Kitabı oku: «Frances of the Ranges: or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure», sayfa 6
CHAPTER XIV
THE CONTRAST
“Frances!”
Pratt Sanderson fairly shrieked the ranch girl’s name. He could do nothing to save Sue Latrop himself, nor could the other visitors from Amarillo. Silent Sam and his men were too far away.
If with anybody, it lay with Frances Rugley to save the Boston girl. Frances already had her rope circling her head and Molly was coming on the jump!
The wicked little black steer was almost upon the gangling Eastern horse ere Frances stretched forward and let the loop go.
Then she pulled back on Molly’s bridle reins. The cow-pony began to slide, haunches down and forelegs stiffened. The loop dropped over the head of the black steer.
Had Blackwater been a heavier animal, he would have overborne Frances and her mount at the moment the rope became taut. For it was not a good job at all–that particular roping Frances was afterward ashamed of.
To catch a big steer in full flight around the neck only is to court almost certain disaster; but Blackwater did not weigh more than nine hundred pounds.
Nor was Molly directly behind him when Frances threw the lariat. The rope tautened from the side–and at the very instant the mad steer collided with Sue Latrop’s mount.
The wicked head of the steer banged against the horse’s body, which gave forth a hollow sound; the horse himself squealed, stumbled, and went over with a crash.
Fortunately Sue had known enough to loosen her foot from the stirrup. As Frances lay back in her own saddle, and she and Molly held the black steer on his knees, Pratt drove his mount past the stumbling horse, and seized the Boston girl as she fell.
She cleared her rolling mount with Pratt’s help. Otherwise she would have fallen under the heavy carcase of the horse and been seriously hurt.
Blackwater had crashed to the ground so hard that he could not immediately recover his footing. He kicked with a hind foot, and Frances caught the foot expertly in a loop, and so got the better of him right then and there. She held the brute helpless until Sam and his assistants reached the spot.
It was Pratt who had really done the spectacular thing. It looked as though Sue Latrop owed her salvation to the young man.
“Hurrah for Pratt!” yelled one of the other young fellows from the city, and most of the guests–both male and female–took up the cry. Pratt had tumbled off his own grey pony with Sue in his arms.
“You’re re’lly a hero, Pratt! What a fine thing to do,” the girl from Boston gasped. “Fancy my being under that poor horse.”
The horse in question was struggling to his feet, practically unhurt, but undoubtedly in a chastened spirit. One of the boys from the branding pen caught his bridle.
Pratt objected to the praise being showered upon him. “Why, folks, I didn’t do much,” he cried. “It was Frances. She stopped the steer!”
“You saved my life, Pratt Sanderson,” declared Sue Latrop. “Don’t deny it.”
“Lots of good I could have done if that black beast had been able to keep right on after your horse, Sue,” laughed Pratt. “You ask Mr. Sam Harding–or any of them.”
Sue’s pretty face was marred by a frown, and she tossed her head. “I don’t need to ask them. Didn’t you catch me as I fell?”
“Oh, but, Sue – ”
“Of course,” said the Boston girl, in a tone quite loud enough for Frances to hear, “those cowmen would back up their employer. They’d say she helped me. But I know whom to thank. You are too modest, Pratt.”
Pratt was silenced. He saw that it was useless to try to convince Sue that she was wrong. It was plain that the girl from Boston did not wish to feel beholden to Frances Rugley.
So the young man dropped the subject. He ran after his own pony, and then brought Sue’s stubborn mount to her hand. Sue was being congratulated and made much of by her friends. None of them spoke to Frances.
Pratt came over to the latter before she could ride away after the bawling steer. Blackwater was going to be branded this time if it took the whole force of the Bar-T to accomplish it!
“Thank you, Frances, for what you did,” the young man said, grasping her hand. “And Bill will thank you, too. He’ll know that it was your work that saved her; Mrs. Edwards isn’t used to cattle and isn’t to be blamed. I feel foolish to have them put it on me.”
Frances laughed. She would not show Pratt that this whole series of incidents had hurt her deeply.
“Don’t make a mountain out of a mole-hill, Pratt,” she said. “And you did do a brave thing. That girl would have been hurt if you had not caught her.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he grumbled.
