Chapter 20

THE BOSTON GIRL AGAIN

Frances warned Mack to say nothing about the hold-up at the ford. That was certainly laying no cross on the teamster's shoulders, for he was not generally garrulous.

They put up at the hotel that night and Frances did her errands in Amarillo the next day without being disturbed by awkward questions regarding their adventure.

Certainly, she was not obliged to go to the bank under the present circumstances, for there was no chest now to put in the safe-keeping of that institution.

Nor did Frances Rugley have many friends in the breezy, Western city with whom she might spend her time. Two years make many changes in such a fast-growing community. She was not sure that she would be able to find many of the girls with whom she had gone to high school.

And she was, too, in haste to return to the Bar-T. Although she had left her father better, she worried much about him. Naturally, too, she wished to get back and report to him the adventures which had marked her journey to Amarillo.

She would have been glad to escape stopping at the Peckham ranch over the third night; but she could not get beyond that point--the wagon now being heavily laden; nor did she wish to remain out on the range at night without a shelter tent.

The hold-up at the ford naturally made Frances feel somewhat timid, too. Mack was not armed, and she had only the revolver that she usually carried in her saddle holster and wouldn't have thought of defending herself with it from any human being.

So she rode ahead when it became dark, and reached the Peckham ranch at supper time, finding both a warm welcome and much news awaiting her.

"Glad to see ye back again, Frances," declared Mrs. Peckham. "We done been talking about you and your hold-up most of the time since you went to Amarillo. Beats all how little it does take to set folks' tongues wagging in the country. Ain't it so?

"Well! that feller got clean away. And he took chest and all. Them fellers that went down stream found the old punt. But they never found no place where he'd shifted the trunk ashore. And it must have been heavy, Frances?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Must have been a sight of valuables in it," repeated Mrs. Peckham.

"What about those who went up stream?" asked Frances, quickly.

"There! your friend, Mr. Sanderson, didn't come back. He went on to Mr. Bill Edwards' place, so he said. He axed would you lead his grey pony on behind your wagon to the Bar-T. Said he'd come after it there."

"Yes; of course," returned Frances. "But didn't he find any trace of the robber up stream?"

"How could they, Miss Frances, if the boat went down?" demanded Mrs. Peckham. "Of course not."

It was true. Frances worried about this. Pratt Sanderson had insisted upon leading a part of the searchers in exactly the opposite direction to that in which common sense should have told him the robber had gone with the chest.

"Of course he would never have tried to pole against the current," Frances told herself. "I am afraid daddy will consider that significant."

She did not attempt to keep the story from Captain Dan Rugley when she got back home on the fourth evening.

"Smart girl!" the old ranchman said, when she told him of the make-believe treasure chest she had carted halfway to Amarillo, burlapped, corded, and tagged as though for deposit in the city bank for safe-keeping.

"Smart girl!" he repeated. "Fooled 'em good. But maybe you were reckless, Frances--just a wee mite reckless."

"I had no intention of trying to defend the chest, or of letting Mack," she told him.

"And how about that Pratt boy who you say went along with you?" queried the Captain, his brows suddenly coming together.

"Well, Daddy! He insisted upon going with me because Ratty bothered me," said Frances, in haste.

"Humph! Mack could break that M'Gill in two if the foolish fellow became really fresh with you. Now! I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, Frances; but it does seem to me that this Pratt Sanderson was too handy when that hold-up man got the chest."

It was just as the girl feared. She bit her lip and said nothing. She did not see what there was to say in Pratt's defense. Besides, in her secret heart she, too, was troubled about the young fellow from Amarillo.

She wondered what the robber at the ford thought about it when he got the old trunk open and found in it nothing but some junk and rubbish she had found in the attic of the ranch-house. At least, she had managed to draw the attention of the dishonest orderly from the Bylittle Soldiers' Home from the real Spanish treasure chest for several days.

Before he could make any further attempt against the peace of mind of her father and herself, Frances hoped Mr. Lonergan would have arrived at the Bar-T and the responsibility for the safety of the treasure would be lifted from their shoulders.

At any rate, the mysterious treasure would be divided and disposed of. When Pete knew that the Spanish treasure chest was opened and the valuables divided, he might lose hope of gaining possession of the wealth he coveted.

A telegram had come while Frances was absent from the chaplain of the Soldiers' Home, stating that Mr. Lonergan would start for the Panhandle in a week, if all went well with him.

Captain Rugley was as eager as a boy for his old partner's appearance.

"And I've been wishing all these years," he said, "while you were growing up, Frances, to dress you up in a lot of this fancy jewelry. It would have been for your mother if she had lived."

"But you don't want me to look like a South Sea Island princess, do you, Daddy?" Frances said, laughing. "I can see that the belt and bracelet I wore the night Pratt stopped here rather startled him. He's used to seeing ladies dressed up, in Amarillo, too."

"Pooh! In the cities women are ablaze with jewels. Your mother and I went to Chicago once, and we went to the opera. Say! that was a show!

