ething was going
wrong and Frances was troubled.

"What's the matter?" he asked, curiously.

"I thought that was Ratty M'Gill with that bunch," Frances answered,
more as though thinking aloud than consciously answering Pratt's
question. "The rascal! He'd run all the fat off a bunch of cows between
pastures."

She pulled Molly around and headed the pinto for the herd. It was not in
his way, but Pratt followed her example and rode his grey hard after the
cowgirl.

Not a herdsman was in sight. The steers were coming on through the dust,
sweating and steaming, evidently having been driven very hard since
daybreak. Occasionally one bawled an angry protest; but those in front
were being forced on by the rear ranks, which in turn were being
harassed by the punchers in charge.

Suddenly, a bald-faced steer shot out of the ruck of the herd, darting
at right angles to the course. For a little way a steer can run as fast
as a race-horse. That's why the creatures are so very hard to manage on
occasion.

To Pratt, who was watching sharply, it was a question which got into
action first--Frances or her wise little pinto. He did not see the girl
speak to Molly; but the pony turned like a shot and whirled away after
the careering steer. At the same moment, it seemed, Frances had her hair
rope in her hand.

The coils began to whirl around her head. The pinto was running like the
wind. The bald-faced, ugly-looking brute of a steer was soon running
neck and neck with the well-mounted girl.

Pratt followed. He was more interested in the outcome of the chase than
he was in where his grey was putting his feet.

There was an eerie yell behind them. Pratt saw a wild-looking, hatless
cowboy racing a black pony toward them. The whole herd seemed to have
been turned in some miraculous way, and was thundering after Old
Baldface and the girl.

Pratt began to wonder if there was not danger. He had heard of a
stampede, and it looked to him as though the bunch of steers was quite
out of hand. Had he been alone, he would have pulled out and let the
herd go by.

But either Frances did not see them coming, or she did not care. She was
after that bald-faced steer, and in a moment she had him.

The whirling noose dropped and in some wonderful way settled over a horn
and one of the steer's forefeet. When Molly stopped and braced herself,
the steer pitched forward, turned a complete somersault, and lay on the
prairie at the mercy of his capto