CHAPTER II
"FRANCES OF THE RANGES"
The grey was a well-trained cow-pony, for the Edwards' ranch was one ofthe latest in that section of the Panhandle to change from cattle towheat raising. A part of its range had not as yet been plowed, and BillEdwards still had a corral full of good riding stock.
Pratt Sanderson got into his saddle without much trouble and the girlwhistled for Molly.
"I'll throw that lion over my saddle," she said. "Molly won't mind itmuch--especially if you hold her bridle with her head up-wind."
"All right, Miss Rugley," the young man returned. "My name is PrattSanderson--I don't know that you know it."
"Very well, Mr. Sanderson," she repeated.
"They don't call me _that_ much," the young fellow blurted out. "Ianswer easier to my first name, you know--Pratt."
"Very well, Pratt," said the girl, frankly. "I am FrancesRugley--Frances Durham Rugley."
She lifted the heavy lion easily, flung it across Molly, and lashed itto the saddle; then she mounted in a hurry and the ponies started forthe ranch trail which Frances had been following before she heard thereport of the shotgun.
The youth watched her narrowly as they rode along through the droppingdarkness. She was a well-matured girl for her age, not too tall, herlimbs rounded, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh. Perhaps sheknew of his scrutiny; but her face remained calm and she did not returnhis gaze. They talked of inconsequential things as they rode along.
Pratt Sanderson thought: "_What_ a girl she is! Mrs. Edwards isright--she's the finest specimen of girlhood on the range, bar none! Andshe is more than a little intelligent--quite literary, don't you know,if what they say is true of her. Where did _she_ learn to planpageants? Not in one of these schoolhouses on the ranges, I bet anapple! And she's a cowgirl, too. Rides like a female Centaur; shoots, ofcourse, and throws a rope. Bet she knows the whole trade of cattleherding.
"Yet there isn't a girl who went to school with me at the Amarillo Highwho looks so well-bred, or who is so sure of herself and so easy toconverse with."
For her part, Frances was thinking: "And he doesn't remember a thingabout me! Of course, he was a senior when I was in the junior class. Hehas already forgotten most of his schoolmates, I suppose.
"But that night of Cora Grimshaw's party he danced with me six times. Hewas in the bank then, and had forgotten all 'us kids,' I suppose. Funnyhow suddenly a boy grows up when he gets out of school and intobusiness. But me----
"Well! I should have known him if we hadn't met for twenty years.Perhaps that's because he is the first boy I ever danced with--in town,I mean. The boys on the ranch don't count."
Her tranquil face and manner had not betrayed--nor did they betraynow--any of her thoughts about this young fellow whom she remembered soclearly, but who plainly had not taxed his memory with her.
That was the way of Frances Durham Rugley. A great deal went on in hermind of which nobody--not even Captain Dan Rugley, her father--dreamed.
Left motherless at an early age, the ranchman's daughter had grown toher sixteenth year different from most girls. Even different from mostother girls of the plains and ranges.
For ten years there was not a woman's face--white, black, or red--on theBar-T acres. The Captain had married late in life, and had lovedFrances' mother devotedly. When she died suddenly the man could not bearto hear or see another woman on the place.
Then Frances grew into his heart and life, and although the old woundopened as the ranchman saw his daughter expand, her love andcompanionship was like a healing balm poured into his sore heart.
The man's strong, fierce nature suddenly went out to his child and shebecame all and all to him--just as her mother had been during the fewyears she had been spared to him.
So the girl's schooling was cut short--and Frances loved books and thetraining she had received at the Amarillo schools. She would have lovedto go on--to pass her examinations for college preparation, and finallyget her diploma and an A. B., at least, from some college.
That, however, was not to be. Old Captain Rugley lavished money on herlike rain, when she would let him. She used some of the money to buybooks and a piano and pay for a teacher for the latter to come to theranch, while she spent much midnight oil studying the books by herself.
Captain Rugley's health was not all it should have been. Frances couldnot now leave him for long.
Until recently the old ranchman had borne lightly his seventy years. Butrheumatism had taken hold upon him and he did not stand as straight asof old, nor ride so well.
He was far from an invalid; but Frances realized--more than he did,perhaps--that he had finished his scriptural span of life, and that hispresent years were borrowed from that hardest of taskmasters, FatherTime.
Often it was Frances who rode the ranges, instead of Captain Rugley,viewing the different herds, receiving the reports of underforemen andwranglers, settling disputes between the punchers themselves, lookingover chuck outfits, buying hay, overseeing brandings, and helping cutout fat steers for the market trail.
There was nothing Frances of the ranges did not know about thecattle-raising business. And she was giving some attention to the newgrain-raising ideas that had come into the Panhandle with the return ofthe first-beaten farming horde.
For the Texas Panhandle has had its two farming booms. The first advanceof the farmers into the ranges twenty-five years or more before had beena rank failure.
"They came here and plowed up little spots in our parsters that aireyesores now," one old cowman said, "and then beat it back East whenthey found it didn't rain 'cordin' ter schedule. This land ain't goodfor nothin' 'cept cows."
But this had been in the days of the old unfenced ranges, and beforedry-farming had become a science. Now the few remaining cattlemen kepttheir pastures fenced, and began to think of raising other feed thanriver-bottom hay.
The cohorts of agriculturists were advancing; the cattlemen were fallingback. The ancient staked plains of the Spanish _conquestadors_ werelikely to become waving wheat fields and smiling orchards.
The young girl and her companion could not travel fast to the Bar-Tranch-house for two reasons: Pratt Sanderson was sore all over, and themountain lion slung across Frances' pony caused some trouble. The pintoobjected to carrying double--especially when an occasional draft ofevening air brought the smell of the lion to her nostrils.
The young fellow admired the way in which the girl handled her mount. Hehad seen many half-wild horsemen at the Amarillo street fairs, and thelike; since coming to Bill Edwards' place he had occasionally observed agood rider handling a mean cayuse. But this man-handling of a half-wildpony was nothing like the graceful control Frances of the ranges hadover Molly. The pinto danced and whirled and snorted, and once almostgot her quivering nose down between her knees--the first position of thebucking horse.
At every point Frances met her mount with a stern word, or a firm rein,or a touch of the spur or quirt, which quickly took the pinto's mind offher intention of "acting up."
"You are wonderful!" exclaimed the youth, excitedly. "I wish I couldride half as good as you do, Miss Frances."
Frances smiled. "You did not begin young enough," she said. "My fathertook me in his arms when I was a week old and rode a half-wild mustangtwenty miles across the ranges to exhibit me to the man who was ournext-door neighbor in those days. You see, my tuition began early."
It was not yet fully dark, although the ranch-house lamps were lit, whenthey came to the home corral and the big fenced yard in front of theBar-T.
Two boys ran out to take the ponies. One of these Frances instructed tosaddle a fresh pony and ride to the Edwards place with word that PrattSanderson would remain all night at the Bar-T.
The other boy was instructed to give the mountain lion to one of themen, that the pelt might be removed and properly stretched for curing.
"Come right in, Pratt," said the girl, with frank cordiality. "You'llhave a chance for a wash and a brush bef
ore supper. And dad will findyou some clean clothes.
"There's dad on the porch, though he's forbidden the night air unless heputs a coat on. Oh, he's a very, very bad patient, indeed!"
Frances of the Ranges; Or, The Old Ranchman's Treasure Page 2