e doing wandering around that court?"

"Oh, Dad! Don't worry about _him_. His arm and chest hurt him----"

"Humph! didn't hurt him when he went to bed, did they? Yet he was
sneaking along this hall and looking into this very room when the door
was slightly ajar. I saw him," said the old ranchman, bitterly.

Frances was amazed by this statement; but she realized that her father
was oversuspicious regarding the interest of strangers in the old
Spanish chest and its contents.

"Never mind Pratt," she said. "I came downstairs to find you, Daddy,
because there really _is_ a stranger about the house."

"What do you mean, Frances?" was the sharp retort.

The girl told him briefly about the man she had observed climbing up to
the veranda roof, and later to the roof of the house by aid of the rope
ladder.

"And Pratt tells me he heard some sound up there. He thought it was a
big bird," she concluded.

"Come on!" said her father, hastily. "Let's see that ladder."

He locked the door of the treasure room and strode up the main stairway.
Frances kept close behind him and warned him to step softly--rather an
unnecessary bit of advice to an old Indian trailer like Captain Rugley!

But when they came to the window through which Frances had seen the
dangling ladder it was gone. The old ranchman shot a ray of his electric
torch through the opening; but the light revealed nothing.

"Gone!" he announced, briefly.

"Do--do you think so, Dad?"

"Sure. Been scared off."

"But what could he possibly want--climbing up over our roof, and all
that?"

Captain Rugley stood still and stroked his chin reflectively. "I reckon
I know what they're after----

"They? But, Daddy, there was only one man."

"One that was coming over the roof," said her father. "But he had
pals--sure he did! If one of them wasn't in the house----"

"Why, Dad!" exclaimed Frances, in wonder.

"You can't always tell," said the old ranchman, slowly. "There's a heap
of valuables in that chest. Of course, they don't all belong to me," he
added, hastily. "My partner, Lon, has equal rights in 'em--don't ever
forget that, Frances, if something should happen to me."

"Why, Dad! how you talk!" she exclaimed.

"We can never tell," sighed her father. "Treasure is tempting. And it
looks to me as though this fellow who climbed over the roof expected to
find somebody inside to help him. That's the way it looks to me," he
repeated, shaking his head obstinately.

"