he was mixed up with this kidnapping business, I don’t know what they would do.”
“Right, Captain,” said the foreman. “So the sheriff took him for being all lit up. Ratty won’t sleep it off before to-morrow.”
“And if they could catch that Pete What’s-his-name by then—”
“Ain’t found hide nor hair of him,” answered Silent Sam.
“Where do you reckon he went to, Sam?”
“He didn’t go with his horse, Captain. He fooled us.”
“What?”
“That’s so. Horse was found yisterday evenin’ down beyand Peckham’s–scurcely breathed. He’d run fur, but he didn’t have nobody on his back.”
“I see!” ejaculated the ranchman, smiting one doubled fist upon the other palm. “That Pete has fooled us from the start.”
“Sure did,” admitted Sam.
“He never mounted his horse at all?” cried Frances, deeply interested.
“That’s it,” said her father. “We ought tohave known that at the time. No horse could have gone smashing through the brush the way that one did without knocking his rider’s head off.”
“Sure,” agreed Sam again.
“And he was right there near the place he held Pratt and me captive all the time we were making a stretcher for poor Pratt,” said Frances.
“Or hiking up stream,” said the foreman, preparing to ride down to the corral.
“Lucky the boy broke the fellow’s gun as he did,” said Captain Rugley, thoughtfully, turning to his daughter. “Otherwise some of us might have been popped off from the bushes.”
“Oh, Daddy!”
“When a man’s as mean as that scalawag,” said her father, philosophically, “there’s no knowing to what lengths he will go. I shan’t feel that you are safe on the ranges until he’s found and jailed.”
“And I shan’t feel that we’re out of trouble until your friend Mr. Lonergan comes here and you divide and get rid of that silly old treasure,” declared Frances, and she pouted a little.
“What’s that, Frances?” gasped the old Captain. “All those jewels and stuff? Why, don’t you care anything for them?”
“I care more for my peace of mind,” she said, decidedly. “And see what it’s brought poor Pratt to.”
“Well,” said her father, subsiding. “The boy did git the dirty end of the stick, for a fact. I’m sorry he was hurt—”
“And you are sorry you thought so ill of him, too, Daddy–you know you are,” whispered Frances, one arm stealing over the Captain’s shoulder.
“Well—”
“Now, ‘’fessup!’” she laughed, softly. “He’s a good boy to risk himself for me.”
“I wouldn’t have thought much of him if he hadn’t,” said the old ranchman, stubbornly.
“What could you really expect when you consider that he has lived all his life in a city—”
“And works in a bank,” finished the Captain, with a sly grin. “But I reckon I have got to take off my hat to him. He’s a hero.”
“He is a good boy,” Frances said, cheerfully. “And I hope that he will recover all right, as the doctor says he will.”
“I don’t know how fast he’ll mend,” chuckled the Captain. “If I were he, and getting the attention he is—”
“From whom?” demanded Frances, turning on him sharply.
“From Ming, of course,” responded her father, soberly, but with his eyes a-twinkle.
And then Frances fled upstairs again, her cheeksburning as she heard the old ranchman’s mellow laughter.
Pratt lay on his bed with his head swathed in bandages and his shoulder in a brace. He had suffered a dislocation as well as the bruises and the cut in his head. From the time he had been struck from behind by the man, Pete, the young fellow had known nothing at all until he awoke to find himself stretched upon this bed in the Bar-T ranch-house.
The old Captain, with Ming’s help, had disrobed Pratt and put him to bed; but when the doctor came early in the morning, he put the patient in Frances’ hands.
“What he needs is good nursing. Don’t leave him to the men,” said the doctor. “Your father says he’s cured himself by getting out on horseback. If it didn’t kill him, I admit it’s aiding in his cure for him to be more active again.
“But I depend upon you, my dear, to keep this patient as quiet as possible. I hate having my patients get away from me,” added the physician with twinkling eye. “And this lad is mine for some time. He has sure been badly shaken up.”
He was afraid at first that there was concussion of the brain; but after a few hours the young bank clerk became lucid in his speech and the fever began to decrease.
The doctor had not left the ranch until the evening before this day when Frances stole up the stair again to peer into the room to see how her patient was.