"Let me tell you, there are things in that chest that will outshine anything in the line of ornaments that that Pratt Sanderson--or any other Amarillo person--ever saw."

The girl was quite sure that this desire on her father's part of arraying her in the gaudy jewels from the old chest was bound to make her the laughing-stock of the people who were coming out from Amarillo to see the Pageant of the Panhandle.

But what could she do about it? His wish was fathered by his love for her. She must wear the gems to please him, for Frances would never do anything to hurt his feelings, for the world.

A good many of their friends, of course--people like good Mrs. Peckham--would never realize the incongruity of a girl being bedecked like a barbarian princess. But Frances wondered what the girl from Boston would say to Pratt Sanderson about it, if she chanced to see Frances so adorned?

She had an opportunity of seeing something more of the Boston girl shortly, for in a day or two Pratt Sanderson came over for the grey pony he had left at the Peckham ranch, and Frances had led back to the Bar-T for him.

And with Pratt trailed along Mrs. Bill Edwards and the visitors whom Frances had met twice before.

By this time Captain Dan Rugley was able to hobble out upon the veranda, and was sitting there in his old, straight-backed chair when the cavalcade rode up. He hailed Mrs. Edwards, and welcomed her and her young friends as heartily as it was his nature so to do.

"Come in, all of you!" he shouted. "Ming will bring out a pitcher of something cool to drink in a minute; and San Soo can throw together a luncheon that'll keep you from starving to death before you get back to Bill's place."

He would not listen to refusals. The Mexican boys took the ponies away and a round dozen of visitors settled themselves--like a covey of prairie chickens--about the huge porch.

Frances welcomed everybody quietly, but with a smile. She instructed Ming to set tables in the inner court of the _hacienda_, as it would be both cool and shady there on this hot noontide.

She noticed that Sue Latrop scarcely bowed to her, and immediately set about chattering to two or three of her companions. Frances did not mind for herself; but she saw that the girl from Boston seemed amused by Captain Rugley's talk, and was not well-bred enough to conceal her amusement.

The old ranchman was not dull in any particular, however; before long he found an opportunity to say to his daughter:

"Who's the girl in the fancy fixin's? That red coat's got style to it, I reckon?"

"If you like the style," laughed Frances, smiling tenderly at him.

"You don't? And I see she doesn't cotton much to you, Frances. What's the matter?"

"She's Eastern," explained Frances, briefly. "I imagine she thinks I am crude."

"'Crude'? What's 'crude'?" demanded Captain Dan Rugley. "That isn't anything very bad, is it, Frances?" and his eyes twinkled.

"Can't be anything much worse, Daddy," she whispered, "if you are all 'fed up,' as the boys say, on 'culchaw'!"

He chuckled at that, and began to eye Sue Latrop with more interest. When the shuffle-footed Ming called them to luncheon, he kept close to the girl from Boston, and sat with her and Mrs. Bill Edwards at one of the small tables.

"I reckon you're not used to this sort of slapdash eating, Miss?" suggested Captain Rugley, with perfect gravity, as he saw Sue casting doubtful glances about the inner garden.

The fountain was playing, the trees rustled softly overhead, a little breeze played in some mysterious way over the court, and from the distance came the tinkle of some Mexican mandolins, for Frances had hidden Jose and his brother in one of the shadowy rooms.

"Oh, it's quite _al fresco_, don't you know," drawled Sue. "Altogether novel and chawming--isn't it, Mrs. Edwards?"

The neighboring rancher's wife had originally come from the East herself; but she had lived long enough in the Panhandle to have quite rubbed off the veneer of that "culchaw" of which Sue was an exponent.

"The Bar-T is the show place of the Panhandle," she said, promptly. "We are rather proud of it--all of us ranchers."

"Indeed? I had no idea!" cooed the girl from Boston. "And I thought all you ranch folk had your wealth in cattle, and re'lly had no time for much social exchange."

"Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, "when we have folks come to see us we manage to treat 'em with our best."

Sue was obliged to note that the service and the napery were dainty, and what she had seen of the furnishings of the darkened hall amazed her--as it had Pratt on his first visit. The food was, of course, good and well prepared, for San Soo was "A Number One, topside" cook, as he would have himself expressed it in pigeon English.

Yet Sue could not satisfy herself that these "cattle people" were really worthy of her attention. Had she not been with Mrs. Edwards she would have made open fun of the old Captain and his daughter.

Frances of the ranges looked a good deal like a girl on a moving picture screen. She was in her riding dress, short skirt, high gaiters, tight-fitting jacket, and with her hair in plaits.

The Captain looked as though he had never worn anything but the loose alpaca coat he now had on, with the carpet-slippers upon his blue-stockinged feet.

"Re'lly!" Sue whispered to Pratt, as they all arose to return to the front of the house, "they are quite too impossible, aren't they?"

"Who?" asked Pratt, with narrowing gaze.

"Why--er--this cowgirl and her father."

"I only see that they are very hospitable," the young man said, pointedly, and he kept away from the Boston girl for the remainder of their visit to the Bar-T ranch-house.