A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER
The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M'Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow
stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top
of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that
there was something down stream that he ought to look into.
Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or
passed, on the river bank?
Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards' place, Pratt
was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he
waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he
turned his grey pony's head back toward the river.
"Where are you going, Pratt?" demanded one of his friends.
"I've forgotten something," the young man from Amarillo replied.
"Oh, dear me!" cried Sue Latrop. "He's forgotten his cute, little cattle
queen. Give her my love, Pratt."
The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been
of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made
herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his
estimation--that was sure!
He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could
be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had
crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the
direction from which Ratty M'Gill had come.
Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly's hoofs. But
when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept
on.
He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and
the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his
ears forward.
Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey's nostrils between thumb and
finger. In the distance a pony whinnied. Was it Molly?
"You just keep still, you little nuisance!" whispered Pratt to his
mount. "Don't want you whinnying to any strange horse."
He got out of the saddle and led his pony for some rods. The brush was
thick and there was no bridle-path. He feared to go farther without
knowing what and who was ahead, and he tied the grey--taking pattern by
Frances and tying his head up-wind.
The young fellow hesitated about taking the shotgun he had used in the
jack-rabbit hunt. There was a sheath fastened to his saddle for the
weapon, and he finally left it therein.
Pratt really thought that nothing of a serious nature had happened to
his girl friend. Seeing Ratty M'Gill had reminded him that the
cowpuncher had once troubled Frances, and Pratt had ridden down this way
to offer his escort to the old ranchman's daughter.
He had no thought of the man who had held them up at the lower ford,
toward Peckham's, the evening of the prairie fire; nor did he connect
the cowpuncher and that ruffian in his mind.
"If I take that gun, the muzzle will make a noise in the bushes, or the
hammer will catch on something," thought Pratt.
So he left the shotgun behind and went on unarmed toward the place where
Frances was even then sitting under the keen eye of Pete.
"You keep where ye are, Miss," growled that worthy when Ratty rode away.
"I will sure tie ye if ye make an attempt to get away. You have fell
right into my han's, and I vow you'll make me some money. Your father's
got a plenty----"
"You mean to make him ransom me?" asked Frances, quietly.
"That's the ticket," said Pete, nodding, and searching his ragged
clothing for a pipe, which he finally drew out and filled. "He's got
money. I've spent what I brought up yere to the Panhandle with me. And I
b'lieve you made me lose my wagon and that other horse."
Frances made no rejoinder to this last, but she said:
"Father may be willing to pay something for my release. But you and
Ratty will suffer in the end."
"We'll risk that," said the man, puffing at his pipe, and nodding
thoughtfully.
"You'd better let me go now," said the girl, with no display of fear.
"And you'd better give up any further attempt to get at the old chest
that Mr. Lonergan talked about."
"Hey!" exclaimed the man, startled. "What d'ye know about Lonergan?"
"He will be at the ranch in a few days, and if there is any more
treasure than you found in that old trunk you stole from me, he will get
his share and there will no longer be any treasure chest. Make up your
mind to that."
"You know who I am and what I come up yere for?" demanded Pete, eying
her malevolently.
"Yes. I know you are the man who tried to steal in over the roof of our
house, too. If you make my father any angrier with you than he is now,
he will prosecute you all the more sharply when you are arrested."
"You shut up!" growled Pete. "I ain't going to be arrested."
"Both you and Ratty will be punished in the end," said Frances, calmly.
"Men like you always are."
"Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don't you be too sassy, understand?
I could squeeze yer breath out!"
He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb
and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first
thing that really frightened the girl--it was so wicked!
She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life
before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization
that she was in this man's power, and that he had reason to hate her,
shook her usually steady nerves.
After all, Ratty M'Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this
older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his
pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a
bald-headed buzzard, such as she had seen roosting on dead trees or old
barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo.
Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then
arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when
he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze--and perhaps the fellow knew
it.
It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way.
Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She
knew that she was at his mercy.
When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms
and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go
faintly in her cheeks.
Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with--for from
babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and
corral--she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment
which is natural to men of the open.
Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon
the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very
highest instincts of the race.
Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the
cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men she
expected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man
is noted.
But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances
had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of
him.
