At every point Frances met her mount with a stern word, or a firm rein, or a touch of the spur or quirt, which quickly took the pinto's mind off her intention of "acting up."

"You are wonderful!" exclaimed the youth, excitedly. "I wish I could ride half as good as you do, Miss Frances."

Frances smiled. "You did not begin young enough," she said. "My father took me in his arms when I was a week old and rode a half-wild mustang twenty miles across the ranges to exhibit me to the man who was our next-door neighbor in those days. You see, my tuition began early."

It was not yet fully dark, although the ranch-house lamps were lit, when they came to the home corral and the big fenced yard in front of the Bar-T.

Two boys ran out to take the ponies. One of these Frances instructed to saddle a fresh pony and ride to the Edwards place with word that Pratt Sanderson would remain all night at the Bar-T.

The other boy was instructed to give the mountain lion to one of the men, that the pelt might be removed and properly stretched for curing.

"Come right in, Pratt," said the girl, with frank cordiality. "You'll have a chance for a wash and a brush before supper. And dad will find you some clean clothes.

"There's dad on the porch, though he's forbidden the night air unless he puts a coat on. Oh, he's a very, very bad patient, indeed!"

CHAPTER III

THE OLD SPANISH CHEST

Pratt saw a tall, lean man--a man of ma.s.sive frame, indeed, with a heavy mustache that had once been yellow but had now turned grey, teetering on the rear legs of a hard-bottomed chair, with his shoulders against the wall of the house.

There were plenty of inviting-looking chairs scattered about the veranda. There were rugs, and potted plants, and a lounge-swing, with a big lamp suspended from the ceiling, giving light enough over all.

But the master of the Bar-T had selected a straight-backed, hard-bottomed chair, of a kind that he had been used to for half a century and more. He brought the front legs down with a bang as the girl and youth approached.

"What's kept you, Frances?" he asked, mellowly. "Evening, sir! I take it your health's well?"

He put out a hairy hand into which Pratt confided his own and, the next moment, vowed secretly he would never risk it there again! His left hand tingled badly enough since the attentions of the mountain lion. Now his right felt as though it had been in an ore-crusher.

"This is Pratt Sanderson, from Amarillo," the daughter of the ranchman said first of all. "He's a friend of Mrs. Bill Edwards. He was having trouble with a lion over in Brother's Coulie, when I came along. We got the lion; but Pratt got some scratches. Can't Ming find him a flannel shirt, Dad?"

"Of course," agreed Captain Rugley, his eyes twinkling just as Frances'

had a little while before. "You tell him as you go in. Come on, Pratt Sanderson. I'll take a look at your scratches myself."

A shuffle-footed Chinaman brought the shirt to the room Pratt Sanderson had been ushered to by the cordial old ranchman. The Chinaman a.s.sisted the youth to get into the garment, too, for Captain Rugley had already swathed the scratches on Pratt's chest and arm with linen, after treating the wounds with a pungent-smelling but soothing salve.

"San Soo, him alle same have dlinner ready sloon," said Ming, sprinkling 'l's' indiscriminately in his information. "Clapen an' Misse Flank wait on pleaza."

The young fellow, when he was presentable, started back for the "pleaza."

Everything he saw--every appointment of the house--showed wealth, and good taste in the use of it. The old ranchman furnished the former, of course; but n.o.body but Frances, Pratt thought, could have arranged the furnishings and adornments of the house.

The room he was to occupy as a guest was large, square, grey-walled, was hung with bright pictures, a few handsome Navajo blankets, and had heavy soft rugs on the floor. There was a gay drapery in one corner, behind which was a canvas curtain masking a shower bath with nickel fittings.

The water ran off from the shallow marble basin through an open drain under the wall. The bed was of bra.s.s and looked comfortable. There was a big steamer chair drawn invitingly near the window which opened into the court, or garden, around which the house was built.

The style of the building was Spanish, or Mexican. A fountain played in the court and there were trees growing there, among the branches of which a few lanterns were lit, like huge fireflies.

