"Wal, now!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 a.s.sure 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 circ.u.mstances, 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.

"n.o.body 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.