CHAPTER XXVI
FRANCES IN SOFTER MOOD
It was the next day but one and the _hacienda_ and compound laybathed in the hot sun of noon-day. Captain Dan Rugley was leaning backin his usual hard chair and in his usual attitude on the veranda, fairlysoaking up the rays of the orb of day.
"Beats all the medicine for rheumatism in the doctor's shop!" he waswont to declare.
Since his night ride to rescue his daughter he had become more like hisold self than he had been for weeks. The excitement seemed to havechased away the last twinges of pain for the time being, and he waswithout fever.
Now he was watching a swift pony-rider coming his way along the trailand listening to the patter of light footsteps coming down the broadstairway behind him.
"Here comes Sam, Frances," the ranchman said, in a low voice. "I reckonhe'll have some news."
The girl came to the door. She had discarded her riding habit and wasdressed in a soft, clinging house gown, cut low at the throat and givingher arms freedom to the elbow. She wore pretty stockings and prettyslippers on her feet. Instead of a quirt she carried a fan in her handand there was a handkerchief tucked into her belt.
The chrysalis of the cowgirl had burst and this butterfly had emerged.Of late it was not often that Frances had "dolled up," as the oldCaptain called it. Now he said, enthusiastically:
"My! you do look sweet! What's all the dolling up for? Me? The Chinks?Or maybe that boy upstairs, eh?"
"For myself," said Frances, quietly. "Pratt is too sick to notice muchwhat I wear, I guess. But I find that I have been paying too littleattention to dress."
"Huh!" snorted the old ranchman.
"It is a woman's duty to make herself as beautiful and attractive aspossible," said Frances, with a bright smile. "You know, I read that ina woman's paper."
"You surely did!" agreed the ranchman, and then turned to meet SilentSam as that individual drew up to the step.
"What's the good word, Sam?" inquired the Captain.
"Got that Ratty. He's in the jail at Jackleg. Like you said, I nevertold nobody but the sheriff what 'twas for you wanted him."
"That's right," said the Captain, gravely. "If the boys understood hewas mixed up with this kidnapping business, I don't know what they woulddo."
"Right, Captain," said the foreman. "So the sheriff took him for beingall lit up. Ratty won't sleep it off before to-morrow."
"And if they could catch that Pete What's-his-name by then----"
"Ain't found hide nor hair of him," answered Silent Sam.
"Where do you reckon he went to, Sam?"
"He didn't go with his horse, Captain. He fooled us."
"What?"
"That's so. Horse was found yisterday evenin' down beyandPeckham's--scurcely breathed. He'd run fur, but he didn't have nobody onhis back."
"I see!" ejaculated the ranchman, smiting one doubled fist upon theother palm. "That Pete has fooled us from the start."
"Sure did," admitted Sam.
"He never mounted his horse at all?" cried Frances, deeply interested.
"That's it," said her father. "We ought to have known that at the time.No horse could have gone smashing through the brush the way that one didwithout knocking his rider's head off."
"Sure," agreed Sam again.
"And he was right there near the place he held Pratt and me captive allthe time we were making a stretcher for poor Pratt," said Frances.
"Or hiking up stream," said the foreman, preparing to ride down to thecorral.
"Lucky the boy broke the fellow's gun as he did," said Captain Rugley,thoughtfully, turning to his daughter. "Otherwise some of us might havebeen popped off from the bushes."
"Oh, Daddy!"
"When a man's as mean as that scalawag," said her father,philosophically, "there's no knowing to what lengths he will go. Ishan't feel that you are safe on the ranges until he's found andjailed."
"And I shan't feel that we're out of trouble until your friend Mr.Lonergan comes here and you divide and get rid of that silly oldtreasure," declared Frances, and she pouted a little.
"What's that, Frances?" gasped the old Captain. "All those jewels andstuff? Why, don't you care anything for them?"
"I care more for my peace of mind," she said, decidedly. "And see whatit's brought poor Pratt to."
"Well," said her father, subsiding. "The boy did git the dirty end ofthe stick, for a fact. I'm sorry he was hurt----"
"And you are sorry you thought so ill of him, too, Daddy--you know youare," whispered Frances, one arm stealing over the Captain's shoulder.
"Well----"
"Now, ''fessup!'" she laughed, softly. "He's a good boy to risk himselffor me."
"I wouldn't have thought much of him if he hadn't," said the oldranchman, stubbornly.
"What could you really expect when you consider that he has lived allhis life in a city----"
"And works in a bank," finished the Captain, with a sly grin. "But Ireckon I have got to take off my hat to him. He's a hero."
"He is a good boy," Frances said, cheerfully. "And I hope that he willrecover all right, as the doctor says he will."
"I don't know how fast he'll mend," chuckled the Captain. "If I were he,and getting the attention he is----"
"From whom?" demanded Frances, turning on him sharply.
"From Ming, of course," responded her father, soberly, but with his eyesa-twinkle.
And then Frances fled upstairs again, her cheeks burning as she heardthe old ranchman's mellow laughter.