In pa.s.sing back to the front porch of the ranch-house (farther south it would have been called _hacienda_) Pratt noted Spanish and Aztec armor hanging on the walls; high-backed, carven chairs of black oak, mahogany, and other heavy woods; weapons of both modern and ancient Indian manufacture, and those of the style used by Cortez and his cohorts when they marched on the capital city of the great Montezuma.

In a gla.s.s-fronted case, too, hung a brilliant cloak of parakeet feathers such as were worn by the Aztec n.o.bles. Lights had been lit in the hall since he had arrived and the treasures were now revealed for the first time to the startled eye of the visitor.

The sight of these things partially prepared him for the change in Frances' appearance. Her smooth brown skin and her veiled eyes were the same. She still wore her hair in girlish plaits. She was quite the simple, unaffected girl of sixteen. But her dress was white, of some soft and filmy material which looked to the young fellow like spider's web in the moonlight. It was cut a little low at the throat; her arms were bared to the elbow. She wore a heavy, glittering belt of alternate red-gold links and green stones, and on one arm a ma.s.sive, wrought-gold bracelet--a serpent with turquoise eyes.

"Frances is out in her warpaint," chuckled Captain Rugley's mellow voice from the shadow, where he was tipped back in his chair again.

"You gave me these things out of your treasure chest, Daddy, to wear when we had company," said the girl, quite calmly.

She wore the barbarous ornaments with an air of dignity. They seemed to suit her, young as she was. And Pratt knew that the girdle and bracelet must be enormously valuable as well as enormously old.

The expression "treasure chest" was so odd that it stuck in the young man's mind. He was very curious as to what it meant, and determined, when he knew Frances better, to ask about it.

A little silence had fallen after the girl's speech. Then Captain Rugley started forward suddenly and the forelegs of his chair came sharply to the planks.

"h.e.l.lo!" he said, into the darkness outside the radiance of the porch light. "Who's there?"

Frances fluttered out of her chair. Pratt noted that she slipped into the shadow. Neither she nor the Captain had been sitting in the full radiance of the lamp.

The visitor had heard nothing; but he knew that the old ranchman was leaning forward listening intently.

"Who's there?" the captain demanded again.

"Don't shoot, neighbor!" said a hoa.r.s.e voice out of the darkness. "I'm jest a-paddin' of it Amarillo way. Can I get a flop-down and a bite here?"

"Only a tramp, Dad," breathed Frances, with a sigh.

"How did you get into this compound?" demanded Captain Rugley, none the less suspiciously and sternly.

"I come through an open gate. It's so 'tarnal dark, neighbor----"

"You see those lights down yonder?" snapped the Captain. "They are at the bunk-house. Cook'll give you some chuck and a chance to spread your blanket. But don't you let me catch you around here too long after breakfast to-morrow morning. We don't encourage hobos, and we already have all the men hired for the season we want."

"All right, neighbor," said the voice in the darkness, cheerfully--too cheerfully, in fact, Pratt Sanderson thought. An ordinary man--even one with the best intentions in the world--would have been offended by the Captain's brusk words.

A stumbling foot went down the yard. Captain Rugley grunted, and might have said something explanatory, but just then Ming came softly to the door, whining:

"Dlinner, Misse."

"Guess Pratt's hungry, too," grunted the Captain, rising. "Let's go in and see what the neighbors have flung over the back fence."

But sad as the joke was, all that Captain Rugley said seemed so open-hearted and kindly--save only when he was talking to the unknown tramp--that the guest could not consider him vulgar.

The dining-room was long, ma.s.sively furnished, well lit, and the sideboard exposed some rare pieces of old-fashioned silver. Two heavy candelabra--the loot of some old cathedral, and of Spanish manufacture--were set upon either end of the great serving table.

All these treasures, found in the ranch-house of a cowman of the Panhandle, astounded the youth from Amarillo. Nothing Mrs. Bill Edwards had said of Frances of the ranges and her father had prepared him for this display.