at so, boys?"

"Ratty warn't here then," said the first speaker. "He don't know that
leetle Molly hawse and what capers she done cut up----"

"Molly!" ejaculated Frances, under her breath, and ran forward.

At that instant there was a sudden hullabaloo in the corral. Some of the
men cheered; others laughed; and one fell off the fence.

"Go it!"

"Hold tight, boy!"

"Tie a knot in your laigs underneath her, Ratty! She's a-gwine to try to
throw ye clean ter Texarkana!"

_"What's he doing with my pony?"_

The cry startled the string of punchers. They turned--most of them
looking sheepish enough--and gaped, wordlessly, at Frances, who came
running to the fence.

Molly was her pet, her own especial property. Nobody else had ridden the
pinto since she was broken by the head wrangler, Joe Magowan. Nor was
Molly really broken, in the ordinary acceptation of the term.

Frances could ride her--could do almost anything with her. She was the
best cutting-out pony on the ranch. She was gentle with Frances, but she
had never shown fondness for anybody else, and would look wall-eyed on
the near approach of anybody but the girl herself. None but Joe and
Frances had ever bridled her or cinched the saddle on Molly.

Ratty M'Gill was the culprit, of course; nor did he hear Frances' cry as
she arrived at the corral. He had bestridden the nervous pinto and Molly
was "acting up."

Ratty had his rope around her neck and a loop around her lower jaw, as
Indians guide their half-wild steeds. At every bound the puncher jerked
the pony's jaw downward and raked her flanks with his cruel spurs. These
latter were leaving welts and gashes along the pinto's heaving sides.

"You cruel fellow!" shrieked Frances. "Get off my pony at once!"

"Say! she's trying to buck, Miss Frances," one of the men warned her.
"She'll be sp'il't if he lets her beat him now. You won't never be able
to ride her, once let her git the upper hand."

"Mind you own concerns, Jim Bender!" exclaimed the girl, both wrathful
and hurt. "I can manage that pony if she's let alone." Then she raised
her voice again and cried to Ratty:

"M'Gill! you get off that horse! At once, I tell you!"

"The Missus is sure some peeved," muttered Bender to one of his mates.

"And why shouldn't she be? We'd never ought to let Ratty try to ride
that critter."

"Molly!" shouted Frances, climbing the fence herself as quickly as any
boy.

She dropped over into the corral where the o