Chapter 21

IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY

Silent Sam had reported some jack-rabbits on one of the southern ranges, and the Captain thought it would interest the party from the Edwards ranch to come over the next day and help run them.

Jack-rabbits have become such a nuisance in certain parts of the West of late years that a price has been set upon their heads, and the farmers and ranchmen often organize big drives to clear the ranges of the pests.

This was only a small drive on the Bar-T; but Captain Rugley had several good dogs, and the occasion was an interesting one--for everybody but the jacks.

Of course, the old ranchman could not go; but Frances and Sam were at Cottonwood Bottom soon after sunrise, waiting for the party from Mr. Bill Edwards' ranch.

Jose Reposa had the dogs in leash--two long-legged, sharp-nosed, mouse-colored creatures, more than half greyhound, but with enough mongrel in their make-up to make them bite when they ran down the long-eared pests that they were trained to drive.

The branch of the river that ran through Cottonwood Bottom was too shallow--at least, at this season--to float even a punt. Frances gazed down the wooded and winding hollow and asked Silent Sam a question:

"Do you know of any place along the river where a man might hide out--that fellow who stopped us at the ford the other evening, for instance?"

"There's a right smart patch of small growth down below Bill Edwards' line," said Sam. "The boys from Peckham's, with that Pratt Sanderson, didn't more'n skirt that rubbish, I reckon, by what Mack said," Sam observed. "Mebbe that hombre might have laid up there for a while."

"Before or after he robbed us?" Frances asked quietly.

"Wal, now!" ejaculated Sam. "If he took that chest aboard the punt, and the punt was found below the ford----"

"You know, Sam," said the girl, thoughtfully, "that he might have poled up stream a way, put the chest ashore, and then let the punt drift down."

"Reckon that's so," grunted the foreman.

He said no more, and neither did Frances. But the brief dialogue gave the girl food for thought, and her mind was quite full of the idea when the crowd from the Edwards ranch came into view.

The boys were armed with light rifles or shotguns, and even some of the girls were armed, as well as Mrs. Edwards herself.

But Sue Latrop had never fired a gun in her life, and she professed to be not much interested in this hunt.

"Oh, I've fox-hunted several times. That is real sport! But we don't shoot foxes. The dogs kill them--if there re'lly _is_ a fox."

"Humph!" asked one of the local boys, with wonder, "what do the dogs follow, if there's no fox? What scent do they trail, I mean?"

"Oh," said Sue, "a man rides ahead dragging an aniseed bag. Some dogs are trained to follow that scent and nothing else. It's very exciting, I assure you."

"Well! what do you know about that?" gasped the questioner.

"Say! was this around Boston?" asked Pratt, his eyes twinkling.

"Oh, yes. There is a fine pack of hounds at Arlington," drawled Sue.

"Sho!" chuckled Pratt. "I should think they'd teach the dogs around Boston to follow the trail of a bean-bag. Wouldn't it be easier?"

"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Miss Latrop. "Don't you think you are witty? And look at those dogs!"

"What's the matter with them?" asked one of the girls.

"Why, they are all limbs! What perfectly spidery-looking animals! Did you ever----"

"You wait a bit," laughed Mrs. Edwards. "Those long-legged dogs are just what we need hunting the jacks. And if we didn't have guns, at that, there would be few of the rabbits caught. All ready, Sam Harding?"

"Jest when Miss Frances says the word, Ma'am," returned the foreman, coolly.

"Of course! Frances is mistress of the hunt," said the ranchman's wife, good-naturedly.

Sue Latrop had been coaxed to leave her Eastern-bred horse behind on this occasion, and was upon one of the ponies broken to side-saddle work. The tall bay would scarcely know how to keep his feet out of gopher-holes in such a chase as was now inaugurated.

"Be careful how you use your guns," Frances said, quietly, when Sam and the Mexican, with the dogs, started off to round a certain greasewood-covered mound and see if they could start some of the long-eared animals.

"Never fire across your pony's neck unless you are positive that no other rider is ahead of you on either hand. Better take your rabbit head on; then the danger of shooting into some of the rest of us will be eliminated."

Sue sniffed at this. She had no gun, of course, but almost wished she had--and she said as much to one of her friends. She'd show that range girl that she couldn't boss her!

"Why! that's good advice about using our guns," said this girl to whom Sue complained, surprised at the objection.

"Pooh! what does she know about it? She puts herself forward too much," replied the girl from Boston.

It is probable that Sue would have talked about any other girl in the party who seemed to take the lead. Sue was used to being the leader herself, and if she couldn't lead she didn't wish to follow. There are more than a few people in the world of Sue's temperament--and very unpleasant people they are.

But it was Frances who got the first jack. The creature came leaping down the slope, having broken cover at the brink and quite unseen by the rest of the hunters.

This was business to Frances, instead of sport. If allowed to multiply the jack-rabbits were not only a pest to the farmers, but to everybody else. Frances raised the light firearm she carried and popped Mr. Longears over "on the fly."

"Glory! that's a good one!" shouted Pratt, enthusiastically.

"A clean hit, Frances," said Mrs. Edwards. "You are a splendid shot, child."

Miss Boston sniffed!

The dogs did not bay. But in a minute or two a pair of the rabbits appeared over the rise, and then the two long-legged canines followed in their tracks.

"Wait till the jacks see us and dodge," called out Frances, in a low tone. "Then you can fire without getting the dogs in line."

Mrs. Edwards was a good shot. She got one of the rabbits. After several of the others snapped at the second one, and missed him, Frances brought him down just as he leaped toward a clump of sagebrush. Behind it he would have been lost to them.

"My goodness!" murmured Pratt. "What a shot you are, Frances!"

"She's quite got the best of us in shooting," complained one of the other girls. "She'll bag them all."

Frances laughed, and spurred Molly out of the group, "I'll put away my gun and use my rope instead," she remarked. "Perhaps I have a handicap over the rest of you with a rifle. Father taught me, and he is considered the best rifle shot in the Panhandle."

"My goodness, Frances," said Pratt again. "What isn't there that you don't do better than most of 'em?"

"Parlor tricks!" flashed back the girl of the ranges, half laughing, but half in earnest, too. "I know I should be just a silly with a lorgnette, or trying to tango."

"Well!" gasped the young fellow, "who isn't silly under those circumstances, I would like to know."

Mixing talk of lorgnettes and dancing with shooting jack-rabbits did not suit very well, for the next pair of the long-eared animals that the dogs started got away entirely.

They rode on down the edge of the hollow through which the stream flowed. The dogs beat the bushes and cottonwood clumps. Suddenly a small, graceful, spotted animal leaped from concealment and came up the slope of the long river-bank ahead of both the dogs and almost under the noses of some of the excited ponies.

"Oh! an antelope!" shrieked two or three of the young people, recognizing the graceful creature.

"Don't shoot it!" cried Mrs. Edwards. "I am not sure that the law will let us touch antelopes at this season.

"You needn't fear, Mrs. Edwards," said the girl from Boston, laughing. "Nobody is likely to get near enough to shoot that creature. Wonderful! see how it leaps. Why! those funny dogs couldn't even catch it."

Frances had had no idea of touching the antelope. But suddenly she spurred Molly away at an angle from the bank, and called to the dogs to keep on the trail of the little deer.

"Ye-hoo! Go for it! On, boys!" she shouted, and already the rope was swinging about her head.

Pratt spurred after her, and by chance Sue Latrop's pony got excited and followed the two madly. Sue could not pull him in.

The antelope did not seem to be half trying, he bounded along so gracefully and easily. The long-limbed dogs were doing their very best. The ponies were coming down upon the quarry at an acute angle.

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.