“I reckon she thinks so, anyway,” said Frances, her eyes twinkling. “How does it feel to be a hero, Pratt?”
Pratt blushed and turned away. “I don’t want to wear any laurels that are not honestly my own,” he muttered.
“But you don’t object to Miss Boston’s expression of gratitude, Pratt?” teased Frances.
He made a little face at her as he went back to the ranchman’s wife and her guests; without another word Frances spurred Molly in the other direction, and before Mrs. Bill Edwards could speak to her the girl of the ranges was far away.
She headed for the West Run, where a large herd of the Bar-T cattle grazed. Nor did she look back again to see what became of the group of riders who were with Mrs. Edwards and Pratt.
Frances had no heart for such company just then. Sue Latrop’s manner had really hurt the Western girl. Perhaps Frances was easily wounded; but Sue had plainly revealed her opinion of the ranchman’s daughter.
The contrast between them cut Frances to the quick. She keenly realized how she, herself, must appear in the company of the pretty Eastern girl.
“Of course, Pratt, and Mrs. Edwards, and all of them, must see how superior she is to me,” Frances thought, as Molly galloped away with her. “But just the same, I don’t like that Sue Latrop a bit!”
CHAPTER XV
IN THE FACE OF DANGER
Frances was going by the way of Cottonwood Bottom because the trail was better and there were fewer gates to open.
The Bar-T kept a gang riding fence all the time; but even so, it was impossible always to keep up the wires. Frances seldom if ever rode from home without wire cutters and staples in a pocket of her saddle.
She stopped several times on this morning to mend breaks and to tighten slack wires, so it was late when she found the herd at West Run. Here were chuck-wagon, horse corral and camp–a regular “cowboy’s home,” in fact.
The boss of the outfit was Asa Bird, and Tom Phipps was the wrangler, while a Mexican, named Miguel, was cooking for the outfit.
“Ya-as, Miss Frances,” drawled Asa, “I reckon we need a right smart of things. Mike says he’s most out o’ provisions; but for the love of home don’t send us no more beans. We’ve jest about been beaned to death! No wonder them Greasers are fighting among themselves all the endurin’ time. It’s the frijoles they eat makes ’em so fractious–sure is!”
Frances wrote out a list of the goods needed, for the next supply wagon that passed this way to drop at the camp, and looked over the outfit in general in order to report fully to Sam and her father regarding the conditions at the West Run.
It was high noon before she got in sight of the cottonwoods on her homeward trail. She was hurrying Molly, for she did not want to keep Ratty M’Gill waiting for his money. As she had told him, she wanted the reckless cowboy off the Bar-T ranges before nightfall.
She had struck the plain above the river ford when she sighted a single rider far ahead, and going in her own direction. It was plain that the man–whoever he was–was heading for the ford instead of the bridge where the new trail crossed.
Something about this fact–or about the slouching rider himself–made Frances suspicious. She was reminded of the last time she had come this way and of the dialogue she had overheard between Ratty M’Gill and the man named Pete.
“If he turns to look back, he will see me,” thought the excited girl.
Instantly she was off Molly’s back. There might be no time to ride out of sight over the ridge. Here was an old buffalo wallow, and she took advantage of it.
In the old days when the bison roamed the plains of the Panhandle the beasts made wallows in which they ground off the grass, and the grassroots as well, leaving a barren hollow from two to four feet in depth. These dust baths were used frequently by the heavily-coated buffalo in hot weather.
Holding Molly by the head the girl commanded her to lie down. The cow-pony, perfectly amenable to her young mistress now, obeyed the order, grunting as she dropped to her knees, the saddle squeaking.
“Be dead!” ordered Frances, sternly. The pinto rolled on her side, stretched out her neck, and blinked up at the girl. She was entirely hidden from any chance glance thrown back by the stranger on the trail; and when Frances dropped down, too, both of them were well out of sight of any one riding the range.
The range girl waited until she was quite sure the stranger had ridden beyond the first line of cottonwoods. Perhaps he merely wished to water his steed at the ford, but Frances had her doubts of him.
When she finally stood up to scrutinize the plain ahead, there was no moving object in sight. Yet she did not mount and ride Molly when she had got the pinto on its legs.
