Pratt’s mention of “the bird on the roof” disturbed Frances a good deal. She turned to run back upstairs and learn if the ladder was still hanging from the eaves. But as she started to do so she realized that the door of the treasure room had been silently opened.
“Frances!”
“Oh, Dad!”
“What are you running about the house for at this time o’ night?” he demanded.
She laughed rather hysterically. “Why are you out of your bed, sir–with your rheumatism?” she retorted.
“Good reason. Thought I heard something,” growled the Captain.
“Good reason. Thought I saw something,” mocked Frances, seizing his arm.
She stepped inside the room with him. He flashed an electric torch for a moment about the place. She saw he had a cot arranged at one side, and had evidently gone to bed here, beside the treasure chest.
“Why is this, sir?” she demanded, with pretty seriousness.
“Reckon the old man’s getting nervous,” said Captain Rugley. “Can’t sleep in my reg’lar bed when there are strangers in the house.”
Frances started. “What do you mean?” she cried.
“Well, there’s that young man.”
“Why, Pratt is all right,” declared Frances, confidently.
“I don’t know anything for him–and do know one thing against him,” growled the old ranchman. “He’s been up and about all night, so far. Weren’t you just talking to him?”
“Oh, yes, Dad! But Pratt is all right.”
“That’s as may be. What was he doing wandering around that court?”
“Oh, Dad! Don’t worry about him. His arm and chest hurt him – ”
“Humph! didn’t hurt him when he went to bed, did they? Yet he was sneaking along this hall and looking into this very room when the door was slightly ajar. I saw him,” said the old ranchman, bitterly.
Frances was amazed by this statement; but she realized that her father was oversuspicious regarding the interest of strangers in the old Spanish chest and its contents.
“Never mind Pratt,” she said. “I came downstairs to find you, Daddy, because there really is a stranger about the house.”
“What do you mean, Frances?” was the sharp retort.
The girl told him briefly about the man she had observed climbing up to the veranda roof, and later to the roof of the house by aid of the rope ladder.
“And Pratt tells me he heard some sound up there. He thought it was a big bird,” she concluded.
“Come on!” said her father, hastily. “Let’s see that ladder.”
He locked the door of the treasure room and strode up the main stairway. Frances kept close behind him and warned him to step softly–rather an unnecessary bit of advice to an old Indian trailer like Captain Rugley!
But when they came to the window through which Frances had seen the dangling ladder it was gone. The old ranchman shot a ray of his electric torch through the opening; but the light revealed nothing.
“Gone!” he announced, briefly.
“Do–do you think so, Dad?”
“Sure. Been scared off.”
“But what could he possibly want–climbing up over our roof, and all that?”
Captain Rugley stood still and stroked his chin reflectively. “I reckon I know what they’re after —
“They? But, Daddy, there was only one man.”
“One that was coming over the roof,” said her father. “But he had pals–sure he did! If one of them wasn’t in the house – ”
“Why, Dad!” exclaimed Frances, in wonder.
“You can’t always tell,” said the old ranchman, slowly. “There’s a heap of valuables in that chest. Of course, they don’t all belong to me,” he added, hastily. “My partner, Lon, has equal rights in ’em–don’t ever forget that, Frances, if something should happen to me.”
“Why, Dad! how you talk!” she exclaimed.
“We can never tell,” sighed her father. “Treasure is tempting. And it looks to me as though this fellow who climbed over the roof expected to find somebody inside to help him. That’s the way it looks to me,” he repeated, shaking his head obstinately.
“Dear Dad! you don’t mean that you think Pratt Sanderson would do such a thing?” said Frances, in a horrified tone.
“We don’t know him.”
“But his coming here to the Bar-T was unexpected. I urged him to come. That lion really scratched him – ”
“Yes. It doesn’t look reasonable, I allow,” admitted her father; but she could see he was not convinced of the honesty of Pratt Sanderson.
There was a difference of opinion between Frances and Captain Rugley.
CHAPTER VII
THE STAMPEDE
The remainder of the night passed in quietness. That there really had been a marauder about the Bar-T ranch-house could not be doubted; for a slate was found upon the ground in the morning, and the place in the roof where it had been broken out was plainly visible.
Captain Rugley sent one of the men up with a ladder and new slates to repair the damage. He reported that the marks of the grappling-hook in the roof sheathing were unmistakable, too.
Although her father had expressed himself as doubtful of the good intentions of Pratt Sanderson, Frances was glad to see at breakfast that he treated the young man no differently than before. Pratt slept late and the meal was held back for him.
“The attentions of that old mountain lion bothered me so that I did not sleep much the fore part of the night,” Pratt explained.
“How about that bird you heard on the roof?” the Captain asked, calmly.
“I don’t know what it was. It sounded like big wings flapping,” the young fellow explained. “But I really didn’t see anything.”
Captain Rugley grunted, and said no more. He grunted a good deal this morning, in fact, for every movement gave him pain.
“The rheumatism has got its fangs set in me right, this time,” he told Frances.
“That’s for being out of your warm bed and chasing all over the house without a coat on in the night,” she said, admonishingly.
“Goodness!” said her father. “Must I be that particular? If so, I am getting old, I reckon.”
She made him promise to keep out of draughts when she mounted Molly to ride away on an errand to a distant part of the ranch. She rode off with Pratt Sanderson, for he was traveling in the same direction, toward Mr. Bill Edwards’ place.
Frances of the ranges was more silent than she had been when they rode together the night before. Pratt found it hard to get into conversation with her on any but the most ephemeral subjects.
For instance, when he hinted about Captain Rugley’s adventures on the Border:
“Your father is a very interesting talker. He has seen and done so much.”
“Yes,” said Frances.
“And how adventurous his life must have been! I’d love to get him in a story-telling mood some day.”
“He doesn’t talk much about old times.”
“But, of course, you know all about his adventures as a Ranger, and his trips into Mexico?”
“No,”