“Whew! I bet that hurt me,” chuckled Ratty M’Gill. “My room’s better than my comp’ny, eh?”
“It certainly is,” said the girl, frankly.
“Now, you wouldn’t say that if you knowed something that I know,” declared the fellow, grinning slily.
“I don’t know that anything you may say would interest me,” the girl replied, sharply, and turned Molly’s head.
“Aw, hold on!” cried Ratty. “Don’t be so abrupt. What I gotter say to you may help a lot.”
But Frances did not look back. She pushed Molly for the now distant wagon. In a moment she knew that Ratty was thundering after her. What did he mean by such conduct? To tell the truth, the ranchman’s daughter was troubled.
Surely, the reckless fellow did not propose to attack Mack and herself on the open trail and in broad daylight? She opened her lips to shout for the sleeping wagon-driver, when a cloud of dust ahead of the mules came into her view.
She heard the clatter of many hoofs. Quite a cavalcade was coming along the trail from the east. Out of the dust appeared a figure that Frances had learned to know well; and to tell the truth she was not sorry in her heart to see the smiling countenance of Pratt Sanderson.
“Hold on, Frances! Ye better listen to me a minute!” shouted the ex-cowboy behind her.
She gave him no attention. Molly sprang ahead and she met Pratt not far from the wagon. He stopped abruptly, as did the girl of the ranges. Ratty M’Gill brought his own mount to a sudden halt within a few yards.