“That’s as may be. What was he doing wandering around that court?”
“Oh, Dad! Don’t worry about him. His arm and chest hurt him—”
“Humph! didn’t hurt him when he went to bed, did they? Yet he was sneaking along this hall and looking into this very room when the door was slightly ajar. I saw him,” said the old ranchman, bitterly.
Frances was amazed by this statement; but she realized that her father was oversuspicious regarding the interest of strangers in the old Spanish chest and its contents.
“Never mind Pratt,” she said. “I came downstairs to find you, Daddy, because there really is a stranger about the house.”
“What do you mean, Frances?” was the sharp retort.
The girl told him briefly about the man she had observed climbing up to the veranda roof, and later to the roof of the house by aid of the rope ladder.
“And Pratt tells me he heard some sound up there. He thought it was a big bird,” she concluded.
“Come on!” said her father, hastily. “Let’s see that ladder.”
He locked the door of the treasure room and strode up the main stairway. Frances kept close behind him and warned him to step softly–rather an unnecessary bit of advice to an old Indian trailer like Captain Rugley!