Instead, she led the pony, and kept off the wellworn trail, too. The pounding of hoofs on a hard trail can be distinguished for a long distance by a man who will take the trouble to put his ear to the ground. The sound travels almost as far as the jar of a coming railroad train on the steel rails.
It was more than two miles to the beginning of the cottonwood grove, and one cannot walk very fast and lead a horse, too. But with a hand on Molly’s neck, and speaking an urgent word to the pinto now and then, Frances was able to accomplish the journey within a reasonable time.
Meantime she saw no sign of the man on horseback, nor of anybody else. He had ridden down to the ford, she was sure, and was still down there.
Once among the trees, Frances tied the pinto securely and crept through the thickets toward the shallow part of the stream. She heard no voices this time; but she did smell smoke.
“Not tobacco,” thought Frances Rugley, with decision. “He’s built a campfire. He is going to stay here for a time. What for, I wonder? Is he expecting to meet somebody?”
This Cottonwood Bottom, as it was called, was on the Bar-T range. Nobody really had business here save the ranch employees. The trail to the hacienda was not a general road to any other ranch or settlement. It was curious that this lone man should come here and make camp.
She came in sight of him ere long. He had kindled a small fire, over which already was a battered tin pot in which coffee beans were stewing. The rank flavor was wafted through the grove.
His scrubby pony was grazing, hobbled. The man’s flapping hat brim hid his face; but Frances knew him.
It was Pete, the man who had been orderly at the Soldiers’ Home, at Bylittle, Mississippi, and who had frankly owned to coming to the Panhandle for the purpose of robbing Captain Dan Rugley.
The girl of the ranges was much puzzled what to do in this emergency. Should she creep away, ride Molly hard back to the ranch-house, arouse Sam and some of the faithful punchers, and with them capture this ne’er-do-well and run him off the ranges?
That seemed, on its face, the more sensible if the less romantic thing to do. Yet the very publicity attending such a move was against it.
The suspicion that Captain Rugley had a treasure hidden away in the old Spanish chest was not a general one. It might have been lazily discussed now and then over some outfit’s fire when other subjects of gossip had “petered out,” to use the punchers’ own expression.
But it was doubtful if even Ratty M’Gill believed the story. Frances had heard him scoff at the man, Pete, for holding such a belief.
If she attempted to capture this tramp by the fire, making the affair one of importance, the story of the Spanish treasure chest would spread over half the Panhandle.
“What the boys didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them!” Frances told herself, and she would not ask for help. She had already laid her plans and she would stick to them.
And while she hesitated, discussing these things in her mind, a figure afoot came down the slope toward the ford and the campfire. It was Ratty M’Gill, walking as though already footsore, and with his saddle and accoutrements on his shoulder.
The high-heeled boots worn by cowpunchers are not easy footwear to walk in. And a real cattleman’s saddle weighs a good bit! Ratty flung down the leather with a grunt, and dropped on the ground beside the fire.
“What’s the matter with you?” growled the man, Pete. “Been pulling leather?”
“There ain’t no hawse bawn can make me git off if I don’t want,” returned Ratty M’Gill, sharply. “I got canned.”
“Fired?”
“Yep. And by that snip of a gal,” and he said it viciously.
“Ain’t you man enough to have a pony of your own?”
“Sam wouldn’t sell me one–the hound! Nor I didn’t have no money to spare for a mount, anyway. I’d rustle one out of the herd if the wranglers hadn’t drove ’em all up the other way las’ night. And I said I’d come over here to see you again.”
“What else?” demanded Pete, suspiciously. He seemed to know that Ratty had not come here to the ford for love of him.
“Wal, old man! I tried to go to headquarters. Went in to see the Cap. Nothing doing. If the gal had canned me, that was enough. So he said, and so Sam Harding said. I’m through at the Bar-T.”
“That’s a nice thing,” snarled Pete. “And just as I got up a scheme to use you there!”
“Mebbe you can use me now,” grunted Ratty.
“I–don’t–know.”
“Oh, I seen something that you’d like to know about.”
“What is that?” asked Pete, quickly.
“The old Cap has taken a tumble to himself. Guess he was put wise by what happened the other night–you know. He’s going to send the chest to the Amarillo bank.”
“What?”
“That’s so,” said Ratty, with his slow drawl, and evidently enjoying the other’s discomfiture.
“How do you know?” snapped Pete.
