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The deeper color had gradually faded out of the girls cheeks. She was cool enough now; but she kept her eyes lowered, just the same. He would have liked to see their expression once more. There had been a startled look in their grey depths when first she glanced at him.
I am afraid they make too much of my part in the affair, said she, quietly. I am only one of the committee
But they say you wrote it all, the young fellow interposed, eagerly.
Ohthat! It happened to be easy for me to do so. I have always been deeply interested in the PanhandleThe Great American Desert as the old geographies used to call all this great Middle West, of Kansas, Nebraska, the Indian Territory, and Upper Texas.
My father crossed it among the first white men from the Eastern States. He came back here to settlelong before I was born, of coursewhen a plow had never been sunk in these range lands. He belongs to the old cattle régime. He wouldnt hear until lately of putting wheat into any of the Bar-T acres.
Ah, well, by all accounts he is one of the few men who still know how to make money out of cows, laughed Pratt Sanderson. Thank you, Miss Rugley. I cant let you do anything more for me
You are a long way from the Edwards place, she said. Youd better ride to the Bar-T for the night. We will send a boy over there with a message, if you think Mrs. Edwards will be worried.
I suppose Id better do as you say, he said, rather ruefully. Mrs. Edwards will be worried about my absence over supper time. She says Im such a tenderfoot.
For a moment a twinkle came into the veiled grey eyes; the new expression illumined the girls face like a flash of sunlight across the shadowed field.
You rather back up her opinion when you tackle a lion with nothing but birdshotand one barrel of your gun fouled in the bargain, she said. Dont you think so?
But I killed it with a revolver! exclaimed the young fellow, struggling to his feet again.
That pistol throws a good-sized bullet, said the ranchmans daughter, smiling. But Id never think of picking a quarrel with a lion unless I had a good rope, or something that threw heavier lead than birdshot.
He looked at her, standing there in the after-glow of the sunset, with honest admiration in his eyes.
I am a tenderfoot, I guess, he admitted. And you were not scared for a single moment!
Oh, yes, I was, and Frances Rugleys laugh was low and musical. But it was all over so quickly that the scare didnt have a chance to show. Come on! Ill catch your pony, and well make the Bar-T before supper time.
CHAPTER II
FRANCES OF THE RANGES
The grey was a well-trained cow-pony, for the Edwards ranch was one of the latest in that section of the Panhandle to change from cattle to wheat raising. A part of its range had not as yet been plowed, and Bill Edwards still had a corral full of good riding stock.
Pratt Sanderson got into his saddle without much trouble and the girl whistled for Molly.
Ill throw that lion over my saddle, she said. Molly wont mind it muchespecially if you hold her bridle with her head up-wind.
All right, Miss Rugley, the young man returned. My name is Pratt SandersonI dont know that you know it.
Very well, Mr. Sanderson, she repeated.
They dont call me that much, the young fellow blurted out. I answer easier to my first name, you knowPratt.
Very well, Pratt, said the girl, frankly. I am Frances RugleyFrances Durham Rugley.
She lifted the heavy lion easily, flung it across Molly, and lashed it to the saddle; then she mounted in a hurry and the ponies started for the ranch trail which Frances had been following before she heard the report of the shotgun.
The youth watched her narrowly as they rode along through the dropping darkness. She was a well-matured girl for her age, not too tall, her limbs rounded, but without an ounce of superfluous flesh. Perhaps she knew of his scrutiny; but her face remained calm and she did not return his gaze. They talked of inconsequential things as they rode along.
Pratt Sanderson thought: What a girl she is! Mrs. Edwards is rightshes the finest specimen of girlhood on the range, bar none! And she is more than a little intelligentquite literary, dont you know, if what they say is true of her. Where did she learn to plan pageants? Not in one of these schoolhouses on the ranges, I bet an apple! And shes a cowgirl, too. Rides like a female Centaur; shoots, of course, and throws a rope. Bet she knows the whole trade of cattle herding.
Yet there isnt a girl who went to school with me at the Amarillo High who looks so well-bred, or who is so sure of herself and so easy to converse with.
For her part, Frances was thinking: And he doesnt remember a thing about me! Of course, he was a senior when I was in the junior class. He has already forgotten most of his schoolmates, I suppose.
But that night of Cora Grimshaws party he danced with me six times. He was in the bank then, and had forgotten all us kids, I suppose. Funny how suddenly a boy grows up when he gets out of school and into business. But me
Well! I should have known him if we hadnt met for twenty years. Perhaps thats because he is the first boy I ever danced within town, I mean. The boys on the ranch dont count.
Her tranquil face and manner had not betrayednor did they betray nowany of her thoughts about this young fellow whom she remembered so clearly, but who plainly had not taxed his memory with her.
That was the way of Frances Durham Rugley. A great deal went on in her mind of which nobodynot even Captain Dan Rugley, her fatherdreamed.
Left motherless at an early age, the ranchmans daughter had grown to her sixteenth year different from most girls. Even different from most other girls of the plains and ranges.
For ten years there was not a womans facewhite, black, or redon the Bar-T acres. The Captain had married late in life, and had loved Frances mother devotedly. When she died suddenly the man could not bear to hear or see another woman on the place.
Then Frances grew into his heart and life, and although the old wound opened as the ranchman saw his daughter expand, her love and companionship was like a healing balm poured into his sore heart.
The mans strong, fierce nature suddenly went out to his child and she became all and all to himjust as her mother had been during the few years she had been spared to him.
So the girls schooling was cut shortand Frances loved books and the training she had received at the Amarillo schools. She would have loved to go onto pass her examinations for college preparation, and finally get her diploma and an A. B., at least, from some college.
That, however, was not to be. Old Captain Rugley lavished money on her like rain, when she would let him. She used some of the money to buy books and a piano and pay for a teacher for the latter to come to the ranch, while she spent much midnight oil studying the books by herself.
Captain Rugleys health was not all it should have been. Frances could not now leave him for long.
Until recently the old ranchman had borne lightly his seventy years. But rheumatism had taken hold upon him and he did not stand as straight as of old, nor ride so well.
He was far from an invalid; but Frances realizedmore than he did, perhapsthat he had finished his scriptural span of life, and that his present years were borrowed from that hardest of taskmasters, Father Time.