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She was bruised and suffering pain herself. But Pratt's case was much worse than her own just then and her whole heart went out to the young man from Amarillo. Pete sat over his little fire and smoked. He was evidently expecting Ratty M'Gill to return; but for some reason Ratty was delayed.
Frances cried, "he was only asking out of good feeling." "I don't know that," growled the old ranchman. "I haven't forgotten that he was here in the house the night that other fellow tried to break in. Looks curious to me, Frances sure does!" She might have told him right then about Ratty M'Gill and the man Pete; but Frances was not an impulsive girl.
Frances thanked him and went up to the house. She did not find an opportunity of speaking to Captain Rugley about Ratty M'Gill at once, however, for she found him in a state of great excitement. "Listen to this, Frances!" he ejaculated, when she appeared, waving a sheet of paper in his hand, and trying to get up from the hard chair in which he was sitting.
He felt that this was an extravagance, but he was in need just then of consolation. He had wandered up on the mountain, past the reservoir and the M'Gill University, after a singularly discouraging afternoon, to wait until supper should be ready at his boarding-house.
The suspicion that Captain Rugley had a treasure hidden away in the old Spanish chest was not a general one. It might have been lazily discussed now and then over some outfit's fire when other subjects of gossip had "petered out," to use the punchers' own expression. But it was doubtful if even Ratty M'Gill believed the story.
Rodolphe Laflamme, the head of the firm, one of the leaders of the bar in Montreal, was active in the interests of the radical wing of the Liberal party, known as the Rouges. The lectures in M'Gill were given in English. Thanks to his experience at New Glasgow and his later reading, the young student found little difficulty in following them.
It was a blast of that kind that threw down and severely injured Battalion Chief M'Gill, one of the oldest and most experienced of firemen, at a fire on Broadway in March, 1890; and it has cost more brave men's lives than the fiercest fire that ever raged. The "puff," as the firemen call it, comes suddenly, and from the corner where it is least expected.
From below came a sliding rattle, a great crash of crockery, and then a series of imprecations. The next instant Arthur M'Gill, the steward, dashed up the companionway and burst into the pilot-house. "Doggone it all, Cap'n!" yelled the angry man, "why in hell don't ye let me know when ye're goin' to sling 'er across seas?
Ratty M'Gill stood with flaming face and glittering eyes, watching the girl depart, leading the trembling Molly toward the exit of the corral. "You're a sure short-tempered gal this A. M.," he growled to himself. "And ye sure have got it in for me. I wonder why? I wonder why?" Frances did not vouchsafe him another look.
It was plain that the man whoever he was was heading for the ford instead of the bridge where the new trail crossed. Something about this fact or about the slouching rider himself made Frances suspicious. She was reminded of the last time she had come this way and of the dialogue she had overheard between Ratty M'Gill and the man named Pete.
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