“Seed it. Standing all corded up and with a tag on it, right in the hall. Knowed Sam was going to get ready a four-mule team for Amarillo to-morrow morning. The gal’s going with it, and Mack Hinkman to drive. Good-night! if there’s treasure in that chest, you’ll have to break into the Merchants’ and Drovers’ Bank of Amarillo to get at it–take that from me!”
Pete leaned toward him and his hairy hand clutched Ratty’s knee. What he said to the discharged employee of the Bar-T Ranch Frances did not hear. She had, however, heard enough. She was worried by what Ratty had said about his interview with Captain Rugley. Her father should not have been disturbed by ranch business just then.
The girl crept back through the grove, found Molly where she had left her, and soon was a couple of miles away from the ford and making for the ranch-house at Molly’s very best pace.
She found her father not so much excited as she had feared. Ratty had forced his way into the stricken cattleman’s room and done some talking; but the Captain was chuckling now over the incident.
“That’s the kind of a spirit I like to see you show, Frances,” he declared, patting her hand. “If those punchers don’t do what you tell ’em, bounce ’em! They’ve got to learn what you say goes–just as though I spoke myself. And Ratty M’Gill never was worth the powder to blow him to Halifax,” concluded the ranchman, vigorously.
Frances was glad her father approved of her action. But she did not believe they were well rid of Ratty just because he had started for Jackleg Station.
She had constantly in mind Ratty and the man, Pete, with their heads together beside the campfire; and she wondered what villainy they were plotting. Nevertheless, in the face of possible danger, she went ahead with her scheme of starting for Amarillo in the morning. And, as Ratty had said, the chest, burlapped, corded, and tagged, stood in the main hall of the ranch-house, ready for removal.
CHAPTER XVI
A FRIEND INSISTENT
It was a long way to the Peckham ranch-house, at which Frances meant to make her first night stop. The greater part of the journey would then be over.
The second night she proposed to stay at the hotel in Calas, a suburb of Amarillo. Her errands in the big town would occupy but a few hours, and she expected to be back at Peckham’s on the third evening, and at home again by the end of the fourth day.
She was troubled by the thought of being so long away from her father’s side; but he was on the mend again and the doctor had promised to see him at least once while she was away from the ranch.
Her reason she gave for going to Amarillo was business connected with the forthcoming pageant, “The Panhandle: Past and Present.” This explanation satisfied her father, too–and it was true to a degree.
She heard from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home the day before she was to start on her brief journey, and she sent José Reposa with a long prepaid telegraph message to the station, arranging for a private car in which Jonas P. Lonergan was to travel from Mississippi to the Panhandle. She hoped the chaplain would come with him. About the ex-orderly of the home the letter said nothing. Perhaps Mr. Tooley had overlooked that part of her message.
Captain Rugley was delighted that his old partner was coming West; the announcement seemed to have quieted his mind. But he lay on his bed, watching the corded chest, with his gun hanging close at hand.
That is, he watched one of the corded and burlapped chests. The secret of the second chest was known only to Frances herself and the two Chinamen. Anybody who entered the great hall of the hacienda saw that one, as Ratty had, standing ready for removal. The one in Captain Rugley’s room was covered by the blanket and looked like an ordinary divan.
Frances believed San Soo and Ming were to be trusted. But to Silent Sam she left the guarding of the ranch-house during her absence.
Day was just beginning to announce itself by faint streaks of pink and salmon color along the eastern horizon, when the four-mule wagon and Frances’ pony arrived at the gate of the compound. The two Chinamen, Sam himself, and Mack Hinkman, the driver, had all they could do to carry the chest out to the wagon.
Frances came out, pulling on her gantlets. She had kissed her father good-bye the evening before, and he was sleeping peacefully at this hour.
“Have a good journey, Miss Frances,” said Sam, yawning. “Look out for that off mule, Mack. Adios.”
The Chinamen had scuttled back to the house. Frances was mounted on Molly, and the heavy wagon lurched forward, the mules straining in the collars under the admonition of Mack’s voice and the snap of his bullwhip.
The wagon had a top, and the flap at the back was laced down. No casual passer-by could see what was in the vehicle.
