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[Illustration: FRANCES PULLED BACK ON MOLLY'S BRIDLE REINS. Frontispiece
(Page 125).]
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
OR
THE OLD RANCHMAN'S TREASURE
BY
AMY BELL MARLOWE
AUTHOR OF
THE OLDEST OF FOUR, THE GIRLS OF HILLCREST FARM, WYN'S CAMPING
DAYS, ETC.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
Copyright, 1915, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Frances of the Ranges
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. THE ADVENTURE IN THE COULIE 1
II. "FRANCES OF THE RANGES" 11
III. THE OLD SPANISH CHEST 19
IV. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 34
V. THE SHADOW IN THE COURT 41
VI. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION 49
VII. THE STAMPEDE 57
VIII. IN PERIL AND OUT 65
IX. SURPRISING NEWS 75
X. THE MAN FROM BYLITTLE 87
XI. FRANCES ACTS 98
XII. MOLLY 109
XIII. THE GIRL FROM BOSTON 115
XIV. THE CONTRAST 125
XV. IN THE FACE OF DANGER 131
XVI. A FRIEND INSISTENT 140
XVII. AN ACCIDENT 151
XVIII. THE WAVE OF FLAME 160
XIX. MOST ASTONISHING! 171
XX. THE BOSTON GIRL AGAIN 182
XXI. IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY 192
XXII. WHAT PRATT THOUGHT 204
XXIII. A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER 212
XXIV. A GOOD DEAL OF EXCITEMENT 223
XXV. A PLOT THAT FAILED 229
XXVI. FRANCES IN SOFTER MOOD 242
XXVII. A DINNER DANCE IN PROSPECT 253
XXVIII. THE BURSTING OF THE CHRYSALIS 271
XXIX. "THE PANHANDLE--PAST AND PRESENT" 283
XXX. A REUNION 295
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
CHAPTER I
THE ADVENTURE IN THE COULIE
The report of a bird gun made the single rider in sight upon the
short-grassed plain pull in her pinto and gaze westerly toward the
setting sun, now going down in a field of golden glory.
The pinto stood like a statue, and its rider seemed a part of the steed,
so well did she sit in her saddle. She gazed steadily under her
hand--gazed and listened.
Finally, she murmured: "That's the snarl of a lion--sure. Get up,
Molly!"
The pinto sprang forward. There was a deep coulie ahead, with a low
range of grass-covered hills beyond. Through those hills the lions often
came down onto the grazing plains. It was behind these hills that the
sun was going down, for the hour was early.
As she rode, the girl loosened the gun she carried in the holster slung
at her hip. On her saddle horn was coiled a hair rope.
She was dressed in olive green--her blouse, open at the throat, divided
skirts, leggings, and broad-brimmed hat of one hue. Two thick plaits of
sunburned brown hair hung over her shoulders, and to her waist. Her grey
eyes were keen and rather solemn. Although the girl on the pinto could
not have been far from sixteen, her face seemed to express a serious
mind.
The scream of that bane of the cattlemen--the mountain lion--rang out
from the coulie again. The girl clapped her tiny spurs against the
pinto's flanks, and that little animal doubled her pace. In a minute
they were at the head of the slope and the girl could see down into the
coulie, where low mesquite shrubs masked the bottom and the little
spring that bubbled there.
Something was going on down in the coulie. The bushes waved; something
rose and fell in their midst like a flail. There was a voice other than
that of the raucous tones of the lion, and which squalled almost as
loudly!
A little to one side of the shrubs stood a quivering grey pony, its ears
pointed toward the rumpus in the shrubs, blowing and snorting. The rider
of that empty saddle was plainly in trouble with the snarling lion.
The cattlemen of the Panhandle looked upon the lion as they did upon the
coyote--save that the former did more damage to the herds. Roping the
lion, or shooting it with the pistol, was a general sport. But caught in
a corner, the beast--unlike the coyote--would fight desperately. Whoever
had attacked this one had taken on a larger contract than he could
handle. That was plain.
Urged by the girl the pinto went down the slope of the hollow on a keen
run. At the bottom she snorted and swerved from the mesquite clump. The
smell of the lion was strong in Molly's nostrils.
"Stand still, Molly!" commanded the girl, and was out of the saddle with
an ease that seemed phenomenal. She ran straight toward the thrashing
bushes, pistol in hand.
The lion leaped, and the person who had been beating it off with the
shotgun was borne down under the attack. Once those sabre-sharp claws
got to work, the victim of the lion's charge would be viciously torn.
The girl saw the gun fly out of his hands. The lion was too close upon
its prey for her to use the pistol. She slipped the weapon back into its
holster and picked up the shotgun. Plunging through the bushes she swung
the gun and knocked the beast aside from its prey. The blow showed the
power in her young arms and shoulders. The lion rolled over and over,
half stunned.
"Quick!" she advised the victim of the lion's attack. "He'll be back at
us."
Indeed, scarcely had she spoken when the brute scrambled to its feet.
The girl shouldered the gun and pulled the other trigger as the beast
leaped.
There was no report. Either there was no shell in that barrel, or
something had fouled the trigger. The lion, all four paws spread, and
each claw displayed, sailed through the air like a bat, or a flying
squirrel. Its jaws were wide open, its teeth bared, and the screech it
emitted was, in truth, a terrifying sound.
The girl realized that the original victim of the lion's attack was
scrambling to his feet. She dropped to her knee and kept the muzzle of
the gun pointed directly for the beast's breast. The empty gun was her
only defense in that perilous moment.
"Grab my gun! Here in the holster!" she panted.
