The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M'Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that there was something down stream that he ought to look into.

Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or pa.s.sed, on the river bank?

Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards' place, Pratt was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he turned his grey pony's head back toward the river.

"Where are you going, Pratt?" demanded one of his friends.

"I've forgotten something," the young man from Amarillo replied.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Sue Latrop. "He's forgotten his cute, little cattle queen. Give her my love, Pratt."

The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his estimation--that was sure!

He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the direction from which Ratty M'Gill had come.

Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly's hoofs. But when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept on.

He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his ears forward.

Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey's nostrils between thumb and finger. In the distance a pony whinnied. Was it Molly?

"You just keep still, you little nuisance!" whispered Pratt to his mount. "Don't want you whinnying to any strange horse."

He got out of the saddle and led his pony for some rods. The brush was thick and there was no bridle-path. He feared to go farther without knowing what and who was ahead, and he tied the grey--taking pattern by Frances and tying his head up-wind.

The young fellow hesitated about taking the shotgun he had used in the jack-rabbit hunt. There was a sheath fastened to his saddle for the weapon, and he finally left it therein.

Pratt really thought that nothing of a serious nature had happened to his girl friend. Seeing Ratty M'Gill had reminded him that the cowpuncher had once troubled Frances, and Pratt had ridden down this way to offer his escort to the old ranchman's daughter.

He had no thought of the man who had held them up at the lower ford, toward Peckham's, the evening of the prairie fire; nor did he connect the cowpuncher and that ruffian in his mind.

"If I take that gun, the muzzle will make a noise in the bushes, or the hammer will catch on something," thought Pratt.

So he left the shotgun behind and went on unarmed toward the place where Frances was even then sitting under the keen eye of Pete.

"You keep where ye are, Miss," growled that worthy when Ratty rode away.

"I will sure tie ye if ye make an attempt to get away. You have fell right into my han's, and I vow you'll make me some money. Your father's got a plenty----"

"You mean to make him ransom me?" asked Frances, quietly.

"That's the ticket," said Pete, nodding, and searching his ragged clothing for a pipe, which he finally drew out and filled. "He's got money. I've spent what I brought up yere to the Panhandle with me. And I b'lieve you made me lose my wagon and that other horse."

Frances made no rejoinder to this last, but she said:

"Father may be willing to pay something for my release. But you and Ratty will suffer in the end."

"We'll risk that," said the man, puffing at his pipe, and nodding thoughtfully.

"You'd better let me go now," said the girl, with no display of fear.

"And you'd better give up any further attempt to get at the old chest that Mr. Lonergan talked about."

"Hey!" exclaimed the man, startled. "What d'ye know about Lonergan?"

"He will be at the ranch in a few days, and if there is any more treasure than you found in that old trunk you stole from me, he will get his share and there will no longer be any treasure chest. Make up your mind to that."

"You know who I am and what I come up yere for?" demanded Pete, eying her malevolently.

"Yes. I know you are the man who tried to steal in over the roof of our house, too. If you make my father any angrier with you than he is now, he will prosecute you all the more sharply when you are arrested."

"You shut up!" growled Pete. "I ain't going to be arrested."

"Both you and Ratty will be punished in the end," said Frances, calmly.

"Men like you always are."

"Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don't you be too sa.s.sy, understand?

I could squeeze yer breath out!"

He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first thing that really frightened the girl--it was so wicked!

She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization that she was in this man's power, and that he had reason to hate her, shook her usually steady nerves.

After all, Ratty M'Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a bald-headed buzzard, such as she had seen roosting on dead trees or old barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo.

Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze--and perhaps the fellow knew it.

It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way.

Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She knew that she was at his mercy.

When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go faintly in her cheeks.

Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with--for from babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and corral--she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment which is natural to men of the open.

Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very highest instincts of the race.

Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men she expected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man is noted.

But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of him.

And he realized her att.i.tude of fear and worked upon her emotions until she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams.

Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name.

"Frances! what is the matter with you?"

"Oh!" she gasped. "Pratt!"

The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look so strange.