Frances of the Ranges: or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure

The antelope’s beautiful, spidery legs flashed back and forth like piston-rods, or the spokes of a fast-rolling wheel. They could scarcely be seen clearly. In five minutes the antelope would have drawn far enough away from the chase to be safe–and he could have kept up his pace for half an hour.

Frances was near, however. Molly, coming on the jump, gave the girl of the ranges just the chance that she desired. She arose suddenly in her saddle, leaned forward, and let the loop fly.

Like a snake it writhed in the air, and then settled just before the leaping antelope. The creature put its forelegs and head fairly into the whirring circle!

The moment before–figuring with a nicety that made Pratt Sanderson gasp with wonder–Frances had pulled back on Molly’s bit and jerked back her own arm that controlled the lasso.

Molly slid on her haunches, while the loop tightened and held the antelope in an unbreakable grip.

“Quick, Pratt!” cried the girl of the ranges, seeing the young man coming up. “Get down and use your knife. He’ll kick free in a second.”

As Pratt obeyed, leaping from his saddle before the grey pony really halted, Sue Latrop raced up on her mount and stopped. Frances was leaning back in her saddle, holding the rope as taut as possible. Pratt flung himself upon the struggling antelope.

And then rather a strange and unexpected thing happened. Pratt had the panting, quivering, frightened creature in his arms. A thrust of his hunting knife would have put it out of all pain.

Sue was as eager as one of the hounds which were now coming up with great leaps. Pratt glanced around a moment, saw the dogs coming, and suddenly loosened the noose and let the antelope go free.

“What are you doing?” shrieked the girl from Boston. “You’ve let it go!”

“Yes,” said Pratt, quietly.

“But what for?” demanded Sue, quite angrily. “Why! you had it.”

“Yes,” said Pratt again, as the two girls drew near to him.

“You–you–why! what for?” repeated Sue, half-bewildered.

“I couldn’t bear to kill it, or let the dogs tear it,” said Pratt, slowly. The antelope was now far away and Frances had commanded the dogs to return.

“Why not?” asked Sue, grimly.

“Because the poor little thing was crying–actually!” gasped Pratt, very red in the face. “Great tears were running out of its beautiful eyes. I could have killed a helpless baby just as easily.”

Frances coiled up her line and never said a word. But Sue flashed out:

“Oh, you gump! I’ve been in at the death of a fox a number of times and seen the brush cut off and the dogs worry the beast to death. That’s what they are for. Well, you are a softy, Pratt Sanderson.”

“I guess I am,” admitted the young bank clerk. “I wasn’t made for such work as this.”

He turned away to catch his pony and did not even look at Frances. If he had, he would have seen her eyes illuminated with a radiant admiration that would almost have stunned him.

“If daddy had seen him do that,” whispered Frances to herself, “I’m sure he would have a better opinion of Pratt than he has. I am certain that nobody with so tender a heart could be really bad.”

But the incident separated the range girl from the young man from Amarillo for the time being. Silent Sam and Frances had some trouble in getting the dogs off the antelope trail.

When they started the next bunch of jack-rabbits from the brush, Frances was with the foreman and the Mexican boy, and acted with them as beaters. The visitors had great fun bagging the animals.

Frances, rather glad to escape from the crowd for a time, spurred Molly down the far side of the stream, having crossed it in a shallow place. She was out of sight of the hunters, and soon out of sound. They had turned back and were going up stream again.

The ranchman’s daughter pulled in Molly at the brink of a little hollow beside the stream. There was a cleared space in the centre and–yes–there was a fireplace and ashes. Thick brush surrounded the camping place save on the side next to the stream.

“Wonder who could have been here? And recently, too. There’s smoke rising from those embers.”

This was Frances’ unspoken thought. She let Molly step nearer. Trees overhung the place. She saw that it was as secret a spot as she had seen along the river side, and her thought flashed to Pete, the ex-orderly of the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home.

Then she turned in her saddle suddenly and saw the very man standing near her, rifle in hand. His leering smile frightened her.

Although he said never a word, Frances’ hand tightened on Molly’s rein. The next moment she would have spurred the pinto up the hill; but a drawling voice within a yard of her spoke.

“How-do, Frances? ’Light, won’t yer?” and there followed Ratty M’Gill’s well-known laugh. “We didn’t expect ye; but ye’re welcome just the same.”

