SURPRISING NEWS
Frances arrived at home about noon. The last few miles she bestrode
Molly, for that intelligent creature had allowed herself to be caught.
It was too late to go on the errand to Cottonwood Bottom before
luncheon.
Silent Sam Harding met her at the corral gate. He was a lanky, saturnine
man, with never a laugh in his whole make-up. But he was liked by the
men, and Frances knew him to be faithful to the Bar-T interests.
"What happened to Ratty's bunch?" he asked, in his sober way.
"Did you see them?" cried Frances, leaping down from the saddle.
"Saw their dust," said Sam.
"They stampeded," Frances said, warmly. "And Mr. Sanderson and I lost
our ponies--pretty nearly had a bad accident, Sam," and she went on to
give the foreman of the ranch the particulars. "I thought something was
wrong. I got that little grey hawse of Bill Edwards'. He just come in,"
said Sam.
"Ratty M'Gill was running those steers," Frances told him. "I must
report him to daddy. He's been warned before. I think Ratty's got some
whiskey."
"I shouldn't wonder. There was a bootlegger through here yesterday."
"The man who tried to get over our roof!" exclaimed Frances.
"Mebbe."
"Do you suppose he's known to Ratty?" questioned the girl, anxiously.
"Dunno. But Ratty's about worn out his welcome on the Bar-T. If the Cap
says the word, I'll can him."
"Well," said Frances, "he shouldn't have driven that herd so hard. I'll
have to speak to daddy about it, Sam, though I hate to bother him just
now. He's all worked up over that business of last night."
"Don't understand it," said the foreman, shaking his head.
"Could it have been the bootlegger?" queried Frances, referring to the
illicit whiskey seller of whom she suspected the irresponsible Ratty
M'Gill had purchased liquor. The "bootleggers" were supposed to carry
pint flasks of bad whiskey in the legs of their topboots, to sell at a
fancy price to thirsty punchers on the ranges.
"Dunno how that slate come broken on the roof," grumbled Sam. "The
feller knowed just where to go to hitch his rope ladder. Goin' to have
one of the boys ride herd on the _hacienda_ at night for a while."
This was a long speech for Silent Sam.
Frances thanked him and went up to the house. She did not find an
opportunity of speaking to Captain Rugley about Ratty M'Gill at once,
however, for she found him in a state of great excitement.
"Listen to this, Frances!" he ejaculated, when she appeared, waving a
sheet of paper in his hand, and trying to get up from the hard chair in
which he was sitting.
A spasm of pain balked him; his bronzed face wrinkled as the rheumatic
twinge gripped him; but his hawklike eyes gleamed.
"My! my!" he grunted. "This pain is something fierce."
Frances fluttered to his side. "Do take an easier chair, Daddy," she
begged. "It will be so much more comfortable."
"Hold on! this does very well. Your old dad's never been used to
cushions and do-funnies. But see here! I want you to read this." He
waved the paper again.
"What is it, Daddy?" Frances asked, without much curiosity.
"Heard from old Lon at last--yes, ma'am! What do you know about that?
From good old Lon, who was my partner for twenty years. I've got a
letter here that one of the boys brought from the station just now, from
a minister, back in Mississippi. Poor old Lon's in a soldier's home, and
he's just got track of me.
"My soul and body, Frances! Think of it," added the excited Captain.
"He's been living almost like a beggar for years in a Confederate
soldiers' home--good place, like enough, of its kind, but here am I
rolling in wealth, and that treasure chest right here under my eye, and
Lon suffering, perhaps----"
The Captain almost broke down, for with the pain he was enduring and
all, the incident quite unstrung him. Frances had her arms about him and
kissed his tear-streaked cheek.
"Foolish, am I?" he demanded, looking up at her, "But it's broken me
up--hearing from my old partner this way. Read the letter, Frances,
won't you?"
She did so. It was from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, of
Bylittle, Mississippi.
"Captain Daniel Rugley,
"Bar-T Ranch,
"Texas Panhandle.
"Dear Sir:
"I am writing in behalf of an old soldier in this institution,
one Jonas P. Lonergan, who was at one time a member of Company
K, Texas Rangers, and who before that time served honorably in
Company P, Fifth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, during the
War between the States.
