The wagon went into the water at that moment. Mack yelled to the mules to stop. The wagon was hub deep in the stream and he loosened the reins so that the animals might plunge their noses into the flood. Molly and the grey quickly put down their heads, too.
Above the little group the flames crackled in a dead-limbed tree, lighting the ford like a huge torch. Above the flare of the thick canopy of the smoke spread out, completely overcasting the river.
Suddenly Frances laid her hand upon Pratt’s arm. She pointed with her quirt into a bushy tree on the opposite bank.
“Look over there!” she exclaimed, in a low tone.
Almost as she spoke there sounded the sharp crack of a rifle, and a ball passed through the top of the wagon, so near that it made the ponies jump.
“Put up your hands–all three of you folks down there!” commanded an angry voice. “The magazine of this rifle is plumb full and I can shoot straight. D’ye get me? Hands up!”
“My goodness!” gasped Pratt Sanderson.
What Mack Hinkman said was muffled in his own beard; but his hands shot upward as he sat on the wagon-seat.
Frances said nothing; her heart jumped–and then pumped faster. She recognized the drawling voice of the man in the tree, although she could not see his face clearly in the firelight.
It was Pete–Ratty M’Gill’s acquaintance–the man who had been orderly at the Bylittle Soldiers’ Home, and who had come all the way to the Panhandle to try to secure the treasure in the old Spanish chest.