The lion struck against the muzzle of the shotgun, and the girl--in
spite of the braced position she had taken--was thrown backward to the
ground. As she fell the pistol was drawn from its holster.
The empty shotgun had saved her from coming into the embrace of the
angry lion, for while she fell one way, the animal went another. Then
came three shots in rapid succession.
She scrambled to her feet, half laughing, and dusting the palms of her
gantlets. The lion was lying a dozen yards away, while the victim of its
attack stood near, the blue smoke curling from the revolver.
"My goodness!"
After the excitement was all over that exclamation from the girl seemed
unnecessary. But the fact that startled her was, that it was not a man
at all to whose aid she had come. He was a youth little older than
herself.
"I say!" this young man exclaimed. "That was plucky of you,
Miss--awfully plucky, don't you know! That creature would have torn me
badly in another minute."
The girl nodded, but seemed suddenly dumb. She was watching the youth
keenly from under the longest, silkiest lashes, it seemed to Pratt
Sanderson, he had ever seen.
"I hope you're not hurt?" he said, shyly, extending the pistol toward
the girl. She stood with her hands upon her hips, panting a little, and
with plenty of color in her brown cheeks.
"How about you?" she asked, shortly.
It was true the young man appeared much the worse for the encounter. In
the first place, he stood upon one foot, a good deal like a crane, for
his left ankle had twisted when he fell. His left arm, too, was
wrenched, and he felt a tingling sensation all through the member, from
the shoulder to the tips of his fingers.
Beside, his sleeve was ripped its entire length, and the lion's claws
had cut deep into his arm. The breast of his shirt was in strips.
"I say! I'm hurt, worse than I thought, eh?" he said, a little
uncertainly. He wavered a moment on his sound foot, and then sank slowly
to the grass.
"Wait! Don't let yourself go!" exclaimed the girl, getting into quick
action. "It isn't so bad."
She ran for the leather water-bottle that hung from her saddle. Molly
had stood through the trouble without moving. Now the girl filled the
bottle at the spring.
Pratt Sanderson was lying back on his elbows, and the white lids were
lowered over his black eyes.
The treatment the range girl gave him was rather rough, but extremely
efficacious. She dashed half the contents of the bottle into his face,
and he sat up, gasping and choking. She tore away his tattered shirt in
a most matter-of-fact manner and began to bathe the scratches on his
chest with her kerchief (quickly unknotted from around her throat),
which she had saturated with water. Fortunately, the wounds were not
very deep, after all.
"You--you must think me a silly sort of chap," he gasped. "Foolish to
keel over like this----"
"You haven't been used to seeing blood," the girl observed. "That makes
a difference. I've been binding up the boys' cuts and bruises all my
life. Never was such a place as the old Bar-T for folks getting hurt."
"Bar-T?" ejaculated the young man, with sudden interest. "Then you must
be Miss Rugley, Captain Dan Rugley's daughter?"
"Yes, sir," said the girl, quietly. "Captain Rugley is my father."
"And you're going to put on that very clever spectacle at the Jackleg
schoolhouse next month? I've heard all about it--and what you have done
toward making it what Bill Edwards calls a howling success. I'm stopping
with Bill. Mrs. Edwards is my mother's friend, and I'm the advance guard
of a lot of Amarillo people who are coming out to the Edwardses just to
see your 'Pageant of the Panhandle.' Bill and his wife are no end
enthusiastic about it."
The deeper color had gradually faded out of the girl's cheeks. She was
cool enough now; but she kept her eyes lowered, just the same. He would
have liked to see their expression once more. There had been a startled
look in their grey depths when first she glanced at him.
"I am afraid they make too much of my part in the affair," said she,
quietly. "I am only one of the committee----"
"But they say you wrote it all," the young fellow interposed, eagerly.
"Oh--_that_! It happened to be easy for me to do so. I have always
been deeply interested in the Panhandle--'The Great American Desert' as
the old geographies used to call all this great Middle West, of Kansas,
Nebraska, the Indian Territory, and Upper Texas.
"My father crossed it among the first white men from the Eastern States.
He came back here to settle--long before I was born, of course--when a
plow had never been sunk in these range lands. He belongs to the old
cattle regime. He wouldn't hear until lately of putting wheat into any
of the Bar-T acres."
"Ah, well, by all accounts he is one of the few men who still know how
to make money out of cows," laughed Pratt Sanderson. "Thank you, Miss
Rugley. I can't let you do anything more for me----"
"You are a long way from the Edwards' place," she said. "You'd better
ride to the Bar-T for the night. We will send a boy over there with a
message, if you think Mrs. Edwards will be worried."
"I suppose I'd better do as you say," he said, rather ruefully. "Mrs.
Edwards _will_ be worried about my absence over supper time. She
says I'm such a tenderfoot."
For a moment a twinkle came into the veiled grey eyes; the new
expression illumined the girl's face like a flash of sunlight across the
shadowed field.
"You rather back up her opinion when you tackle a lion with nothing but
birdshot--and one barrel of your gun fouled in the bargain," she said.
"Don't you think so?"
"But I killed it with a revolver!" exclaimed the young fellow,
struggling to his feet again.
"That pistol throws a good-sized bullet," said the ranchman's daughter,
smiling. "But I'd never think of picking a quarrel with a lion unless I
had a good rope, or something that threw heavier lead than birdshot."
He looked at her, standing there in the after-glow of the sunset, with
honest admiration in his eyes.
"I _am_ a tenderfoot, I guess," he admitted. "And you were not
scared for a single moment!"
"Oh, yes, I was," and Frances Rugley's laugh was low and musical. "But
it was all over so quickly that the scare didn't have a chance to show.
Come on! I'll catch your pony, and we'll make the Bar-T before supper
time."