"Mr. Lonergan is a sadly broken man, having passed through much
evil after his experiences on the Border and in Mexico in your
company. Indeed, his whole life has been one of privation and
hardship. Now, bent with years, he has been obliged to seek
refuge with some of his ancient comrades at Bylittle.
"In several private talks with me, Captain Rugley, he has
mentioned the incidents relating to the looting and destruction
of Senor Morales' _hacienda_, over the Border in Mexico,
while you and he were on detail in that vicinity as Rangers.
"Perhaps the old man is rambling; but he always talks of a
treasure chest which he claims you and he rescued from the
bandits and removed into Arizona, hiding the same in a certain
valley at the mouth of a canyon which he calls Dry Bone Canyon.
"Mr. Lonergan always speaks of you as 'the whitest man who ever
lived.' 'If my old partner, Captain Dan, knew how I was fixed or
where I was, he'd have me rollin' in luxury in no time,' he has
said to me; 'providing he's this same Captain Dan Rugley that's
owner of the Bar-T Ranch in the Panhandle.'
"You know (if you know him at all) that Mr. Lonergan had no
educational advantages. Such men have difficulty in keeping up
communication with their friends.
"He claims to have lost track of you twenty-odd years ago. That
when you separated you both swore to divide equally the contents
of Senor Morales' treasure chest, the hiding place of which at
that time was in a hostile country, Geronimo and his braves
being on the warpath.
"If you are Jonas P. Lonergan's old-time partner you will
remember the particulars more clearly than I can state them.
"If this be the case, I am sure I need only state the above and
certify to the identity of Mr. Lonergan, to bring from you an
expression of your remembrance and the statement whether or no
any property to which Mr. Lonergan might make a claim is in your
possession.
"Mr. L. speaks much of the treasure chest and tells marvelous
stories of its contents. He does not seem to desire wealth for
himself, however, for he well knows that he has but a few months
to live, nor does he seem ever to have cared greatly for money.
"His anxiety is for the condition of a sister of his who was
left a widow some years ago, and for her son. Mr. L. fears that
the nephew has not the chance of getting on in life that he
would like the boy to have. In his old age Mr. L. feels keenly
the fact that he was never able to do anything for his family,
and the fate of his widowed sister and her son is much on his
mind.
"A prompt reply, Captain Rugley, if you are the old-time partner
of my ancient friend, will be gratefully received by the
undersigned, and joyfully by Mr. Lonergan.
"Respectfully,
"(Rev.) Decimus Tooley."
"Why! what do you think of that?" gasped Frances, when she had read the
letter to the very last word.
Her father's face was shining and there were tears in his eyes. His joy
at hearing from his old companion-in-arms was unmistakable.
This turning up of Jonas Lonergan meant the parting with a portion of
the mysterious wealth that the old ranchman kept hidden in the Spanish
chest--wealth that he might easily keep if he would.
Frances was proud of him. Never for an instant did he seem to worry
about parting with the treasure to Lonergan. His fears for it had never
been the fears of a miser who worshiped wealth--no, indeed!
Now it was plain that the thought of seeing his old partner alive again,
and putting into his hands the part of the treasure rightfully belonging
to him, delighted Captain Dan Rugley in every fibre of his being.
"The poor old codger!" exclaimed the ranchman, affectionately. "And to
think of Lon being in need, and living poor--maybe actually
suffering--when I've been doing so well here, and have had this old
chest right under my thumb all these years.
"You see, Frances," said the Captain, making more of an explanation than
ever before, "Lon and I got possession of that chest in a funny way.
"We'd been sent after as mean a man as ever infested the Border--and
there were some mighty mean men along the Rio Grande in those days. He
had slipped across the Border to escape us; but in those times we didn't
pay much attention to the line between the States and Mexico.
"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 gratitude) 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 passed 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 God'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 shining, "and we got Simon into the jail at Elberad, too.
"Lon and I kept on up into Arizona, into Dry Bone Canyon, 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 pronounced it rheumatic fever, and a very
serious case indeed.