To catch a big steer in full flight around the neck only is to court almost certain disaster; but Blackwater did not weigh more than nine hundred pounds.
Nor was Molly directly behind him when Frances threw the lariat. The rope tautened from the side--and at the very instant the mad steer collided with Sue Latrop"s mount.
The wicked head of the steer banged against the horse"s body, which gave forth a hollow sound; the horse himself squealed, stumbled, and went over with a crash.
Fortunately Sue had known enough to loosen her foot from the stirrup. As Frances lay back in her own saddle, and she and Molly held the black steer on his knees, Pratt drove his mount past the stumbling horse, and seized the Boston girl as she fell.
She cleared her rolling mount with Pratt"s help. Otherwise she would have fallen under the heavy carcase of the horse and been seriously hurt.
Blackwater had crashed to the ground so hard that he could not immediately recover his footing. He kicked with a hind foot, and Frances caught the foot expertly in a loop, and so got the better of him right then and there. She held the brute helpless until Sam and his a.s.sistants reached the spot.
It was Pratt who had really done the spectacular thing. It looked as though Sue Latrop owed her salvation to the young man.
"Hurrah for Pratt!" yelled one of the other young fellows from the city, and most of the guests--both male and female--took up the cry. Pratt had tumbled off his own grey pony with Sue in his arms.
"You"re re"lly a hero, Pratt! What a fine thing to do," the girl from Boston gasped. "Fancy my being under that poor horse."
The horse in question was struggling to his feet, practically unhurt, but undoubtedly in a chastened spirit. One of the boys from the branding pen caught his bridle.
Pratt objected to the praise being showered upon him. "Why, folks, I didn"t do much," he cried. "It was Frances. She stopped the steer!"
"You saved my life, Pratt Sanderson," declared Sue Latrop. "Don"t deny it."
"Lots of good I could have done if that black beast had been able to keep right on after your horse, Sue," laughed Pratt. "You ask Mr. Sam Harding--or any of them."
Sue"s pretty face was marred by a frown, and she tossed her head. "I don"t need to ask them. Didn"t you catch me as I fell?"
"Oh, but, Sue----"
"Of course," said the Boston girl, in a tone quite loud enough for Frances to hear, "those cowmen would back up their employer. They"d say she helped me. But I know whom to thank. You are too modest, Pratt."
Pratt was silenced. He saw that it was useless to try to convince Sue that she was wrong. It was plain that the girl from Boston did not wish to feel beholden to Frances Rugley.
So the young man dropped the subject. He ran after his own pony, and then brought Sue"s stubborn mount to her hand. Sue was being congratulated and made much of by her friends. None of them spoke to Frances.
Pratt came over to the latter before she could ride away after the bawling steer. Blackwater was going to be branded this time if it took the whole force of the Bar-T to accomplish it!
"Thank you, Frances, for what you did," the young man said, grasping her hand. "And Bill will thank you, too. He"ll know that it was your work that saved her; Mrs. Edwards isn"t used to cattle and isn"t to be blamed. I feel foolish to have them put it on me."
Frances laughed. She would not show Pratt that this whole series of incidents had hurt her deeply.
"Don"t make a mountain out of a mole-hill, Pratt," she said. "And you did do a brave thing. That girl would have been hurt if you had not caught her."
"Oh, I don"t know," he grumbled.
"I reckon she thinks so, anyway," said Frances, her eyes twinkling. "How does it feel to be a hero, Pratt?"
Pratt blushed and turned away. "I don"t want to wear any laurels that are not honestly my own," he muttered.
"But you don"t object to Miss Boston"s expression of grat.i.tude, Pratt?"
teased Frances.
He made a little face at her as he went back to the ranchman"s wife and her guests; without another word Frances spurred Molly in the other direction, and before Mrs. Bill Edwards could speak to her the girl of the ranges was far away.
She headed for the West Run, where a large herd of the Bar-T cattle grazed. Nor did she look back again to see what became of the group of riders who were with Mrs. Edwards and Pratt.
Frances had no heart for such company just then. Sue Latrop"s manner had really hurt the Western girl. Perhaps Frances was easily wounded; but Sue had plainly revealed her opinion of the ranchman"s daughter.
The contrast between them cut Frances to the quick. She keenly realized how she, herself, must appear in the company of the pretty Eastern girl.
"Of course, Pratt, and Mrs. Edwards, and all of them, must see how superior she is to me," Frances thought, as Molly galloped away with her. "But just the same, I don"t like that Sue Latrop a bit!"
CHAPTER XV
IN THE FACE OF DANGER
Frances was going by the way of Cottonwood Bottom because the trail was better and there were fewer gates to open.
The Bar-T kept a gang riding fence all the time; but even so, it was impossible always to keep up the wires. Frances seldom if ever rode from home without wire cutters and staples in a pocket of her saddle.
She stopped several times on this morning to mend breaks and to tighten slack wires, so it was late when she found the herd at West Run. Here were chuck-wagon, horse corral and camp--a regular "cowboy"s home," in fact.
The boss of the outfit was Asa Bird, and Tom Phipps was the wrangler, while a Mexican, named Miguel, was cooking for the outfit.
"Ya-as, Miss Frances," drawled Asa, "I reckon we need a right smart of things. Mike says he"s most out o" provisions; but for the love of home don"t send us no more beans. We"ve jest about been beaned to death! No wonder them Greasers are fighting among themselves all the endurin"
time. It"s the _frijoles_ they eat makes "em so fractious--sure is!"
Frances wrote out a list of the goods needed, for the next supply wagon that pa.s.sed this way to drop at the camp, and looked over the outfit in general in order to report fully to Sam and her father regarding the conditions at the West Run.
It was high noon before she got in sight of the cottonwoods on her homeward trail. She was hurrying Molly, for she did not want to keep Ratty M"Gill waiting for his money. As she had told him, she wanted the reckless cowboy off the Bar-T ranges before nightfall.
She had struck the plain above the river ford when she sighted a single rider far ahead, and going in her own direction. It was plain that the man--whoever he was--was heading for the ford instead of the bridge where the new trail crossed.
Something about this fact--or about the slouching rider himself--made Frances suspicious. She was reminded of the last time she had come this way and of the dialogue she had overheard between Ratty M"Gill and the man named Pete.
"If he turns to look back, he will see me," thought the excited girl.
Instantly she was off Molly"s back. There might be no time to ride out of sight over the ridge. Here was an old buffalo wallow, and she took advantage of it.
In the old days when the bison roamed the plains of the Panhandle the beasts made wallows in which they ground off the gra.s.s, and the gra.s.sroots as well, leaving a barren hollow from two to four feet in depth. These dust baths were used frequently by the heavily-coated buffalo in hot weather.
Holding Molly by the head the girl commanded her to lie down. The cow-pony, perfectly amenable to her young mistress now, obeyed the order, grunting as she dropped to her knees, the saddle squeaking.
"Be dead!" ordered Frances, sternly. The pinto rolled on her side, stretched out her neck, and blinked up at the girl. She was entirely hidden from any chance glance thrown back by the stranger on the trail; and when Frances dropped down, too, both of them were well out of sight of any one riding the range.