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But when Frances looked over her shoulder after a minute, Ratty M'Gill still remained on the trail, as though undecided whether to follow or not. It was not until later that Frances was disturbed by the thought that Pratt was suspected by her father of having a strong curiosity regarding the Spanish treasure chest. "And here he has forced his company upon me," thought the girl.
What is a mistake. As one perceives." Other characters had been sketched, some of them to be abandoned after a few bold touches: the difficulty of avoiding too close a portraiture to the living original having apparently proved irksome. Against one such, evidently an attempt to help Dick see himself in his true colours, I find this marginal, note in pencil: "Better not. Might make him ratty."
"How kind of you!" he went on, dancing round them. "I was just going to send a boat down the river for you, Ratty, with strict orders that you were to be fetched up here at once, whatever you were doing. I want you badly both of you. Now what will you take? Come inside and have something! You don't know how lucky it is, your turning up just now!"
"So he is," said Ratty. "He hasn't had a pair of new breeches for the last seven years, and he hides himself whenever he sees mamma or the girls." "Oh, you ignorant child! Indeed, Ratty, my love, you must study. I will give you the renowned Kirwan's book. Charlotte tore some of it for curl papers; but there's enough left to enlighten you with the sun's rays, and reflection and refraction "
He wore a stubble of beard that did not disguise the sneering mouth, or the wickedly leering expression of his eyes. "Well, I done my part, old fellow," drawled the man in the seat of the buckboard, just as Frances came within earshot. "'Tain't my fault you bungled it." Frances stopped instead of going on. It was Ratty M'Gill!
The young villain then put a charge of powder and ball into the pistol he handed his grandmother, who took steady aim at her reflection in the mirror, and at the words, "Ready fire!" bang went the pistol the magnificent glass was smashed the unexpected recoil of the weapon made it drop from the hand of the dowager, who screamed with astonishment at the report and the shock, and did not see for a moment the mischief she had done; but when the shattered mirror caught her eyes, she made a rush at Ratty, who was screeching with laughter in the far corner of the room where he ran to when he had achieved his trick, and he was so helpless from the excess of his cachinnation, that the old lady cuffed him without his being able to defend himself.
She could not tell her father about him; and she shrank from revealing the puncher's villainy to Silent Sam Harding. Indeed, she was afraid of what Sam and the other boys on the ranch might do to punish Ratty M'Gill. The Bar-T punchers might be rather rough with a fellow like Ratty. Frances believed the boys on the Bar-T were loyal to her father and herself.
Now the girl had to be much more than the intermediary between the old ranchman and his employees. The doctor had impressed her with the rule that his patient was not to be worried by business matters. Many things she had to do "off her own bat," as Sam Harding expressed it. The matter of Ratty M'Gill's discharge must be one of these things, Frances saw plainly.
Matt Breen's place was in a ratty part of the poorer outskirts of town; and his laboratory was housed by what had once been a barn. But place and surroundings were forgotten at sight of the owner's face.
He stared at her again, shifted uneasily, crossed the other leg tightly, frowned, blinked, and reached for the matches. "You look a bit off-colour, Mary. It's the heat that makes us all a bit ratty at times. Better put that by and have a swill o' oatmeal and water, and turn in." "It's too hot to go to bed. I couldn't sleep. I'm all right. I'll I'll just finish this.
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