Chapter 15

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.