"FRANCES OF THE RANGES"
The grey was a well-trained cow-pony, for the Edwards' ranch was one of
the latest in that section of the Panhandle to change from cattle to
wheat raising. A part of its range had not as yet been plowed, and Bill
Edwards still had a corral full of good riding stock.
Pratt Sanderson got into his saddle without much trouble and the girl
whistled for Molly.
"I'll throw that lion over my saddle," she said. "Molly won't mind it
much--especially if you hold her bridle with her head up-wind."
"All right, Miss Rugley," the young man returned. "My name is Pratt
Sanderson--I don't know that you know it."
"Very well, Mr. Sanderson," she repeated.
"They don't call me _that_ much," the young fellow blurted out. "I
answer easier to my first name, you know--Pratt."
"Very well, Pratt," said the girl, frankly. "I am Frances
Rugley--Frances Durham Rugley."
She lifted the heavy lion easily, flung it across Molly, and lashed it
to the saddle; then she mounted in a hurry and the ponies started for
the ranch trail which Frances had been following before she heard the
report of the shotgun.
The youth watched her narrowly as they rode along through the dropping
darkness. She was a well-matured girl for her age, not too tall, her
limbs rounded, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh. Perhaps she
knew of his scrutiny; but her face remained calm and she did not return
his gaze. They talked of inconsequential things as they rode along.
Pratt Sanderson thought: "_What_ a girl she is! Mrs. Edwards is
right--she's the finest specimen of girlhood on the range, bar none! And
she is more than a little intelligent--quite literary, don't you know,
if what they say is true of her. Where did _she_ learn to plan
pageants? Not in one of these schoolhouses on the ranges, I bet an
apple! And she's a cowgirl, too. Rides like a female Centaur; shoots, of
course, and throws a rope. Bet she knows the whole trade of cattle
herding.
"Yet there isn't a girl who went to school with me at the Amarillo High
who looks so well-bred, or who is so sure of herself and so easy to
converse with."
For her part, Frances was thinking: "And he doesn't remember a thing
about me! Of course, he was a senior when I was in the junior class. He
has already forgotten most of his schoolmates, I suppose.
"But that night of Cora Grimshaw's party he danced with me six times. He
was in the bank then, and had forgotten all 'us kids,' I suppose. Funny
how suddenly a boy grows up when he gets out of school and into
business. But me----
"Well! I should have known him if we hadn't met for twenty years.
Perhaps that's because he is the first boy I ever danced with--in town,
I mean. The boys on the ranch don't count."
Her tranquil face and manner had not betrayed--nor did they betray
now--any of her thoughts about this young fellow whom she remembered so
clearly, but who plainly had not taxed his memory with her.
That was the way of Frances Durham Rugley. A great deal went on in her
mind of which nobody--not even Captain Dan Rugley, her father--dreamed.
Left motherless at an early age, the ranchman's daughter had grown to
her sixteenth year different from most girls. Even different from most
other girls of the plains and ranges.
For ten years there was not a woman's face--white, black, or red--on the
Bar-T acres. The Captain had married late in life, and had loved
Frances' mother devotedly. When she died suddenly the man could not bear
to hear or see another woman on the place.
Then Frances grew into his heart and life, and although the old wound
opened as the ranchman saw his daughter expand, her love and
companionship was like a healing balm poured into his sore heart.
The man's strong, fierce nature suddenly went out to his child and she
became all and all to him--just as her mother had been during the few
years she had been spared to him.
So the girl's schooling was cut short--and Frances loved books and the
training she had received at the Amarillo schools. She would have loved
to go on--to pass her examinations for college preparation, and finally
get her diploma and an A. B., at least, from some college.
That, however, was not to be. Old Captain Rugley lavished money on her
like rain, when she would let him. She used some of the money to buy
books and a piano and pay for a teacher for the latter to come to the
ranch, while she spent much midnight oil studying the books by herself.
Captain Rugley's health was not all it should have been. Frances could
not now leave him for long.
Until recently the old ranchman had borne lightly his seventy years. But
rheumatism had taken hold upon him and he did not stand as straight as
of old, nor ride so well.
He was far from an invalid; but Frances realized--more than he did,
perhaps--that he had finished his scriptural span of life, and that his
present years were borrowed from that hardest of taskmasters, Father
Time.
Often it was Frances who rode the ranges, instead of Captain Rugley,
viewing the different herds, receiving the reports of underforemen and
wranglers, settling disputes between the punchers themselves, looking
over chuck outfits, buying hay, overseeing brandings, and helping cut
out fat steers for the market trail.
There was nothing Frances of the ranges did not know about the
cattle-raising business. And she was giving some attention to the new
grain-raising ideas that had come into the Panhandle with the return of
the first-beaten farming horde.
For the Texas Panhandle has had its two farming booms. The first advance
of the farmers into the ranges twenty-five years or more before had been
a rank failure.
"They came here and plowed up little spots in our parsters that air
eyesores now," one old cowman said, "and then beat it back East when
they found it didn't rain 'cordin' ter schedule. This land ain't good
for nothin' 'cept cows."
But this had been in the days of the old unfenced ranges, and before
dry-farming had become a science. Now the few remaining cattlemen kept
their pastures fenced, and began to think of raising other feed than
river-bottom hay.
The cohorts of agriculturists were advancing; the cattlemen were falling
back. The ancient staked plains of the Spanish _conquestadors_ were
likely to become waving wheat fields and smiling orchards.
The young girl and her companion could not travel fast to the Bar-T
ranch-house for two reasons: Pratt Sanderson was sore all over, and the
mountain lion slung across Frances' pony caused some trouble. The pinto
objected to carrying double--especially when an occasional draft of
evening air brought the smell of the lion to her nostrils.
The young fellow admired the way in which the girl handled her mount. He
had seen many half-wild horsemen at the Amarillo street fairs, and the
like; since coming to Bill Edwards' place he had occasionally observed a
good rider handling a mean cayuse. But this man-handling of a half-wild
pony was nothing like the graceful control Frances of the ranges had
over Molly. The pinto danced and whirled and snorted, and once almost
got her quivering nose down between her knees--the first position of the
bucking horse.
At every point Frances met her mount with a stern word, or a firm rein,
or a touch of the spur or quirt, which quickly took the pinto's mind off
her intention of "acting up."
"You are wonderful!" exclaimed the youth, excitedly. "I wish I could
ride half as good as you do, Miss Frances."
Frances smiled. "You did not begin young enough," she said. "My father
took me in his arms when I was a week old and rode a half-wild mustang
twenty miles across the ranges to exhibit me to the man who was our
next-door neighbor in those days. You see, my tuition began early."
It was not yet fully dark, although the ranch-house lamps were lit, when
they came to the home corral and the big fenced yard in front of the
Bar-T.
Two boys ran out to take the ponies. One of these Frances instructed to
saddle a fresh pony and ride to the Edwards place with word that Pratt
Sanderson would remain all night at the Bar-T.
The other boy was instructed to give the mountain lion to one of the
men, that the pelt might be removed and properly stretched for curing.
"Come right in, Pratt," said the girl, with frank cordiality. "You'll
have a chance for a wash and a brush before supper. And dad will find
you some clean clothes.
"There's dad on the porch, though he's forbidden the night air unless he
puts a coat on. Oh, he's a very, very bad patient, indeed!"