Amy Marlowe - Frances of the Ranges - or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure

Inclining her ear to the door, she listened. But the oak planking was thick and there was no crevice, now the portal was closed, through which any slight sound could penetrate. She could not have even distinguished the heavy breathing of a sleeping man behind the door.

Uncertain, wondering, yet quite mistress of herself again, Frances went on along the corridor. Here was an open door before her into the court. Had that shadow she had seen come this way? she wondered.

The hiss of a voice, almost in her ear, did startle her:

“My goodness! is it you, Miss Frances?”

A clammy hand clutched her wrist. She knew that Pratt Sanderson must have been horribly wrought up and nervous, for he was trembling.

“What is the matter? Why are you out of your bed, Pratt?” she asked, quite calmly.

“I couldn’t sleep. Fever in those scratches, I s’pose,” said the young man. “I got up and went outside to get a drink at the fountain–and to bathe my face and wrists. Isn’t it hot?”

“You are feverish,” whispered Frances, cautiously. “Have you seen daddy?”

“The Captain?” returned Pratt, wonderingly. “Oh, no. He isn’t up, is he?”

“He’s not in his room – ”

“And you’re not in yours,” said Pratt, with a nervous laugh. “We all seem to be out of our beds at the hour when graveyards yawn, eh?”

Frances had a reassuring laugh ready.

“I think you would better go to bed again, Pratt,” she said. “You–you saw nothing in the court?”

“No. But I thought I heard a big bird overhead when I was splashing the water about out there. Imagination, of course,” he added. “There are no big night-flying birds out here on the plains?”

“Not that I know of,” returned she.

“I made some noise. I didn’t know what it was I scared up. Seemed to be on the roof of the house.”

Frances thought of the mysterious man and his rope ladder. But she did not mention them to Pratt.

“Put some more of father’s salve on those scratches,” she advised. “It’s an Indian salve and very healing. He was taught by an old Indian medicine man to make it.”

“All right. Good-night, Miss Frances,” said Pratt, and withdrew into his room, from which he had appeared so suddenly to accost her.

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.

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.