Chapter 19

MOST ASTONISHING!

"The man must be crazy!" murmured the young bank clerk.

"All the more reason why we should be careful to obey him," Frances said.

Yet she was not unmindful of the peril Pratt pointed out. Only, in Frances' case, she had been brought up among men who carried guns habitually, and the sound of a rifle shot did not startle her as it did the young man.

"Look yere, Mr. Hold-up Man!" yelled Mack Hinkman, when his amazement let him speak. "Ain't you headed in the wrong way? We ain't comin' from town with a load. Why, man! we're only jest goin' to town. Why didn't you wait till we was comin' back before springin' this mine on us?"

"Keep still there," commanded Pete, from the tree. "Drive on through the river, and up on this bank, and then stop! You hear?"

"I'd hear ye, I reckon, if I was plumb deef," complained Mack. "That rifle you handle so permiscuous speaks mighty plain."

"Let them on hossback mind it, too," added the man in the tree. "I got an eye on 'em."

"Easy, Mister," urged Mack, as he picked up the reins again. "One o' them is a young lady. You're a gent, I take it, as wouldn't frighten no female."

"Stow that!" advised Pete, with vigor. "Come out o' there!"

Mack started the mules, and they dragged the wagon creakingly up the bank. Frances and Pratt rode meekly in its wake. The man in the tree had selected his station with good judgment. When Mack halted his four mules, and Frances and Pratt obeyed a commanding gesture to stop at the water's edge, all three were splendid targets for the man behind the rifle.

"Ride up to that wagon, young fellow," commanded Pete. "Rip open that canvas. That's right. Roll off your horse and climb inside; but don't you go out of sight. If you do I'll make that canvas cover a sieve in about one minute. Get me?"

Pratt nodded. He could not help himself. He gave an appealing glance toward Frances. She nodded.

"Don't be foolish, Pratt," she whispered. "Do what he tells you to do."

Thus encouraged, the young fellow obeyed the mandate of the man who had stopped them on the trail. He had read of highwaymen and hold-ups; but he had believed that such things had gone out of fashion with the coming of farmers into the Panhandle, the building up of the frequent settlements, and the extension of the railroad lines.

Pratt's heart was warmed by the girl's evident desire that he should not run into danger. The outlaw in the tree was after the chest hidden in the wagon; but Frances put his safety above the value of the treasure chest.

"Heave that chist out of the end of the wagon, and be quick about it!" was the expected order from the desperado. "And don't try anything funny, young fellow."

Pratt was in no mood to be "funny." He hesitated just a moment. But Frances exclaimed:

"Do as he says! Don't wait!"

So out rolled the chest. Mack was grumbling to himself on the front seat; but if he was armed he did not consider it wise to use any weapon. The man with the rifle had everything his own way.

"Now, drive on!" commanded the latter individual. "I've got no use for any of you folks here, and you'll be wise if you keep right on moving till you get to that Peckham ranch. Git now!"

"All right, old-timer," grunted Mack. "Don't be so short-tempered about it."

He let the mules go and they scrambled up the bank, drawing the wagon after them. The chest lay on the river's edge. Pratt Sanderson had climbed upon his pony again.

"You two git, also," growled the man in the tree. "I got all I want of ye."

Pratt groaned aloud as he urged the grey pony after Molly.

"What will your father say, Frances?" he muttered.

"I don't know," returned the girl, honestly.

"I'm going to ride ahead to the Peckham ranch and rouse them. That fellow can't get away with that heavy chest on horseback."

"I'll go with you," returned the ranchman's daughter. "That rascal should be apprehended and punished. We have about chased such people out of this section of the country."

"Goodness! you take it calmly, Frances," exclaimed Pratt. "Doesn't _anything_ ruffle you?"

She laughed shortly, and made no further remark. They rode on swiftly and within the hour saw the lights of Peckham's ranch-house.

Their arrival brought the family to the door, as well as half a dozen punchers up from the bunk-house. The fire had excited everybody and kept them out of bed, although there was no danger of the conflagration's jumping the river.

"Why, Miss Frances!" cried the ranchman's wife, who was a fleshy and notoriously good-natured woman, the soul of Western hospitality. "Why, Miss Frances! if you ain't a cure for sore eyes! Do 'light and come in--and yer friend, too.

"My goodness me! ye don't mean to say you've been through that fire? That is awful! Come right on in, do!"

But what Frances and Pratt had to tell about their adventure at the ford excited the Peckhams and their hands much more than the fire.

"John Peckham!" commanded the fleshy lady, who was really the leading spirit at the ranch. "You take a bunch of the boys and ride right after that rascal. My mercy! are folks goin' to be held up on this trail and robbed just as though we had no law and order? It's disgraceful!"

Then she turned her mind to another idea. "Miss Frances!" she exclaimed. "What was in that trunk? Must have been something valuable, eh?"

"I was taking it to the Amarillo bank, to put it in the safe deposit vaults," Frances answered, dodging the direct question.

"'Twarn't full of money?" shrieked Mrs. Peckham.

"Why, no!" laughed Frances. "We're not as rich as all that, you know."

"Well," sighed the good, if curious, woman, "I reckon there was 'nough sight more valuables in the trunk than Captain Dan Rugley wants to lose. Hurry up, there, John Peckham!" she shouted after her husband. "Git after that fellow before he has a chance to break open the trunk."

"I'm going to get a fresh horse and ride back with them," Pratt Sanderson told Frances. "And we'll get that chest, don't you fear."

"You'd better remain here and have your night's rest," advised the girl, wonderfully calm, it would seem. "Let Mr. Peckham and his men catch that bad fellow."

