"I don't know that anything you may say would interest me," the girl replied, sharply, and turned Molly's head.

"Aw, hold on!" cried Ratty. "Don't be so abrupt. What I gotter say to you may help a lot."

But Frances did not look back. She pushed Molly for the now distant wagon. In a moment she knew that Ratty was thundering after her. What did he mean by such conduct? To tell the truth, the ranchman's daughter was troubled.

Surely, the reckless fellow did not propose to attack Mack and herself on the open trail and in broad daylight? She opened her lips to shout for the sleeping wagon-driver, when a cloud of dust ahead of the mules came into her view.

She heard the clatter of many hoofs. Quite a cavalcade was coming along the trail from the east. Out of the dust appeared a figure that Frances had learned to know well; and to tell the truth she was not sorry in her heart to see the smiling countenance of Pratt Sanderson.

"Hold on, Frances! Ye better listen to me a minute!" shouted the ex-cowboy behind her.

She gave him no attention. Molly sprang ahead and she met Pratt not far from the wagon. He stopped abruptly, as did the girl of the ranges.

Ratty M'Gill brought his own mount to a sudden halt within a few yards.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Pratt. "What's the matter, Frances?"

"Why, Pratt! How came you and your friends to be riding this way?"

returned the range girl.

She saw the red coat of the girl from Boston in the party pa.s.sing the slowly moving wagon, and she was not at all sure that she was glad to see Pratt, after all!

But the young man had seen something suspicious in the manner in which Ratty M'Gill had been following Frances. The fellow now sat easily in his saddle at a little distance and rolled a cigarette, leering in the meantime at the ranch girl and her friend.

"What does that fellow want?" demanded Pratt again.

"Oh, don't mind him," said Frances, hurriedly. "He has been discharged from the Bar-T----"

"That's the fellow you said made the steers stampede?" Pratt interrupted.

"Yes."

"Don't like his looks," the Amarillo young man said, frankly. "Glad we came up as we did."

"But you must go on with your friends, Pratt," said Frances, faintly.

"Goodness! there are enough of them, and the other fellows can get 'em all back to Mr. Bill Edwards' in time for supper," laughed Pratt. "I believe I'll go on with you. Where are you bound?"

"To Peckham's ranch," said Frances, faintly. "We shall stop there to-night."

The rest of the party pa.s.sed, and Frances bowed to them. Sue Latrop looked at the ranch girl, curiously, but scarcely inclined her head.

Frances felt that if she allowed Pratt to escort her she would make the Boston girl more of an enemy than she already felt her to be.

"We--we don't really need you, Pratt," said Frances. "Mack is all right----"

"That fellow asleep on the wagon-seat? Lots of good _he_ is as an escort," laughed Pratt.

"But I don't really need you," said the girl, weakly.

"Oh! don't be so offish!" cried the young man, more seriously. "Don't you suppose I'd be glad of the chance to ride with you for a way?"

"But your friends----"

"You're a friend of mine," said Pratt, seriously. "I don't like the look of that Ratty M'Gill. I'm going to Peckham's with you."

What could Frances say? Ratty leered at her from his saddle. She knew he must be partly intoxicated, for he was very careless with his matches.

He allowed a flaming splinter to fall to the trail, after he lit his cigarette, and, drunk or sober, a cattleman is seldom careless with fire on the plains.

It was mid-pasturage season and the ranges were already dry. A spark might at any time start a serious fire.

"We-ell," gasped Frances, at last. "I can't stop you from coming!"

"Of course not!" laughed Pratt, and quickly turned his grey pony to ride beside the pinto.

The wagon was now a long way ahead. They set off on a gallop to overtake it. But when Frances looked over her shoulder after a minute, Ratty M'Gill still remained on the trail, as though undecided whether to follow or not.

CHAPTER XVII

AN ACCIDENT

It was not until later that Frances was disturbed by the thought that Pratt was suspected by her father of having a strong curiosity regarding the Spanish treasure chest.

"And here he has forced his company upon me," thought the girl. "What would father say, if he knew about it?"

But fortunately Captain Rugley was not at hand with his suspicions.

Frances wished to believe the young man from Amarillo truly her friend; and on this ride toward Peckham's they became better acquainted than before.

That is, the girl of the ranges learned to know Pratt better. The young fellow talked more freely of himself, his mother, his circ.u.mstances.

"Just because I'm in a bank--the Merchants' and Drovers'--in Amarillo doesn't mean that I'm wealthy," laughed Pratt Sanderson. "They don't give me any great salary, and I couldn't afford this vacation if it wasn't for the extra work I did through the cattle-shipping season and the kindness of our president.

"Mother and I are all alone; and we haven't much money," pursued the young man, frankly. "Mother has a relative somewhere whom she suspects may be rich. He was a gold miner once. But I tell her there's no use thinking about rich relatives. They never seem to remember their poor kin. And I'm sure one can't blame them much.

"We have no reason to expect her half-brother to do anything for me.

Guess I'll live and die a poor bank clerk. For, you know, if you haven't money to invest in bank stock yourself, or influential friends in the bank, one doesn't get very high in the clerical department of such an inst.i.tution."

Frances listened to him with deeper interest than she was willing to show in her countenance. They rode along pleasantly together, and nothing marred the journey for a time.

Ratty had not followed them--as she was quite sure he would have done had not Pratt elected to become her escort. And as for the strange teamster who had turned into the trail ahead of them, his outfit had long since disappeared.

Once when Frances rode to the front of the covered wagon to speak to Mack, she saw that Pratt Sanderson lifted a corner of the canvas at the back and took a swift glance at what was within.

Why this curiosity? There was nothing to be seen in the wagon but the corded chest.

Frances sighed. She could credit Pratt with natural curiosity; but if her father had seen that act he would have been quite convinced that the young man from Amarillo was concerned in the attempt to get the treasure.