And he realized her attitude of fear and worked upon her emotions until
she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams.
Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near
her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name.
"Frances! what is the matter with you?"
"Oh!" she gasped. "Pratt!"
The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had
been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look
so strange.
"You haven't been thrown, Frances, have you?" asked Pratt, solicitously.
"Are you hurt?"
Then the girl's frightened gaze, or some rustle of Pete's movement, made
Pratt Sanderson turn. Pete had reached for his rifle and secured it. And
by so doing he completely mastered the situation.
"Put your hands over your head, young feller!" he growled, swinging the
muzzle of the heavy gun toward Pratt. "And keep 'em there till I've seen
what you carry in your pockets."
He strode toward the surprised Pratt, who obeyed the order with becoming
promptness.
"Don't you make no move, neither, Miss," growled the man, darting a
glance in Frances' direction.
"Why--why---- What do you mean?" demanded Pratt, recovering his breath
at last. "Do you dare hold this young lady a prisoner?"
"Yep. That's what I dare," sneered Pete. "And it looks like I'd got you,
too. What d'ye think you're going to do about it?"
"Isn't this the fellow who robbed us at the river that time, Frances?"
cried Pratt.
The girl nodded. Just then she could not speak.
"And that fellow Ratty was with him this time?"
Again the girl nodded.
"Then they shall both be arrested and punished," declared Pratt. "I
never heard of such effrontery. Do you know who this young lady is,
man?" he demanded of Pete.
"Jest as well as you do. And her pa's going to put up big for to see her
again--unharmed," snarled the man.
"What do you mean?" gasped Pratt, his face blazing and his fists
clenched. "You dare harm her----"
Pete was slapping him about the pockets to make sure he carried no
weapon. Now he struck Pratt a heavy blow across the mouth, cutting his
lips and making his ears ring.
"Shut up, you young jackanapes!" commanded the man. "I'll hurt her and
you, too, if I like."
"And Captain Dan Rugley won't rest till he sees you well punished if you
harm her," mumbled Pratt.
Pete struck at him again. Pratt dodged back. And at that moment Frances
disappeared!
The man had only had his eyes off her for half a minute. He gasped, his
jaw dropped, and his bloodshot eyes roved all about, trying to discover
Frances' whereabouts.
He had not realized that, despite her fear, the girl of the ranges had
had her limbs drawn up and her muscles taut ready for a spring.
His attention given for the moment to Pratt Sanderson, Frances had risen
and dodged behind the bole of the tree against which she was leaning, a
carefully watched prisoner.
She would never have escaped so easily had it been Ratty in charge; for
his mental processes were quicker than those of Pete.
Flitting from tree to tree, keeping one or more of the big trunks
between her and Pete's roving eyes while still he was speechless, she
was traveling farther and farther from the camp.
She might have set forth running almost at once, and so escaped. But she
could not leave Pratt to the heavy hand of Pete. Nor could she abandon
Molly.
Frances, therefore, began encircling the opening where the fire burned;
but she kept well out of Pete's sight.
She heard him utter a bellow which would have done credit to a mad
steer. That came when he saw Pratt was about to escape, too.
The young fellow was creeping away, stooping and on tiptoe. Pete uttered
a frightful imprecation and sprang after him with his rifle clubbed and
raised above his head.
"Stand where you are!" he commanded, "or I'll bat your foolish head in!"
And he looked enraged enough to do it. Pratt dared not move farther; he
crouched in terror, expecting the blow.
He had bravely assailed Pete with his tongue when Frances seemed in
danger; but the girl had escaped now and Pratt hoped she was each minute
putting rods between this place and herself.
Pete suddenly dropped his rifle and sprang at the young man. Pratt's
throat was in the vicelike grip of Pete on the instant. Both his wrists
were seized by the man's other hand.
Such feeble struggles as Pratt made were abortive. His breath was shut
off and he felt his senses leaving him.
But as his eyes rolled up there was a crash in the brush and a pony
dashed into the open. It was Molly and her mistress was astride her.
Frances had lost her hat; her hair had become loosened and was tossed
about her pale face. But her eyes glowed with the light of determination
and she spurred the pony directly at the two struggling figures in the
middle of the hollow.
"I'm coming, Pratt!" she cried. "Hold on!"