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He had not had an opportunity to say all that he wanted to say and he was to go back to Amarillo the next day. He saw the Captain and his daughter climb the steps, helped by the negro porter. They disappeared within the lighted car. Pratt still lingered. His pony was hitched up the street a block or so. There really was nothing further for him to wait for.
We went down that hill at racing speed, I having absolutely no control over the terrified animals, which did not stop for many miles. Again, with the same team I once started to Amarillo, being half a day ahead of the steer herd. First evening I camped out at a water-hole and staked out Prince with a long heavy rope and strong iron stake pin. The other horse was hobbled with a rope hobble.
My mercy! are folks goin' to be held up on this trail and robbed just as though we had no law and order? It's disgraceful!" Then she turned her mind to another idea. "Miss Frances!" she exclaimed. "What was in that trunk? Must have been something valuable, eh?" "I was taking it to the Amarillo bank, to put it in the safe deposit vaults," Frances answered, dodging the direct question.
And at that instant the grey put his foot into a ground-dog hole, and the young man from Amarillo left the saddle! He described a perfect parabola and landed on his head and shoulders on the ground. The grey scrambled up and shot away at a tangent, out of the course of the herd of thundering steers. He was not really hurt. But his rider lay still for a moment on the prairie.
There were bronzed cattlemen from every range from Amarillo to the Belle Fourche, sturdy buyers of swine from Iowa and Illinois, sombreroed sheepmen from New Mexico, and vikingesque Swedes from North Dakota. Men there were wearing thousand-dollar diamonds in red flannel shirts, solid gold watch-chains made to imitate bridle-bits, and heavy golden bullocks sliding on horse-hair guards.
She will undoubtedly throw all us girls in the shade," and Sue burst into a gale of laughter. "I declare! you're cruel, Sue!" cried one of the girls from Amarillo. "I'd like to know how you make that out, Miss?" demanded the girl from Boston. "Frances has never done you a bit of harm. Why! you are accepting her hospitality this very moment. And yet, you haven't a good word to say for her."
In another moment he would head into the body of Sue's mount with an awful impact! "Frances!" Pratt Sanderson fairly shrieked the ranch girl's name. He could do nothing to save Sue Latrop himself, nor could the other visitors from Amarillo. Silent Sam and his men were too far away. If with anybody, it lay with Frances Rugley to save the Boston girl.
With hanging heads and heaving flanks, the two cow-ponies followed. Frances and Pratt were scorched, and smutted from head to foot; and their throats were parched, too. "I hope I'll never have to take such another ride," admitted the young man from Amarillo. "Adventure is all right, Frances; but clerking in a bank doesn't prepare one for such a strenuous life."
In this plains country, such as surrounds Amarillo, during the land boom, immense tracts were bought by speculators, who then proceeded to dispose of it to farmers and small settlers. They do this on a methodical and grand scale. One such man chartered special trains to bring out from the middle States his proposed clients or victims.
They spoke of inconsequential things on the veranda, where Ming served cool drinks; and then the Amarillo young man rode away. "Sue Latrop and that crowd will be out to-morrow, I expect," he said, as he departed. "Don't know when I can get over again, Frances. I'll have to beau them around a bit." "Good-bye, Pratt," said Frances, without comment.
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