Ratty’s hand was on Molly’s bridle-rein. Frances knew that she was a prisoner.

CHAPTER XXII

WHAT PRATT THOUGHT

The party of visitors to the Edwards ranch tired of jack-shooting and jack-running before noon. 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 Frances had gone home.

For, remembering as he did, that Frances was a range girl, and had lived out-of-doors and undoubtedly among rough men, a good part of her life, the young fellow thought that, very probably, Frances had been utterly disgusted with him when he showed so much tenderness for the innocent little antelope.

Since that moment of weakness he had been telling himself:

“She thinks me a softy. I am. What kind of a hunter did I show myself to be? Pooh! she must be disgusted with my weakness.”

Nevertheless, he would have done the same thing over again. It was his nature not to wish to see dumb creatures in pain, or to inflict pain on them himself.

Killing the jack-rabbits was a necessity as well as a sport. Even chasing a poor, unfortunate little fox, as Sue had done in the East, might be made to seem a commendable act, for the foxes, when numerous, are a nuisance around the poultry runs.

But by no possible reasoning could Pratt have ever excused his killing of the pretty, innocent antelope. They did not need it for food, and it was one of the most harmless creatures in the world.

To tell the truth, Pratt was glad Frances was not present at the luncheon. He cared a good deal less about Sue’s saucy tongue than he did for the range girl’s opinion of him.

During these weeks that he had known Frances Rugley, he had come to see that hers was a most vigorous and interesting character. Pratt was a thoughtful young man. There was nothing foolish about his interest in Frances, but he did crave her friendship and liking.

Some of the other men rallied him on his sudden silence, and this gave Sue Latrop an opportunity to say more sarcastic things.

“He misses that ‘cattle queen,’” she giggled, but was careful that Mrs. Edwards did not hear what she said. “Too bad; poor little boy! Why didn’t you ride after her, Pratt?”

“I might, had I known when she went home,” replied Pratt, cheerfully.

“I beg the Señor’s pardon,” whispered José, who was gathering up the plates. “The señorita did 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 a hostess stung Pratt keenly. He heard Sue Latrop speaking about it.

“Went off mad. What else could you expect of a cowgirl?” said the girl from Boston, in her very nastiest tone.

The fact that Sue seemed so sure Frances was derelict in her duty made Pratt more confident that something untoward had occurred to the girl of the ranges to keep her from returning promptly to the party.

Of course, the young man suspected nothing of the actual situation in which Frances at that very moment found herself. Pratt dreamed of a broken cinch, or a misstep that might have lamed Molly.

Instead, Frances Rugley was sitting with her back against a stump at the edge of the clearing where she had come so suddenly upon the campfire, with her ungloved hands lying in her lap so that Ratty’s bright eyes could watch them continually.

Pete had taken away her gun. Molly was hobbled with the men’s horses on the other side of the hollow. The two plotters had rekindled the fire and were whispering together about her.

Had Pete had his way he would have tied Frances’ hands and feet. But the ex-cowpuncher of the Bar-T ranch would not listen to that.

Although Pete was the leading spirit, Ratty M’Gill turned ugly when his mate attempted to touch the girl; so they had left her unbound. But not unwatched–no, indeed! Ratty’s beadlike eyes never left her.

Not much of their conversation reached the ears of Frances, although she kept very still and tried to hear. She could read Ratty’s lips a little, for he had no mustache; but the bearded Pete’s lips were hidden.

“I’ve got to have a good piece of it myself, if I’m going to take a chance like that!” was one declaration of the ex-cowpuncher’s that she heard clearly.

Again Ratty said: “They’ll not only suspect me, they’ll know. Won’t the girl tell them? I tell you I want to see my getaway before I make a stir in the matter–you can bet on that!”

Finally, Frances saw the ex-orderly of the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home produce a pad of paper, an envelope, and pencil. He was plainly a ready writer, for he went to work with the pencil at once, while Ratty rolled a fresh cigarette and still watched their captive.

Pete finished his letter, sealed it in the envelope, and addressed it in a bold hand.

“That’ll just about fix the business, I reckon,” said Pete, scowling across at Frances. “That gal’s mighty smart–with her trunk full of junk and all – ”

Ratty burst into irrepressible laughter. ‘You sure got Pete’s goat when you played him that trick, Frances. He fair killed himself puntin’ that trunk up the river and hiding it, and then taking the punt back and letting it drift so as to put Peckham’s crew off the scent.

