"Quick, Pratt!" begged Frances. "Get away from him! He will do you some dreadful harm!"

She believed Pete would, too. As Pratt leaped aside, the man bounded up from the bed of hot coals, his shirt afire, and he unable to reach it with his beating hands!

Pratt ran to Frances' side. She pulled Molly's head around and the pony trotted across the clearing, with Pratt staggering along at the stirrup and striving to get his breath.

As they pa.s.sed the spot where the battle had begun, Pratt stooped and secured the rifle. Pete, in rage awful to see, was tearing the smouldering shirt from his back. Then Pete dashed after the escaping pair.

The rifle enc.u.mbered the young man; but if he dropped it he knew the man would hold them at his mercy. So, swinging the weapon up by its barrel, he smashed the stock against a tree trunk.

Again and again he repeated the blow, until the tough wood splintered and the mechanism of the hammer and trigger was bent and twisted. Pete almost caught him. Pratt dashed the remains of the rifle in his face and ran on after Frances.

"I'll catch you yet!" yelled Pete. "And when I do----"

The threat was left incomplete; but the man ran for his own horse.

If Frances had only thought to drive Molly that way and slip the hobbles of Pete's nag, much of what afterward occurred in this hollow by the river bank would never have taken place. She and Pratt would have been immediately free.

It was hours afterward--indeed, almost sunset--that old Captain Rugley, sitting on the broad veranda of the Bar-T ranch-house and expecting Frances to appear at any moment, raised his eyes to see, instead, Victorino Reposa slouching up the steps.

"h.e.l.lo, Vic!" said the Captain. "What do you want?"

"Letter, _Capitan_," said the Mexican, impa.s.sively, removing his big hat and drawing a soiled envelope from within.

"Seen anything of Miss Frances?" asked the ranchman, reaching lazily for the missive.

"No, _Capitan_," responded the boy, and turned away.

The superscription on the envelope puzzled Captain Dan Rugley. "Here, Vic!" he cried after the departing youth. "Where'd you get this? 'Tisn't a mailed letter."

"It was give to me on the trail, _Capitan_," said Victorino, softly. "As I came back from the horse pasture."

"Who gave it to you?" demanded the ranchman, beginning to slit the flap of the envelope.

"I am not informed," said Victorino, still with lowered gaze. "The Senor who presented it declare' it was give to heem by a strange hand at Jackleg. He say he was ride this way----"

The Captain was not listening. Victorino saw that this was a fact and he allowed his words to trail off into nothing, while he, himself, began again to slip away.

The old ranchman was staring at the unfolded sheet with fixed attention.

His brows came together in a portentous frown; and perhaps for the first time in many years his bronzed countenance was washed over by the sickly pallor of fear.

Victorino, stepping softly, had reached the compound gate. Suddenly the forelegs of the ranchman's chair hit the floor of the veranda, and he roared at the Mexican in a voice that made the latter jump and drop the brown paper cigarette he had just deftly rolled.

"You boy! Come back here!" called Captain Rugley. "I want to know what this means."

"Me, _Capitan_?" asked Victorino, softly, and hesitated at the gate. With his employer in this temper he was half-inclined to run in the opposite direction.

"Come here!" commanded the ranchman again. "Who gave you this?" rapping the open letter with a hairy forefinger.

"I do not know, _Capitan_. A strange man--_si_."

"Never saw him before?"

"No, _Capitan_. He was ver' strange to me," whined Victorino, too frightened to tell the truth.

"What did he look like?" shot back the Captain, holding himself in splendid control now. Only his eyes glittered and his lips under the big mustache tightened perceptibly.

"He was beeg man, _Capitan_; rode bay pony; much wheeskers on face," declared Victorino, glibly.

The Captain was silent for half a minute. Then he snapped: "Run find Silent Sam and tell him I want him _p.r.o.nto_. _Sabe?_ Tell Joe to saddle Cherry, and Sam's horse, and you get a saddle on your own, Vic. I'll want you and about half a dozen of the boys who are hanging around the bunk-house. Tell 'em it's important and tell them--yes!--tell them to come armed. In fifteen minutes. Understand?"

"_Si, Capitan_," whispered Victorino, glad to get out from under the ranchman's eye for the time being.

He was the oldest of the Mexican boys employed at the Bar-T, and he had been very friendly with Ratty M'Gill while that reckless individual had belonged to the outfit.

It was Victorino who had let Ratty drive the buckboard to the railroad station one particular day when the cowpuncher wished to meet his friend, Pete, at Cottonwood Bottom.

Now, unthinking and unknowing, he had been drawn by Ratty into a serious trouble. Victorino did not know what it was; but he trembled. He had never seen "_El Capitan_" look so fierce and strange before.

CHAPTER XXV

A PLOT THAT FAILED

Captain Dan Rugley seemed to forget his rheumatism. Excitement is often a strong mental corrective; and with his mind upon the dearest possession of his old age, the ranchman forgot all bodily ills.

Victorino was scarcely out of the compound when the Captain had summoned Ming from the dining-room and San Soo from his pots and pans.

"Put off dinner. Maybe we won't have any dinner to-night, San Soo," said the owner of the Bar-T. "We're in trouble. You and Ming shut the doors when I go out and bar them. Stand watch. Don't let a soul in unless I come back or Miss Frances appears. Understand, boys?"

"Can do," declared the bigger Chinaman, with impa.s.sive face.

"Me understland Clapen velly well," said Ming, who wished always to show that he "spoke Melican."

"All right," returned Captain Rugley. "Help me with this coat, San.

Ming! Bring me my belt and gun. Yes, that's it. It's loaded. Plenty of cartridges in that box? So. Now I'm off," concluded the Captain, and went to the door again to meet Silent Sam Harding, the foreman.

"Read this," jerked out the ranchman, and thrust the crumpled letter into Sam Harding's hand.

Without a word the foreman spread open the paper and studied it. In perfectly plain handwriting he read the following astonishing epistle:

"Captain Dan Rugley, "Bar-T Ranch.

"We've got your girl. She will be held prisoner exactly twenty-four hours from time you receive this. Then, if you have not made arrangements to pay our agent $5,000 (five thousand dolls.), something will happen to your girl. We are willing to put our necks in a noose for the five thousand. Come across, and come across quick. No check. Cash does it. You can get cash at branch bank in Jackleg. We will know when you get cash and then you'll be told who to hand money to and how to find your girl.

Remember, we mean business. You try to trail us, or rescue your daughter without paying five thousand and we'll get square with you by fixing the girl. That's all at present."