Pratt lay on his bed with his head swathed in bandages and his shoulderin a brace. He had suffered a dislocation as well as the bruises and thecut in his head. From the time he had been struck from behind by theman, Pete, the young fellow had known nothing at all until he awoke tofind himself stretched upon this bed in the Bar-T ranch-house.
The old Captain, with Ming's help, had disrobed Pratt and put him tobed; but when the doctor came early in the morning, he put the patientin Frances' hands.
"What he needs is good nursing. Don't leave him to the men," said thedoctor. "Your father says he's cured himself by getting out onhorseback. If it didn't kill him, I admit it's aiding in his cure forhim to be more active again.
"But I depend upon you, my dear, to keep this patient as quiet aspossible. I hate having my patients get away from me," added thephysician with twinkling eye. "And this lad is mine for some time. Hehas sure been badly shaken up."
He was afraid at first that there was concussion of the brain; but aftera few hours the young bank clerk became lucid in his speech and thefever began to decrease.
The doctor had not left the ranch until the evening before this day whenFrances stole up the stair again to peer into the room to see how herpatient was.
"Oh, I'm awake!" cried Pratt, cheerfully. "You don't expect me to sleepall the time, do you, Frances?"
"Sleep is good for you," declared the girl of the ranges, with a sobersmile. "The doctor says you are to keep very quiet."
"Goodness! I might as well be buried and so save my board," grumbledPratt. "When is he going to let me get up out of this?"
"Not for a long, long time yet," said Frances, seriously.
"What? Why, I could get up now----"
"With those shingles plastered to your shoulder?" asked the girl,smiling again, but somewhat roguishly.
"Oh--well--have those boards actually got to stay on?"
"Yes, indeed."
"How long?"
"Till the doctor removes them, Pratt. Now, be a good boy."
"I'll never be able to get out of bed," grumbled the patient, "if hekeeps me here much longer, I'll be bedridden."
"Nonsense," said Frances, with a very superior air. "You haven't beenhere two days yet."
"And when is the doctor coming again?" went on Pratt.
"He said he'd come within the week," replied the girl, demurely.
"Good-night, nurse!" groaned Pratt. "A whole week? Why, I'll die in thattime--positively."
/> "You only think so," said Frances, coolly.
"You don't know how hard it is to lie here with nothing to do."
"You don't appreciate your good fortune, I am afraid," returned thegirl, more gravely. "You might have been much more seriously hurt----"
"You don't suppose I care about being hurt, do you?" he cried, with someexcitement. "I'd go through it a dozen times to the same end,Frances----"
"Now, stop!" she said, commandingly, and raising an admonitory finger."If you show any excitement I will go out of the room and leaveMing----"
"Don't!" groaned Pratt.
"I shall certainly leave him in charge of you. You won't talk to him."
"No. If he doesn't sit silent like a yellow graven image, he scatters'l's' all about the room until I want to get out of bed and sweep 'emup," declared Pratt.
The ranchman's daughter smiled at him, but shook her head. "Now! no moretalking. I'll sit here and promise not to scatter any of the alphabetbroadcast; but you must keep still."
"That's mighty hard," muttered the patient. "Sit over by the window.There! right in the sun. I like to see your hair when the sun burnishesit."
Frances promptly removed her seat to the shady side of the room.
"Oh, please!" begged Pratt. "I'm sick, you know. You really ought tohumor me."
"And you really ought not to jolly me!" laughed the range girl. "I thinkyou are a tease, Pratt."
"Honest! I mean it."
She looked at him with a roguish smile. "What did you say to Miss Latropabout her hair? Isn't it a lovely blond?"
"Oh! I never looked at it twice. Molasses color," declared Pratt. "Idon't like such light hair."
"Now, be still. Mrs. Edwards sent over word they are coming to see youto-morrow. If you are feverish I shan't let them in."
"My goodness!" gasped Pratt. "Not all of them coming, I hope?"
"Mrs. Edwards and Miss Latrop, anyway," said Frances, seriously. "Nowkeep still."
Pratt digested this for a while; then he held up one arm and waved it.
"Well? What is it?" asked the stern nurse.
"Please, teacher!"
"Well?"
"May I say one thing?"
"Just one. Then silence for an hour."
"If that girl from Boston comes I'm going to have a fever--understand? Idon't want her up here. Now, that's all there is about it."
"Hush, small boy! You don't know what is good for you. You must leave itto the doctor and me," said Frances, but she kept her head turned fromthe bed so that Pratt would not see her eyes.
By and by Pratt waved his hand again like a pupil in school and evensnapped his fingers to attract her attention.
"Please, teacher!" he begged when she looked up from the pad on her kneeover which her pencil had been traveling so rapidly.
"I'm nurse, not teacher," Frances said, firmly.
"Nurse, then. Is that the plan for the pageant you are writing?"
"A part of it," she admitted. "Some ideas that came to me the time Iwent to Amarillo."
"With the make-believe treasure chest?"
"Yes."
"Read it to me, will you, Miss Nurse?" he asked.
"If you will keep still. I never did see such a chatterbox!" exclaimedFrances, in vexation.
"I'll be just as still as still!" he promised. "Maybe it will put me tosleep."
"Mercy! I hope it isn't as dull as all that," she said, and began toread the pages she had written.