ed him. Who could he be? What was he after? Should she run to
awaken her father, or wait to observe his appearance above the edge of
the veranda roof?

A dried stick of the vine snapped again. There was a squirming figure on
the very edge of the roof. Frances knew that the unknown lay there,
panting, after his exertions.

CHAPTER V

THE SHADOW IN THE COURT

A dozen things she _might_ have done afterward appealed to Frances
Rugley. But as she crouched by her chamber window watching the squirming
human figure on the edge of the roof, she was interested in only one
thing:

_Who was he?_

This question so filled her thought that she was neither fearful nor
anxious. Curiosity controlled her actions entirely for the few next
minutes. And so she observed the marauder rise up, carefully balance
himself on the slates of the veranda roof, and tiptoe away to the corner
of the house. He did not come near her window; nor could she see his
face. His outlines were barely visible as he drifted into the shadow at
the corner--soundless of step now. Only the cracking of the dry branch,
as he climbed up, had betrayed him.

"I wish he had come this way," thought Frances. "I might have seen what
he looked like. Surely, we have no man on the ranch who would do such a
thing. Can it be that father is right? Did the fellow who hailed us
to-night come here to the Bar-T for some bad purpose?"

She waited several minutes by her window. Then she bethought her that
there was a window at the end of a cross-hall on the side of the house
where the man had disappeared, out of which she might catch another
glimpse of him.

So she thrust her bare feet into slippers, tied the robe more firmly
about her, and hurried out of the room. Nor did she think now of the
charged weapon hanging at the head of her bed.

She believed nobody would be astir in the great house. The Chinamen
slept at the extreme rear over the kitchen. Their guest, Pratt
Sanderson, was on the lower floor and at the opposite side, with his
windows opening upon the court around which the _hacienda_ was
built.

Captain Rugley's rooms were below, too. Frances knew herself to be alone
in this part of the house.

Nothing had ever happened to Frances Rugley to really terrify her. Why
should she be afraid now? She walked swiftly, her robe trailing behind,
her slippered feet twinkling in and out under the nightgown she wore. In
the cross-hall she almost ran. There, at the end,