“And when he busted it open – ” Ratty burst into laughter again, and held his sides. Pete looked surly.

“We’ll make the old man pay for her cuttin’ up them didoes,” growled the bewhiskered rascal. “And my horse and wagon, too. I b’lieve she and that man with her set the fire that burned up my outfit.”

Frances herewith took part in the conversation.

“Who set the grass-fire, in the first place?” she demanded. “I believe you did that, Ratty M’Gill. You were just reckless enough that day.”

“Aw, shucks!” said the young man, sheepishly.

“But you haven’t the same excuse to-day for being reckless,” the girl said, earnestly. “You have not been drinking. What do you suppose Sam and the boys will do to you for treating me in this manner?”

“Now, that will do!” said Pete, hoarsely “You hold your tongue, young woman!”

But Ratty only laughed. He accepted the letter, took off his sombrero, tucked it under the sweatband, and put on the hat again. Then he started lazily for the pony that he rode.

“Now mind you!” he called back over his shoulder to Pete, “I’m not going to risk my scalp going to the ranch-house with this yere billy-do–not much!”

“Why not?” asked Pete, angrily. “We got to move quick.”

“We’ll move quick later; we’ll go sure and steady now,” chuckled the cowboy. “I’ll send it in by one of the Mexicans. Say it was give to me by a stranger on the trail. I ain’t welcome at the Bar-T, and I know it.”

He leaped into his saddle and spurred his horse away, quickly getting out of sight. Frances knew that the letter he carried, and which Pete had written, was to her father.

CHAPTER XXIII

A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER

The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M’Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that there was something down stream that he ought to look into.

Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or passed, on the river bank?

Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards’ place, Pratt was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he turned his grey pony’s head back toward the river.

“Where are you going, Pratt?” demanded one of his friends.

“I’ve forgotten something,” the young man from Amarillo replied.

“Oh, dear me!” cried Sue Latrop. “He’s forgotten his cute, little cattle queen. Give her my love, Pratt.”

The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his estimation–that was sure!

He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the direction from which Ratty M’Gill had come.

Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly’s hoofs. But when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept on.

He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his ears forward.

Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey’s nostrils between thumb and finger. In the distance a pony whinnied. Was it Molly?

“You just keep still, you little nuisance!” whispered Pratt to his mount. “Don’t want you whinnying to any strange horse.”

He got out of the saddle and led his pony for some rods. The brush was thick and there was no bridle-path. He feared to go farther without knowing what and who was ahead, and he tied the grey–taking pattern by Frances and tying his head up-wind.

The young fellow hesitated about taking the shotgun he had used in the jack-rabbit hunt. There was a sheath fastened to his saddle for the weapon, and he finally left it therein.

Pratt really thought that nothing of a serious nature had happened to his girl friend. Seeing Ratty M’Gill had reminded him that the cowpuncher had once troubled Frances, and Pratt had ridden down this way to offer his escort to the old ranchman’s daughter.

He had no thought of the man who had held them up at the lower ford, toward Peckham’s, the evening of the prairie fire; nor did he connect the cowpuncher and that ruffian in his mind.

“If I take that gun, the muzzle will make a noise in the bushes, or the hammer will catch on something,” thought Pratt.

So he left the shotgun behind and went on unarmed toward the place where Frances was even then sitting under the keen eye of Pete.

“You keep where ye are, Miss,” growled that worthy when Ratty rode away. “I will sure tie ye if ye make an attempt to get away. You have fell right into my han’s, and I vow you’ll make me some money. Your father’s got a plenty – ”

“You mean to make him ransom me?” asked Frances, quietly.

“That’s the ticket,” said Pete, nodding, and searching his ragged clothing for a pipe, which he finally drew out and filled. “He’s got money. I’ve spent what I brought up yere to the Panhandle with me. And I b’lieve you made me lose my wagon and that other horse.”

Frances made no rejoinder to this last, but she said:

“Father may be willing to pay something for my release. But you and Ratty will suffer in the end.”

“We’ll risk that,” said the man, puffing at his pipe, and nodding thoughtfully.

“You’d better let me go now,” said the girl, with no display of fear. “And you’d better give up any further attempt to get at the old chest that Mr. Lonergan talked about.”

“Hey!” exclaimed the man, startled. “What d’ye know about Lonergan?”

