t on the hat again. Then he started
lazily for the pony that he rode.

"Now mind you!" he called back over his shoulder to Pete, "I'm not going
to risk my scalp going to the ranch-house with this yere billy-do--not
much!"

"Why not?" asked Pete, angrily. "We got to move quick."

"We'll move quick later; we'll go sure and steady now," chuckled the
cowboy. "I'll send it in by one of the Mexicans. Say it was give to me
by a stranger on the trail. I ain't welcome at the Bar-T, and I know
it."

He leaped into his saddle and spurred his horse away, quickly getting
out of sight. Frances knew that the letter he carried, and which Pete
had written, was to her father.

CHAPTER XXIII

A GAME OF PUSS IN THE CORNER

The reckless cowpuncher, Ratty M'Gill, riding up the bank of the narrow
stream through the cottonwoods, and singing a careless song at the top
of his voice, was what gave Pratt Sanderson the final suggestion that
there was something down stream that he ought to look into.

Frances had gone that way; Ratty was riding back. Had they met, or
passed, on the river bank?

Of the cavalcade cutting across the range for Mr. Edwards' place, Pratt
was the only member that noticed the discharged cowpuncher. And he
waited until the latter was well out of sight and hearing before he
turned his grey pony's head back toward the river.

"Where are you going, Pratt?" demanded one of his friends.

"I've forgotten something," the young man from Amarillo replied.

"Oh, dear me!" cried Sue Latrop. "He's forgotten his cute, little cattle
queen. Give her my love, Pratt."

The young fellow did not reply. If the girl from Boston had really been
of sufficient importance, Pratt would have hated her. Sue had made
herself so unpleasant that she could never recover her place in his
estimation--that was sure!

He set spurs to his pony and raced away before any other remarks could
be made in his hearing. He rode directly back to the ford they had
crossed; but reaching it, he turned sharply down stream, in the
direction from which Ratty M'Gill had come.

Here and there in the soft earth he saw the marks of Molly's hoofs. But
when these marks were no longer visible on the harder ground, Pratt kept
on.

He soon pulled the grey down to a walk. They made little noise, he and
the pony. Two miles he rode, and then suddenly the grey pony pointed his
ears forward.

Pratt reached quickly and seized the grey's nostrils between thumb