Frances of the Ranges Part 11

"We went after him just the same. He was with a crowd of regular bandits, we found out. And they were aiming to clean up Senor Milo Morales' _hacienda_.

"We got onto their plans, and we rode hard to the _hacienda_ to head them off. We knew the old Spaniard--as fine a Castilian gentleman as ever stepped in shoe-leather.

"We stopped with him a while, beat off the bandits, and captured our man. After everything quieted down (as we thought) we started for the Border with the prisoner. Senor Morales was an old man, without chick or child, and not a relative in the world to leave his wealth to. His was one of the few Castilian families that had run out. Neither in Mexico nor in Spain did he have a blood tie.

"His vast estates he had already willed to the Church. Such faithful servants as he had (and they were few, for the _peon_ is not noted for grat.i.tude) he had already taken care of.

"Lon and I had saved his life as well as his personal property, he was good enough to say, and he showed us this treasure chest and what was in it. When he pa.s.sed on, he said, it should be ours if we were fixed so we could get it before the Mexican authorities stepped in and grabbed it all, or before bandits cleaned out the _hacienda_. It was a toss-up in those days between the two, which was the most voracious!

"Well, Frances, that's how it stood when we rode away with Simon Hawkins lashed to a pony between us. Before we reached the river we heard of a big band of outlaws that had come down from the Sierras and were trailing over toward Morales'.

"We hurried back, leaving Simon staked down in a hide-out we knew of.

But Lon and I were too late," said the old Captain, shaking his head sadly. "Those scoundrels had got there ahead of us, led by the men we had first beaten off, and they had done their worst.

"The good old Senor--as harmless and lovely a soul as ever lived--had been brutally murdered. One or two of his servants had been killed, too--for appearance's sake, I suppose. The others, especially the _vaqueros_, had joined the outlaws, and the _hacienda_ was being looted.

"But Lon and I took a chance, stole in by night, found the treasure chest, and slipped away with it. I went back alone before dawn, found a six-mule team already loaded with household stuff and drove off with it, thus stealing from the thieves.

"A good many of these fine old things we have here were on that wagon. I decided that they belonged to me as much as to anybody. Get them once over the boundary into G.o.d's country and the thieving Mexican Government--only one degree removed at that time from the outlaws themselves--would not dare lay claim to them.

"We did this," concluded Captain Dan, with a sigh of reminiscence, and with his eyes s.h.i.+ning, "and we got Simon into the jail at Elberad, too.

"Lon and I kept on up into Arizona, into Dry Bone Canon, and there we cached the stuff. Air and sand are so dry there that nothing ever decays, and so all these rugs and hangings and featherwork were uninjured when I brought them away to this ranch soon after you were born.

"That's the story, my dear. I never talk much about it, for it isn't altogether my secret. You see, my old partner, Lon, was in on it. And now he's going to come for his share----"

"Come for his share, Daddy?" asked Frances, in surprise.

"Yes--sir-ree--sir!" chuckled the old ranchman. "Think I'm going to let old Lon stay in that soldiers' home? Not much!"

"But will he be able to travel here to the Panhandle?"

"Of course! What the matter is with Lon, he's been shut indoors. I know what it is. Why! he's younger than I am by a year or two."

"But if he can't travel alone----"

"I'll go after him! I'll hire a private car! My goodness! I'll hire a whole train if it's necessary to get him out of that Bylittle place!

That's what I'll do!

"And he shall live here with us--so he shall! He and I will divide this treasure just as I've been aching to do for years. You shall have jewels then, my girl!"

"But, dear!" gasped Frances, "you are not well enough to go so far."

"Now, don't bother, Frances. Your old dad isn't dead yet--not by any means! I'll be all right in a day or two."

But Captain Rugley was not all right in so short a time. He actually grew worse. Frances sent a messenger for the doctor the very next morning. Whether it was from the exposure of the night the stranger tried to climb over the _hacienda_ roof or not, Captain Rugley took to his bed. The physician p.r.o.nounced it rheumatic fever, and a very serious case indeed.