"And me sit here idle?" cried Pratt. "Not much!"

She saw him start for the corral, and suddenly showed emotion. "Oh, Pratt!" she cried, weakly.

The young man did not hear her. Should she shout louder for him? She paled and then grew rosy red. Should she run after him? Should she tell him the truth about that chest?

"Do come in the house, Miss Frances," urged Mrs. Peckham. And the girl from the Bar-T obeyed her and allowed Pratt to go.

"You must sure be done up," said Mrs. Peckham, bustling about. "I'll make you a cup of tea."

"Thank you," said Frances. She listened for the posse to start, and knew that, when they dashed away, Pratt Sanderson was with them.

Mack Hinkman arrived with the double mule team soon after. He said the crowd had gone by him "on the jump."

"I 'low they'll ketch that feller that stole your chist, Miss Frances, 'bout the time two Sundays come together in the week," he declared. "He's had plenty of time to make himself scarce."

"But the trunk?" cried Mrs. Peckham. "That was some heavy, wasn't it?"

"Aw, he had a wagon handy. He wouldn't have tried to take the chist if he hadn't. Don't you say so, Miss Frances?" said the teamster.

"I don't know," said the girl, and she spoke wearily. Indeed, she had suddenly become tired of hearing the robbery discussed.

"Don't trouble the poor girl," urged Mrs. Peckham. "She's all done up. We'll know all about it when John Peckham gets back. You wanter go to bed, honey?"

Frances was glad to retire. Not alone was she weary, but she wished to escape any further discussion of the incident at the ford.

Mrs. Peckham showed her to the room she was to occupy. Mack would remain up to repair properly the cracked axle of the wagon.

For, whether the chest was recovered or not, Frances proposed to go right on in the morning to Amarillo.

She did not awaken when Mr. Peckham and his men returned; but Frances was up at daybreak and came into the kitchen for breakfast. Mrs. Peckham was bustling about just as she had been the night before when the girl from the Bar-T retired.

"Hard luck, Miss Frances!" the good lady cried. "Them men ain't worth more'n two bits a dozen, when it comes to sending 'em out on a trail. They never got your trunk for you at all!"

"And they did not catch the man who stopped us at the ford?"

"Of course not. John Peckham never could catch anything but a cold."

"But where could he have gone--that man, I mean?" queried Frances.

"Give it up! One party went up stream and t'other down. Your friend, Mr. Sanderson, went with the first party."

"Oh, yes," Frances commented. "That would be on his way to the Edwards ranch where he is staying."

"Well, mebbe. They say he was mighty anxious to find your trunk. He's an awful nice young man----"

"Where's Mack?" asked Frances, endeavoring to stem the tide of the lady's speech.

"He's a-getting the team ready, Frances. He's done had his breakfast. And I never did see a man with such a holler to fill with flapjacks. He eat seventeen."

"Mack's appetite is notorious at the ranch," admitted Frances, glad Mrs. Peckham had finally switched from the subject of the lost chest.

"He was telling me about that burned wagon you passed on the trail. Can't for the life of me think who it could belong to," said Mrs. Peckham.

"We thought once that Mr. Bob Ellis was ahead of us on the trail," said Frances.

"He'd have come right on here," declared the ranchman's wife. "No. 'Twarn't Bob."

"Then I thought it might have belonged to that man who stopped us," suggested Frances.

"If that's so, I reckon he got square for his loss, didn't he?" cried the lady. "I reckon that chest was filled with valuables, eh?"

Fortunately, Frances had swallowed her coffee and the mule team rattled to the door.

"I must hurry!" the girl cried, jumping up. "Many, many thanks, dear Mrs. Peckham!" and she kissed the good woman and so got out of the house without having to answer any further questions.

She sprang into Molly's saddle and Mack cracked his whip over the mules.

"Mebbe we'll have good news for you when you come back, Frances!" called the ranchwoman, quite filling the door with her ample person as she watched the Bar-T wagon, and the girl herself, take the trail for Amarillo.

Mack Hinkman was quite wrought up over the adventure of the previous evening.

"That young Pratt Sanderson is some smart boy--believe me!" he said to Frances, who elected to ride within earshot of the wagon-seat for the first mile or two.

"How is that?" she asked, curiously.

"They tell me it was him found the place where the chest had been put aboard that punt."

"What punt?"

"The boat the feller escaped in with the chest," said Mack.

"Then he wasn't the man whose wagon and one horse was burned?" queried Frances.

"Don't know. Mebbe. But that's no difference. This old punt has been hid down there below the ford since last duck-shooting season. Maybe he knowed 'twas there; maybe he didn't. Howsomever, he found the boat and brought it up to the ford. Into the boat he tumbled the chest. There was the marks on the bank. John Peckham told me himself."

"And Pratt found the trail?"

"That's what he did. Smart boy! The rest of 'em was up a stump when they didn't find the chest knocked to pieces. The hold-up gent didn't even stop to open it."

"He expected we'd set somebody on his trail," Frances said, reflectively.

"In course. Two parties. One went up stream and t'other down."

"So Mrs. Peckham just told me."

"Wal!" said Mack. "Mebbe one of 'em will ketch the varmint!"

But Frances made no further comment. She rode on in silence, her mind vastly troubled. And mostly her thought connected Pratt Sanderson with the disappearance of the chest.

Why had the young fellow been so sure that the robber had gone up stream instead of down? It did not seem reasonable that the man would have tried to stem the current in the heavy punt--nor was the chest a light weight.

It puzzled Frances--indeed, it made her suspicious. She was anxious to learn whether the man who had stolen the chest had gone up, or down, the river.