With the Bar-T party was Pratt, although he proposed going back to the Edwards ranch that night. He wanted to get away from the crowd of enthusiastic and excited young people who had accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Bill Edwards into town to the show. This train that was stopping to cast loose the special car at Jackleg was the last to stop at that station at night. Some few of the spectators of the pageant would board it for stations farther west; so there was a small group on the station platform. The young folk, Pratt and Frances, sighted the headlight up the track. They were walking up and down the platform, arm in arm and talking over the successful completion of the play, when they spied it. "It's coming, Daddy!" cried Frances, running into the station to warn the old Captain. To tell the truth, he had been leaning back against the wall--in a hard and straight-backed chair, of course--taking a "cat-nap." But he awoke instantly and with all his senses alert. "All right, Frances--all right, my girl," he said. "I'm with you. Hurrah! My old partner will be as glad to see me as I am to see him." But when the train rolled in there was some delay. The special car had to be shunted onto the siding before Captain Rugley could go aboard. "Come on, Frances," urged her father, as eager as a boy. He ran across the tracks and Frances dutifully followed him. Pratt remained on the platform and looked rather wistfully after her. Their conversation had been broken off abruptly. He had not had an opportunity to say all that he wanted to say and he was to go back to Amarillo the next day. He saw the Captain and his daughter climb the steps, helped by the negro porter. They disappeared within the lighted car. Pratt still lingered. His pony was hitched up the street a block or so. There really was nothing further for him to wait for. Suddenly shadows appeared on a curtain of one section of the car. The shade flew up and the window was raised. The young man from Amarillo stood right where the lamplight fell upon his features. He found himself staring into the face of a grey-visaged, sharp-eyed old man, who had a great shock of grey hair on the top of his head like a cockatoo's tuft. The stranger stared at Pratt earnestly, and then beckoned him with both hands, shouting: "Hey, you boy! You there, with the plaid cap. Come here!" Rather startled, and not a little amused, Pratt started slowly in the direction of the car. "Hey! Lift your feet there," called out the old man. "You act like you had the hookworm. Git a move on!" "What do you want?" demanded Pratt, coming under the window. He could see into the lighted car now, and he observed Frances and her father standing back of the stranger, the Captain broadly agrin. The man reached down suddenly and grabbed Pratt by the lobe of his right ear--pinching it between thumb and finger. "Say! what are you about?" demanded Pratt. But for a very good reason he did not seek to pull away.