“Oh, I’m awake!” cried Pratt, cheerfully. “You don’t expect me to sleep all the time, do you, Frances?”
“Sleep is good for you,” declared the girl of the ranges, with a sober smile. “The doctor says you are to keep very quiet.”
“Goodness! I might as well be buried and so save my board,” grumbled Pratt. “When is he going to let me get up out of this?”
“Not for a long, long time yet,” said Frances, seriously.
“What? Why, I could get up now—”
“With those shingles plastered to your shoulder?” asked the girl, smiling again, but somewhat roguishly.
“Oh–well–have those boards actually got to stay on?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“How long?”
“Till the doctor removes them, Pratt. Now, be a good boy.”
“I’ll never be able to get out of bed,” grumbled the patient, “if he keeps me here much longer, I’ll be bedridden.”
“Nonsense,” said Frances, with a very superior air. “You haven’t been here two days yet.”
“And when is the doctor coming again?” went on Pratt.
“He said he’d come within the week,” replied the girl, demurely.
“Good-night, nurse!” groaned Pratt. “A whole week? Why, I’ll die in that time–positively.”
“You only think so,” said Frances, coolly.
“You don’t know how hard it is to lie here with nothing to do.”
“You don’t appreciate your good fortune, I am afraid,” returned the girl, more gravely. “You might have been much more seriously hurt—”
“You don’t suppose I care about being hurt, do you?” he cried, with some excitement. “I’d go through it a dozen times to the same end, Frances—”
“Now, stop!” she said, commandingly, and raising an admonitory finger. “If you show any excitement I will go out of the room and leave Ming—”
“Don’t!” groaned Pratt.
“I shall certainly leave him in charge of you. You won’t talk to him.”
“No. If he doesn’t sit silent like a yellow graven image, he scatters ‘l’s’ all about the roomuntil I want to get out of bed and sweep ’em up,” declared Pratt.
The ranchman’s daughter smiled at him, but shook her head. “Now! no more talking. I’ll sit here and promise not to scatter any of the alphabet broadcast; but you must keep still.”
“That’s mighty hard,” muttered the patient. “Sit over by the window. There! right in the sun. I like to see your hair when the sun burnishes it.”
Frances promptly removed her seat to the shady side of the room.
“Oh, please!” begged Pratt. “I’m sick, you know. You really ought to humor me.”
“And you really ought not to jolly me!” laughed the range girl. “I think you are a tease, Pratt.”
“Honest! I mean it.”
She looked at him with a roguish smile. “What did you say to Miss Latrop about her hair? Isn’t it a lovely blond?”
“Oh! I never looked at it twice. Molasses color,” declared Pratt. “I don’t like such light hair.”
“Now, be still. Mrs. Edwards sent over word they are coming to see you to-morrow. If you are feverish I shan’t let them in.”
“My goodness!” gasped Pratt. “Not all of them coming, I hope?”
“Mrs. Edwards and Miss Latrop, anyway,” said Frances, seriously. “Now keep still.”
Pratt digested this for a while; then he held up one arm and waved it.
“Well? What is it?” asked the stern nurse.
“Please, teacher!”
“Well?”
“May I say one thing?”
“Just one. Then silence for an hour.”
“If that girl from Boston comes I’m going to have a fever–understand? I don’t want her up here. Now, that’s all there is about it.”
“Hush, small boy! You don’t know what is good for you. You must leave it to the doctor and me,” said Frances, but she kept her head turned from the bed so that Pratt would not see her eyes.
By and by Pratt waved his hand again like a pupil in school and even snapped his fingers to attract her attention.
“Please, teacher!” he begged when she looked up from the pad on her knee over which her pencil had been traveling so rapidly.
“I’m nurse, not teacher,” Frances said, firmly.
“Nurse, then. Is that the plan for the pageant you are writing?”
“A part of it,” she admitted. “Some ideas that came to me the time I went to Amarillo.”
“With the make-believe treasure chest?”
“Yes.”
“Read it to me, will you, Miss Nurse?” he asked.
“If you will keep still. I never did see such a chatterbox!” exclaimed Frances, in vexation.
“I’ll be just as still as still!” he promised. “Maybe it will put me to sleep.”
“Mercy! I hope it isn’t as dull as all that,” she said, and began to read the pages she had written.