ball
passed through the top of the wagon, so near that it made the ponies
jump.

"Put up your hands--all three of you folks down there!" commanded an
angry voice. "The magazine of this rifle is plumb full and I can shoot
straight. D'ye get me? Hands up!"

"My goodness!" gasped Pratt Sanderson.

What Mack Hinkman said was muffled in his own beard; but his hands shot
upward as he sat on the wagon-seat.

Frances said nothing; her heart jumped--and then pumped faster. She
recognized the drawling voice of the man in the tree, although she could
not see his face clearly in the firelight.

It was Pete--Ratty M'Gill's acquaintance--the man who had been orderly
at the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, and who had come all the way to the
Panhandle to try to secure the treasure in the old Spanish chest.

Perhaps Frances had half expected some such incident as this to
punctuate her journey to Amarillo. Nevertheless, the reckless tone of
the man, and the way he used his rifle, troubled her.

"Put your hands up!" she murmured to Pratt. "Do just what he tells you.
He may be wicked and foolish enough to fire again."

CHAPTER XIX

MOST ASTONISHING!

"The man must be crazy!" murmured the young bank clerk.

"All the more reason why we should be careful to obey him," Frances
said.

Yet she was not unmindful of the peril Pratt pointed out. Only, in
Frances' case, she had been brought up among men who carried guns
habitually, and the sound of a rifle shot did not startle her as it did
the young man.

"Look yere, Mr. Hold-up Man!" yelled Mack Hinkman, when his amazement
let him speak. "Ain't you headed in the wrong way? We ain't comin' from
town with a load. Why, man! we're only jest goin' to town. Why didn't
you wait till we was comin' back before springin' this mine on us?"

"Keep still there," commanded Pete, from the tree. "Drive on through the
river, and up on this bank, and then stop! You hear?"

"I'd hear ye, I reckon, if I was plumb deef," complained Mack. "That
rifle you handle so permiscuous speaks mighty plain."

"Let them on hossback mind it, too," added the man in the tree. "I got
an eye on 'em."

"Easy, Mister," urged Mack, as he picked up the reins again. "One o'
them is a young lady. You're a gent, I take it, as wouldn't frighten no
female."

"Stow that!" advised Pete, with vigor. "Come out o' there!"

Mack started the mules, and they dragged the wagon creakingly up the
bank. Frances and Pratt rode me