A GOOD DEAL OF EXCITEMENT

Pete twisted himself around to look over his shoulder, but still kept his clutch on the breathless young man. However, Pratt feebly dragged his wrists out of the man’s grasp.

Frances was riding the pinto directly at them. Under her skillful guidance the pony’s off shoulder must collide with Pete, unless the man dropped Pratt entirely and sprang aside.

The man did this, uttering a yell of anger. Pratt staggered the other way and Frances brought Molly to a standstill directly between the two.

“You let him alone!” the girl commanded, gazing indignantly at the rascally man. “Oh! you shall be paid in full for all you have done this day. When Captain Rugley hears of this.

“Quick, Pratt!” she shrieked. “That rifle!”

Pete was bent over reaching for the weapon. Frances jerked Molly around, but she could not drive the pony against the man in time to topple him over before his wicked fingers closed on the barrel of the gun.

It was Pratt who made the attack in this emergency. He had played on the Amarillo High football eleven and he knew how to “tackle.”

Before Pete could rise up with the recovered weapon in his grasp Pratt had him around the legs. The man staggered forward, trying to kick away the young fellow; but Pratt clung to him, and his antagonist finally fell upon his knees.

Quick as a flash Pratt sprang astride his bowed back. He kicked Pete’s braced arms out from under him and the man fell forward, screaming and threatening the most awful punishment for his young antagonist.

Frances could not get into the melee with Molly. The two rolled over and over on the ground and suddenly Pete gave vent to a shriek of pain. He had rolled on his back into the fire!

“Quick, Pratt!” begged Frances. “Get away from him! He will do you some dreadful harm!”

She believed Pete would, too. As Pratt leaped aside, the man bounded up from the bed of hot coals, his shirt afire, and he unable to reach it with his beating hands!

Pratt ran to Frances’ side. She pulled Molly’s head around and the pony trotted across the clearing, with Pratt staggering along at the stirrup and striving to get his breath.

As they passed the spot where the battle had begun, Pratt stooped and secured the rifle. Pete, in rage awful to see, was tearing the smouldering shirt from his back. Then Pete dashed after the escaping pair.

The rifle encumbered the young man; but if he dropped it he knew the man would hold them at his mercy. So, swinging the weapon up by its barrel, he smashed the stock against a tree trunk.

Again and again he repeated the blow, until the tough wood splintered and the mechanism of the hammer and trigger was bent and twisted. Pete almost caught him. Pratt dashed the remains of the rifle in his face and ran on after Frances.

“I’ll catch you yet!” yelled Pete. “And when I do 

The threat was left incomplete; but the man ran for his own horse.

If Frances had only thought to drive Molly that way and slip the hobbles of Pete’s nag, much of what afterward occurred in this hollow by the river bank would never have taken place. She and Pratt would have been immediately free.

It was hours afterward indeed, almost sunset that old Captain Rugley, sitting on the broad veranda of the Bar-T ranch-house and expecting Frances to appear at any moment, raised his eyes to see, instead, Victorino Reposa slouching up the steps.

“Hello, Vic!” said the Captain. “What do you want?”

“Letter, Capitan,” said the Mexican, impassively, removing his big hat and drawing a soiled envelope from within.

“Seen anything of Miss Frances?” asked the ranchman, reaching lazily for the missive.

“No, Capitan,” responded the boy, and turned away.

The superscription on the envelope puzzled Captain Dan Rugley. “Here, Vic!” he cried after the departing youth. “Where’d you get this? ’Tisn’t a mailed letter.”

“It was give to me on the trail, Capitan,” said Victorino, softly. “As I came back from the horse pasture.”

“Who gave it to you?” demanded the ranchman, beginning to slit the flap of the envelope.

“I am not informed,” said Victorino, still with lowered gaze. “The Senor who presented it declare’ it was give to heem by a strange hand at Jackleg. He say he was ride this way 

The Captain was not listening. Victorino saw that this was a fact and he allowed his words to trail off into nothing, while he, himself, began again to slip away.

The old ranchman was staring at the unfolded sheet with fixed attention. His brows came together in a portentous frown; and perhaps for the first time in many years his bronzed countenance was washed over by the sickly pallor of fear.

Victorino, stepping softly, had reached the compound gate. Suddenly the forelegs of the ranchman’s chair hit the floor of the veranda, and he roared at the Mexican in a voice that made the latter jump and drop the brown paper cigarette he had just deftly rolled.

“You boy! Come back here!” called Captain Rugley. “I want to know what this means.”

“Me, Capitan?” asked Victorino, softly, and hesitated at the gate. With his employer in this temper he was half-inclined to run in the opposite direction.

“Come here!” commanded the ranchman again. “Who gave you this?” rapping the open letter with a hairy forefinger.

“I do not know, Capitan. A strange man si.”

“Never saw him before?”

“No, Capitan. He was ver’ strange to me,” whined Victorino, too frightened to tell the truth.

“What did he look like?” shot back the Captain, holding himself in splendid control now. Only his eyes glittered and his lips under the big mustache tightened perceptibly.

“He was beeg man, Capitan; rode bay pony; much wheeskers on face,” declared Victorino, glibly.

The Captain was silent for half a minute. Then he snapped: “Run find Silent Sam and tell him I want him pronto. Sabe? Tell Joe to saddle Cherry, and Sam’s horse, and you get a saddle on your own, Vic. I’ll want you and about half a dozen of the boys who are hanging around the bunk-house. Tell ’em it’s important and tell them yes! tell them to come armed. In fifteen minutes. Understand?”

“Si, Capitan,” whispered Victorino, glad to get out from under the ranchman’s eye for the time being.

He was the oldest of the Mexican boys employed at the Bar-T, and he had been very friendly with Ratty M’Gill while that reckless individual had belonged to the outfit.

It was Victorino who had let Ratty drive the buckboard to the railroad station one particular day when the cowpuncher wished to meet his friend, Pete, at Cottonwood Bottom.

Now, unthinking and unknowing, he had been drawn by Ratty into a serious trouble. Victorino did not know what it was; but he trembled. He had never seen “El Capitan” look so fierce and strange before.