When the crowd came over from the Edwards ranch, and sat around on the porch, Frances was not always with them. One afternoon--the very day before the dinner and dance, in fact--she came through one of the long, open windows upon the veranda, right behind a group of three of the girls. It was by chance she heard one of them say: "Well, I don't care, Sue, I think she is real nice. You are awfully critical." "I can't bear dowdy people," drawled Sue Latrop. "I know she'll be a sight at that dinner to-morrow night. My goodness! if for nothing else I'd come to see how she looks in her 'best bib and tucker' and how that queer old man acts when he is what he calls 'all dolled up.'" "Sh!" warned the third girl. "Somebody will hear you." "Pooh! If they do?" returned Sue Latrop, carelessly. "If I were you," said the other girl, with warmth, "I wouldn't accept an invitation to dine with people whom I expected to make fun of." "Silly!" laughed the girl from Boston. "I've got to find enjoyment somewhere--and there's little enough of it in this Panhandle. I'll be glad when father writes saying that I can come home once again." "How about your going to this dance, Sue?" chuckled one of the girls, suddenly. "I thought your doctor had forbidden dancing for this summer?" "I think I see myself dancing with these cowboys that they are going to invite," scoffed Sue. "And Pratt can't dance yet. There isn't anybody worth dancing with in our crowd now." "Hasn't the Captain asked you for a dance?" queried her friend, roguishly. "I should say not!" gasped Sue. "Fancy!" "You must not act as though his invitation insulted you, Sue Latrop," said one of the other girls, rather tartly. "You might as well understand, first as last, that we are all fond of Captain Rugley. Besides, he's a very influential man and one of the wealthiest in this part of the Panhandle." "_Nouveau-riche_," sniffed Miss Sue, with a toss of her head. "If that means newly rich, why, he's not!" exclaimed the other girl, with continued warmth. "It's true, he didn't make his money baking beans, or bean-pots; nor by drying and selling pollock and calling it 'codfish.' I believe one has to make his money in some such way to break into Boston society?" "Something like that," responded Sue, calmly. "Well, the old Captain is very, very wealthy," went on his champion. "If you'd ever been much inside this big house, you'd see it is so. And they say he has a treasure chest containing jewels of fabulous value." "A treasure chest!" ejaculated the Boston girl. "Yes, Ma'am!" "Now you are trying to fool me," declared Sue Latrop. "You wait! I expect Frances will wear at the dinner some of those wonderful old jewels the Captain digs out of his chest once in a while. I've heard they are really amazing---- "Jewels to deck out the Cattle Queen!" interrupted Sue, tauntingly. "Nose ring and anklets included, I s'pose?" "Now, Sue! how can you be so mean?" cried one of the other girls.