uld draw a fusillade of bullets from the door of every saloon and
dance-hall."

"Don't!" gasped Pratt. "Was Amarillo ever like _that_?"

"And not twenty years ago," laughed Frances. "It had a few hundred
inhabitants--and most of them ruffians. Now it claims ten thousand, has
bricked streets that used to be cow trails, electric lights, a
street-car service, and all the comforts and culture of an 'effete
East.'"

Pratt laughed, too. "It's a mighty comfortable place to live in--beside
Bill Edwards' ranch, for instance. But I notice here at the Bar-T you
have a great many of the despised Eastern luxuries."

"'Do-funnies' daddy calls them," said Frances, smiling. "Ah! here he
is."

The old ranchman came in, the holstered pistol still slung at his hip.

"All secure for the night, Daddy?" she asked, looking at him tenderly.

"Locked, barred, and bolted," returned her father. "I tell you, Pratt,
we're something of a fort here when we go to bed. The court's free to
you; but don't try to get out till Ming opens up in the morning. You
see, we're some distance from the bunk-house, and nobody but the two
Chinks are here with us now."

"I see, sir," said Pratt.

But he did not see; he wondered. And he wondered more when, after
separating from Frances for the night, he found his way through the hall
to the door of the room that had been assigned to him for his use.

On the other side of the hall was another door, open more than a crack,
with a light shining behind it. Pratt's curiosity got the better of him
and he peeped.

Captain Dan Rugley was standing in the middle of the almost bare room,
before an old dark, Spanish chest. He had a bunch of keys in one hand
and in the other dangled the ancient girdle and the bracelet Frances had
worn.

"That must be the 'treasure chest' she spoke of," thought the youth.
"And it looks it! Old, old, wrought-iron work trimmings of Spanish
design. What a huge old lock! My! it would take a stick of dynamite to
blow that thing open if one hadn't the key."

The Captain moved quickly, turning toward the door. Pratt dodged
back--then crept silently away, down the hall. He did not know that the
eye of the old ranchman watched him keenly through the crack of the
door.

CHAPTER IV

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT

Frances looked through her barred window, out over the fenced yard, and
down to the few twinkling watch-lights at the men's quarters. All the
second-story windows of the ran