. "Been pulling
leather?"

"There ain't no hawse bawn can make me git off if I don't want,"
returned Ratty M'Gill, sharply. "I got canned."

"Fired?"

"Yep. And by that snip of a gal," and he said it viciously.

"Ain't you man enough to have a pony of your own?"

"Sam wouldn't sell me one--the hound! Nor I didn't have no money to
spare for a mount, anyway. I'd rustle one out of the herd if the
wranglers hadn't drove 'em all up the other way las' night. And I said
I'd come over here to see you again."

"What else?" demanded Pete, suspiciously. He seemed to know that Ratty
had not come here to the ford for love of him.

"Wal, old man! I tried to go to headquarters. Went in to see the Cap.
Nothing doing. If the gal had canned me, that was enough. So he said,
and so Sam Harding said. I'm through at the Bar-T."

"That's a nice thing," snarled Pete. "And just as I got up a scheme to
use you there!"

"Mebbe you can use me now," grunted Ratty.

"I--don't--know."

"Oh, I seen something that you'd like to know about."

"What is that?" asked Pete, quickly.

"The old Cap has taken a tumble to himself. Guess he was put wise by
what happened the other night--you know. He's going to send the chest to
the Amarillo bank."

"_What?_"

"That's so," said Ratty, with his slow drawl, and evidently enjoying the
other's discomfiture.

"How do you know?" snapped Pete.

"Seed it. Standing all corded up and with a tag on it, right in the
hall. Knowed Sam was going to get ready a four-mule team for Amarillo
to-morrow morning. The gal's going with it, and Mack Hinkman to drive.
Good-night! if there's treasure in that chest, you'll have to break into
the Merchants' and Drovers' Bank of Amarillo to get at it--take that
from me!"

Pete leaned toward him and his hairy hand clutched Ratty's knee. What he
said to the discharged employee of the Bar-T Ranch Frances did not hear.
She had, however, heard enough. She was worried by what Ratty had said
about his interview with Captain Rugley. Her father should not have been
disturbed by ranch business just then.

The girl crept back through the grove, found Molly where she had left
her, and soon was a couple of miles away from the ford and making for
the ranch-house at Molly's very best pace.

She found her father not so much excited as she had feared. Ratty had
forced his way into the stricken cattleman's room and done some talking;
but the Captain was chuckling now over the incide