Frances of the Ranges Part 10

"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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, 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 inst.i.tution, 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 pa.s.sed 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 canon which he calls Dry Bone Canon.

"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 ident.i.ty 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.