“He will be at the ranch in a few days, and if there is any more treasure than you found in that old trunk you stole from me, he will get his share and there will no longer be any treasure chest. Make up your mind to that.”

“You know who I am and what I come up yere for?” demanded Pete, eying her malevolently.

“Yes. I know you are the man who tried to steal in over the roof of our house, too. If you make my father any angrier with you than he is now, he will prosecute you all the more sharply when you are arrested.”

“You shut up!” growled Pete. “I ain’t going to be arrested.”

“Both you and Ratty will be punished in the end,” said Frances, calmly. “Men like you always are.”

“Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don’t you be too sassy, understand? I could squeeze yer breath out!”

He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first thing that really frightened the girl–it was so wicked!

She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization that she was in this man’s power, and that he had reason to hate her, shook her usually steady nerves.

After all, Ratty M’Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a bald-headed buzzard, such as she had seen roosting on dead trees or old barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo.

Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze–and perhaps the fellow knew it.

It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way. Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She knew that she was at his mercy.

When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go faintly in her cheeks.

Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with–for from babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and corral–she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment which is natural to men of the open.

Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very highest instincts of the race.

Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men she expected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man is noted.

But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of him.

And he realized her attitude of fear and worked upon her emotions until she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams.

Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name.

“Frances! what is the matter with you?”

“Oh!” she gasped. “Pratt!”

The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look so strange.

“You haven’t been thrown, Frances, have you?” asked Pratt, solicitously. “Are you hurt?”

Then the girl’s frightened gaze, or some rustle of Pete’s movement, made Pratt Sanderson turn. Pete had reached for his rifle and secured it. And by so doing he completely mastered the situation.

“Put your hands over your head, young feller!” he growled, swinging the muzzle of the heavy gun toward Pratt. “And keep ’em there till I’ve seen what you carry in your pockets.”

He strode toward the surprised Pratt, who obeyed the order with becoming promptness.

“Don’t you make no move, neither, Miss,” growled the man, darting a glance in Frances’ direction.

“Why–why – What do you mean?” demanded Pratt, recovering his breath at last. “Do you dare hold this young lady a prisoner?”

“Yep. That’s what I dare,” sneered Pete. “And it looks like I’d got you, too. What d’ye think you’re going to do about it?”

“Isn’t this the fellow who robbed us at the river that time, Frances?” cried Pratt.

The girl nodded. Just then she could not speak.

“And that fellow Ratty was with him this time?”

Again the girl nodded.

“Then they shall both be arrested and punished,” declared Pratt. “I never heard of such effrontery. Do you know who this young lady is, man?” he demanded of Pete.

“Jest as well as you do. And her pa’s going to put up big for to see her again–unharmed,” snarled the man.

“What do you mean?” gasped Pratt, his face blazing and his fists clenched. “You dare harm her – ”

Pete was slapping him about the pockets to make sure he carried no weapon. Now he struck Pratt a heavy blow across the mouth, cutting his lips and making his ears ring.

“Shut up, you young jackanapes!” commanded the man. “I’ll hurt her and you, too, if I like.”

“And Captain Dan Rugley won’t rest till he sees you well punished if you harm her,” mumbled Pratt.

Pete struck at him again. Pratt dodged back. And at that moment Frances disappeared!

The man had only had his eyes off her for half a minute. He gasped, his jaw dropped, and his bloodshot eyes roved all about, trying to discover Frances’ whereabouts.

He had not realized that, despite her fear, the girl of the ranges had had her limbs drawn up and her muscles taut ready for a spring.

His attention given for the moment to Pratt Sanderson, Frances had risen and dodged behind the bole of the tree against which she was leaning, a carefully watched prisoner.

She would never have escaped so easily had it been Ratty in charge; for his mental processes were quicker than those of Pete.

Flitting from tree to tree, keeping one or more of the big trunks between her and Pete’s roving eyes while still he was speechless, she was traveling farther and farther from the camp.

She might have set forth running almost at once, and so escaped. But she could not leave Pratt to the heavy hand of Pete. Nor could she abandon Molly.

Frances, therefore, began encircling the opening where the fire burned; but she kept well out of Pete’s sight.

She heard him utter a bellow which would have done credit to a mad steer. That came when he saw Pratt was about to escape, too.

The young fellow was creeping away, stooping and on tiptoe. Pete uttered a frightful imprecation and sprang after him with his rifle clubbed and raised above his head.