Frances rode ahead, for Molly was fresh and was anxious to gallop. She allowed the pinto to have her head for the first few miles, as she rode straight away into the path of the sun that rose, red and jovial-looking, above the edge of the plain.
A lone coyote, hungry after a fruitless night of wandering, sat upon its haunches not far from the trail, and yelped at her as she passed. The morning air was as invigorating as new wine, and her cares and troubles seemed to be lightened already.
She rode some distance ahead of the wagon; but at the line of the Bar-T she picketed Molly and built a little fire. She carried at her saddle the means and material for breakfast. When the slower moving mule team came up with her there was an appetizing odor of coffee and bacon in the air.
“That sure does smell good, Ma’am!” declared Mack. “And it’s on-expected. I only got a cold bite yere.”
“We’ll have that at noon,” said Frances, brightly. “But the morning air is bound to make one hungry for a hot drink and a rasher of bacon.”
In twenty minutes they were on the trail again. Frances now kept close to the wagon. Once off the Bar-T ranges she felt less like being out of sight of Mack, who was one of the most trustworthy men in her father’s employ.
He was not much of a talker, it was true, so Frances had little company but her own thoughts; but they were company enough at present.
As she rode along she thought much about the pageant that was to be held at Jackleg; many of the brightest points in that entertainment were evolved by Frances of the ranges on this long ride to the Peckham ranch.
There were several breaks in the monotony of the journey. One was when another covered wagon came into view, taking the trail far ahead of them. It came from the direction of Cottonwood Bottom, and was drawn by two very good horses. It was so far ahead, however, that neither Frances nor Mack could distinguish the outfit or recognize the driver.
“Dunno who that kin be,” said Mack, “’nless it’s Bob Ellis makin’ for Peckham’s, too. I learned he was going to town this week.”
Bob Ellis was a small rancher farther south. Frances was doubtful.
“Would Ellis come by that trail?” she queried. “And why doesn’t he stop to pass the time of day with us?”
“That’s so!” agreed Mack. “It couldn’t be Bob, for he’d know these mules, and he ain’t been to the Bar-T for quite a spell. I dunno who that kin be, then, Miss Frances.”
Frances had had her light fowling-piece put in the wagon, and before noon she sighted a flock of the scarce prairie chickens. Away she scampered on Molly after the wary birds, and succeeded, in half an hour, in getting a brace of them.
Mack picked and cleaned the chickens on the wagon-seat. “They’ll help out with supper to-night, if Miz’ Peckham ain’t expectin’ company,” he remarked.
But they were not destined to arrive at the Peckham ranch without an incident of more importance than these.
It was past mid-afternoon. They had had their cold bite, rested the mules and Molly, and the latter was plodding along in the shade of the wagon-top all but asleep, and her rider was in a like somnolent condition. Mack was frankly snoring on the wagon-seat, for the mules had naught to do but keep to the trail.
Suddenly Molly lifted her head and pricked her ears. Frances came to herself with a slight shock, too. She listened. The pinto nickered faintly.
Frances immediately distinguished the patter of hoofs. A single pony was coming.
The girl jerked Molly’s head around and they dropped back behind the wagon which kept on lumberingly, with Mack still asleep on the seat. From the south–from the direction of the distant river–a rider came galloping up the trail.
“Why!” murmured Frances. “It’s Ratty M’Gill!”
The ex-cowboy of the Bar-T swung around upon the trail, as though headed east, and grinned at the ranchman’s daughter. His face was very red and his eyes were blurred, and Frances feared he had been drinking.
“Hi, lady!” he drawled. “Are ye mad with me?”
“I don’t like you, M’Gill,” the girl said, frankly. “You don’t expect me to, do you?”
“Aw, why be fussy?” asked the cowboy, gaily. “It’s too pretty a world to hold grudges. Let’s be friends, Frances.”
Frances grew restive under his leering smile and forced gaiety. She searched M’Gill sharply with her look.
“You didn’t gallop out of your way to tell me this,” she said. “What do you want of me?”
“Oh, just to say how-de-do!” declared the fellow, still with his leering smile. “And to wish you a good journey.”
“What do you know about my journey?” asked Frances, quickly.
But Ratty M’Gill was not so much intoxicated that he could be easily coaxed to divulge any secret. He shook his head, still grinning.
