Edwards. "Boys! Save her!"
But it was all over before any of the punchers, or the visitors on the fence, could go to Frances" rescue.
The buckskin rose on his hind legs and struck at the girl desperately.
She had gathered in the slack of the broken lariat and she swung it sharply across the pony"s face, leaping sideways to avoid him.
The pony whirled and struck again, whistling shrilly, the foam flying from his jaws. Once more Frances avoided him.
Tom Gallup was yelling like a wild boy on the fence. Sue could scarcely catch her breath for fear. She would not have admitted it for the world; but the courage of the range girl amazed her. Her own rescue from the charge of the little black bullock by Frances had not impressed Sue Latrop as did this battle with the pony in the arena of the horse corral.
Fred Purchase ran with another lariat. Frances seized it, flung the noose over the upraised head of the pony, took a swift turn around a shed post, and brought the "bad actor" up short.
She insisted, too, on cinching on the saddle and putting the bit in the pony"s mouth. Then she mounted him and as he tore around the corral, the girl sitting as though she were a part of the creature, the boys and girls joined the punchers in cheering her.
It was not in this way, however, that the girl visitors to the ranges learned the true worth of Frances Rugley. They were, after all, only "porch acquaintances." Once only had the party been invited into the inner court for luncheon, and their brief calls to the ranch-house offered little opportunity for the girls to really see Frances" home.
They had met her so much in riding costume that, like Pratt Sanderson, they were amazed when she appeared in a pretty house dress. And they were really a bit awed by her, for although the range girl was of a naturally cheerful disposition, she possessed, too, more than her share of dignity.
"You don"t flit about like these other girls, Frances," said the old ranchman, who was very observant. "You grow to look and seem more like your mother every day. But the goodness knows I don"t want you to grow into a woman ahead of your time."
"I reckon I won"t do that, Dad," she said, laughing at him fondly.
"I don"t know. I reckon you"ve had too much responsibility on those shoulders of yours. You left school too young, too. That"s what these other girls say. Why, that Boston girl is going to school now!
"But, shucks! she wouldn"t know enough to hurt her if she attended school from now till the end of time!"
Frances laughed again. "That is pretty harsh, father. Now, I think I have had quite schooling enough to get along. I don"t need the higher branches of education to help you run this ranch. Do I?"
"By mighty!" exploded the Captain. "I don"t know whether I have been doing right by you or not. I"ve been talking to Mrs. Bill Edwards about it. I loved you so, Frances, that I hated to have you out of my sight.
But----"
"Now, now!" cried the girl. "Let"s have no more of that. You and I have only each other, and I couldn"t bear to be away from you long enough to go to a boarding school."
"Yes--I know," went on Captain Rugley. "But there are ways of getting around _that_. We"ll see."
One thing he was determined on was Captain Dan Rugley. He proposed to have "some doings" at the ranch-house before Pratt was well enough to be discharged from "St. Frances" Hospital," as he called the _hacienda_.
The old ranchman worked up the idea with Mrs. Edwards before Frances knew anything about it.
"They call it a "dinner dance,"" he confided to Frances at length, when the main plan was already made. "At least that"s what Mrs. Edwards says."
"A "dinner dance"?" repeated his daughter, not sure for the moment that she wished to have so much confusion in the house when there was so much to do.
"Yes! Now, it isn"t one of those dances you read about out East, where folks drink a cup of tea, and then get up and dance around, and then take a sandwich and the orchestra strikes up another tune," chuckled Captain Rugley.
"No, it isn"t like that. I couldn"t stand any such doings. I"d never know when I"d had enough to eat; every dance would shake down the courses so that my stomach would be packed as hard as a cement sidewalk."
"Oh, Daddy!" said Frances, half laughing at him.
"No. This dinner dance idea is all right," declared the ranchman. "We give a dinner to the whole crowd--all the girls and boys that have been coming over here for the past two or three weeks."
"It will make fifteen at table," said the practical Frances, thinking hard of the resources of the household.
"That"s all right. I"ll get in the Reposa boys to help San Soo and Ming."
"Victorino, too?" asked his daughter, curiously.
"Yes," declared the Captain, stoutly. "He"s sorry he mixed up with Ratty M"Gill. Vic isn"t a bad boy. Well, that"s help enough, and San Soo can outdo himself on his dinner."
"That part of it will be all right--and the service, too, for Jose and Victorino are handy boys," admitted Frances.
"We"ll have out the best tableware we own. That silver stuff that came from Don Morales will knock their eyes out----"
"Oh, Daddy!" cried Frances, going off into a gale of laughter. "You picked up that expression from Tom Gallup."
"That"s the slangy boy--yes," admitted the old ranchman, with a broad smile. "But some of his slang just hits things off right. Some of those girls think you"re "country," I know. We"ll show them!"
Frances sighed. She knew it meant that she must dress the part of a barbarian princess to please her father. But she made no objection. If she tried to show him that the jewels and ornaments were not fit for her to wear, he would be hurt.
"Yes!" exclaimed Captain Rugley, evidently much pleased with the idea of a social time that he had evolved with Mrs. Edwards" help, "we"ll have as nice a dinner as San Soo can make. After dinner we"ll have dancing, I"ll get the string band from Jackleg. Jackleg"s getting to be quite a social centre, Mrs. Edwards says."
Frances laughed again. "I expect," she said, "that Mrs. Edwards is eager to have a dance, and the Jackleg string band _is_ a whole lot better than Bob Jones" accordion and Perry"s old fiddle."
"Oh, well! Of course, an accordion and fiddle are all right for a cowboy dance, but this is going to be the real thing!" declared her father.
"Aren"t you going to invite the boys as usual?" asked Frances, quickly.
"Not to the dinner!" gasped her father. "But that"s all right. To the dance, afterward. Some of them are mighty good dancers, and there aren"t boys enough in Mrs. Edwards" crowd to go round. It"s quite the thing at a dinner dance, she says, to invite extra people to come in after the dinner is over."
"All right," said Frances, suppressing another sigh.
"And I"m going to send off for half a carload of potted palms, and other plants. We"ll decorate like the Town Hall. You"ll see!" exclaimed the old ranchman, as eager as a boy about it all.
Frances hadn"t the heart to make any objection, but she was afraid that the affair would be a disappointment to him. She did not think the boys from the ranges, and Sue Latrop and her girl friends, would mix well.
But the Captain went ahead with his preparations with his usual energy.
He had Mrs. Edwards as chief adviser. But Frances overlooked the plans in the household in her usually capable way.
The big drawing-room was thoroughly cleaned and the floor waxed. The scratches made by Ratty M"Gill"s spurs were eliminated. When the potted plants came--a four-mule wagon-load--Frances arranged them about the dancing floor and dining-room.
She found her father practising his steps in the hall one morning before breakfast. "Goodness, Daddy," she cried. "Do be careful of your weak leg."
"Don"t you worry about me," he chuckled. "I"m going to give old Mr.
Rheumatism a black eye this time. I"m going to "shake a leg" at this dance if it"s the last act of my life."
"Don"t be too reckless," she told him, with a worried little frown on her brow. "I want you to be able to ride to Jackleg to see the pageant.
And that comes the very day but one after our dance."
"I"ll be all right," he a.s.sured her. "I have a dance promised from Mrs.