The hold-up at the ford naturally made Frances feel somewhat timid, too.
Mack was not armed, and she had only the revolver that she usually
carried in her saddle holster and wouldn't have thought of defending
herself with it from any human being.

So she rode ahead when it became dark, and reached the Peckham ranch at
supper time, finding both a warm welcome and much news awaiting her.

"Glad to see ye back again, Frances," declared Mrs. Peckham. "We done
been talking about you and your hold-up most of the time since you went
to Amarillo. Beats all how little it does take to set folks' tongues
wagging in the country. Ain't it so?

"Well! that feller got clean away. And he took chest and all. Them
fellers that went down stream found the old punt. But they never found
no place where he'd shifted the trunk ashore. And it must have been
heavy, Frances?"

"Oh, yes!"

"Must have been a sight of valuables in it," repeated Mrs. Peckham.

"What about those who went up stream?" asked Frances, quickly.

"There! your friend, Mr. Sanderson, didn't come back. He went on to Mr.
Bill Edwards' place, so he said. He axed would you lead his grey pony on
behind your wagon to the Bar-T. Said he'd come after it there."

"Yes; of course," returned Frances. "But didn't he find any trace of the
robber up stream?"

"How could they, Miss Frances, if the boat went down?" demanded Mrs.
Peckham. "Of course not."

It was true. Frances worried about this. Pratt Sanderson had insisted
upon leading a part of the searchers in exactly the opposite direction
to that in which common sense should have told him the robber had gone
with the chest.

"Of course he would never have tried to pole against the current,"
Frances told herself. "I am afraid daddy will consider that
significant."

She did not attempt to keep the story from Captain Dan Rugley when she
got back home on the fourth evening.

"Smart girl!" the old ranchman said, when she told him of the
make-believe treasure chest she had carted halfway to Amarillo,
burlapped, corded, and tagged as though for deposit in the city bank for
safe-keeping.

"Smart girl!" he repeated. "Fooled 'em good. But maybe you were
reckless, Frances--just a wee mite reckless."

"I had no intention of trying to defend the chest, or of letting Mack,"
she told him.

"And how about that Pratt boy who you say went along with you?" queried
the Captain, his brows suddenly coming together.

"Well, Daddy! He