“Heard ’em say you were going to Amarillo, before I went to Jackleg,” he drawled. “Mighty lonesome journey for a gal to take.”
“Mack is with me,” said Frances, shortly. “I am not lonely.”
“Whew! I bet that hurt me,” chuckled Ratty M’Gill. “My room’s better than my comp’ny, eh?”
“It certainly is,” said the girl, frankly.
“Now, you wouldn’t say that if you knowed something that I know,” declared the fellow, grinning slily.
“I don’t know that anything you may say would interest me,” the girl replied, sharply, and turned Molly’s head.
“Aw, hold on!” cried Ratty. “Don’t be so abrupt. What I gotter say to you may help a lot.”
But Frances did not look back. She pushed Molly for the now distant wagon. In a moment she knew that Ratty was thundering after her. What did he mean by such conduct? To tell the truth, the ranchman’s daughter was troubled.
Surely, the reckless fellow did not propose to attack Mack and herself on the open trail and in broad daylight? She opened her lips to shout for the sleeping wagon-driver, when a cloud of dust ahead of the mules came into her view.
She heard the clatter of many hoofs. Quite a cavalcade was coming along the trail from the east. Out of the dust appeared a figure that Frances had learned to know well; and to tell the truth she was not sorry in her heart to see the smiling countenance of Pratt Sanderson.
“Hold on, Frances! Ye better listen to me a minute!” shouted the ex-cowboy behind her.
She gave him no attention. Molly sprang ahead and she met Pratt not far from the wagon. He stopped abruptly, as did the girl of the ranges. Ratty M’Gill brought his own mount to a sudden halt within a few yards.
“Hello!” exclaimed Pratt. “What’s the matter, Frances?”
“Why, Pratt! How came you and your friends to be riding this way?” returned the range girl.
She saw the red coat of the girl from Boston in the party passing the slowly moving wagon, and she was not at all sure that she was glad to see Pratt, after all!
But the young man had seen something suspicious in the manner in which Ratty M’Gill had been following Frances. The fellow now sat easily in his saddle at a little distance and rolled a cigarette, leering in the meantime at the ranch girl and her friend.
“What does that fellow want?” demanded Pratt again.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” said Frances, hurriedly. “He has been discharged from the Bar-T – ”
“That’s the fellow you said made the steers stampede?” Pratt interrupted.
“Yes.”
“Don’t like his looks,” the Amarillo young man said, frankly. “Glad we came up as we did.”
“But you must go on with your friends, Pratt,” said Frances, faintly.
“Goodness! there are enough of them, and the other fellows can get ’em all back to Mr. Bill Edwards’ in time for supper,” laughed Pratt. “I believe I’ll go on with you. Where are you bound?”
“To Peckham’s ranch,” said Frances, faintly. “We shall stop there to-night.”
The rest of the party passed, and Frances bowed to them. Sue Latrop looked at the ranch girl, curiously, but scarcely inclined her head. Frances felt that if she allowed Pratt to escort her she would make the Boston girl more of an enemy than she already felt her to be.
“We–we don’t really need you, Pratt,” said Frances. “Mack is all right – ”
“That fellow asleep on the wagon-seat? Lots of good he is as an escort,” laughed Pratt.
“But I don’t really need you,” said the girl, weakly.
“Oh! don’t be so offish!” cried the young man, more seriously. “Don’t you suppose I’d be glad of the chance to ride with you for a way?”
“But your friends – ”
“You’re a friend of mine,” said Pratt, seriously. “I don’t like the look of that Ratty M’Gill. I’m going to Peckham’s with you.”
What could Frances say? Ratty leered at her from his saddle. She knew he must be partly intoxicated, for he was very careless with his matches. He allowed a flaming splinter to fall to the trail, after he lit his cigarette, and, drunk or sober, a cattleman is seldom careless with fire on the plains.
It was mid-pasturage season and the ranges were already dry. A spark might at any time start a serious fire.
“We-ell,” gasped Frances, at last. “I can’t stop you from coming!”
“Of course not!” laughed Pratt, and quickly turned his grey pony to ride beside the pinto.
The wagon was now a long way ahead. They set off on a gallop to overtake it. But when Frances looked over her shoulder after a minute, Ratty M’Gill still remained on the trail, as though undecided whether to follow or not.