CHAPTER X

THE MAN FROM BYLITTLE

Responsibility weighed heavily upon the young shoulders of Frances of the ranges in these circ.u.mstances.

Old Captain Rugley insisted upon being out of doors, ill as he was, and they made him as comfortable as possible on a couch in the court where the fountain played. Ming was in attendance upon him all day long, for Frances had many duties to call her away from the ranch-house at this time. But at night she slept almost within touch of the sick man's bed.

He did not get better. The physician declared that he was not in immediate danger, although the fever would have to run its course. The pain that racked his body was hard to bear; and although he was a stoic in such matters, Frances would see his jaws clench and the muscles knot in his cheeks; and she often wiped the drops of agony from his forehead while striving to hide the tears that came into her own eyes.

He demanded to know how long he was "going to be laid by the heels"; and when he learned that the doctor could not promise him a swift return to health, Captain Rugley began to worry.

It was of his old partner he thought most. That the affairs of the ranch would go on all right in the hands of his young daughter and Silent Sam, he seemed to have no doubt. But the letter from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home was forever troubling him. Between his spells of agony, or when his mind was really clear, he talked to Frances of little but Jonas Lonergan and the treasure chest.

"He is troubling his mind about something, and it is not good for him,"

the doctor, who came every third day (and had a two hundred-mile jaunt by train and buckboard), told Frances. "Can't you calm his mind, Miss Frances?"

She told the medical man as much about her father's ancient friend as she thought was wise. "He desires to have him brought here," she explained, "so that they can go over, face to face and eye to eye, their old battles and adventures."

"Good! Bring the man--have him brought," said the physician.

"But he is an old soldier," said Frances. She read aloud that part of the Reverend Decimus Tooley's letter relating to the state of Mr.

Lonergan's health.

"Don't know what we can do about it, then," said the doctor, who was a native of the Southwest himself. "Your father and the old fellow seem to be 'honing' for each other. Too bad they can't meet. It would do your father good. I don't like his mind's being troubled."

That night Frances was really frightened. Her father began muttering in his sleep. Then he talked aloud, and sat up in bed excitedly, his face flushed, and his tongue becoming clearer, although his speech was not lucid.

He was going over in his distraught mind the adventures he had had with Lon when they two had foiled the bandits and recovered possession of the Senor's treasure chest.

Frances begged him to desist, but he did not know her. He babbled of the long journey with the mule team into the mouth of Dry Bone Canon, and the caching of the treasure. For an hour he talked steadily and then, growing weaker, gradually sank back on his pillows and became silent.

But the effort was very weakening. Frances telephoned from the nearest station for the doctor. Something _had_ to be done, for the exertion and excitement of the night had left Captain Rugley in a state that troubled the girl much.

She had no friend of her own s.e.x. Mrs. Bill Edwards was a city woman whom, after all, she scarcely knew, for the lady had not been married to Mr. Edwards more than a year.

There were other good women scattered over the ranges--some "nesters,"

some small cattle-raisers' wives, and some of the new order of Panhandle farmers; but Frances had never been in close touch with them.

The social gatherings at the church and schoolhouse at Jackleg had been attended by Frances and Captain Rugley; but the Bar-T folk really had no near neighbors.

The girl's interest in the forthcoming pageant had called the attention of other people to her more than ever before; but to tell the truth the young folk were rather awe-stricken by Frances' abilities as displayed in the preparation for the entertainment, while the older people did not know just how to treat the wealthy ranchman's daughter--whether as a person of mature years, or as a child.

Riding back from the railroad station, where one of the boys with the buckboard three hours later would meet the physician, she thought of these facts. Somehow, she had never felt so lonely--so cut off from other people as she did right now.

The railroad crossed one corner of the Bar-T's vast fenced ranges; but there were twenty long miles between the house and the station. She had ridden Molly hard coming over to speak to the doctor on the telephone; but she took it easy going back.

Somewhere along the trail she would meet the buckboard and ponies going over to meet the doctor. And as she walked her pony down the slope of the trail into Cottonwood Bottom, she thought she heard the rattle of the buckboard wheels ahead.