"Heard from old Lon at last--yes, ma'am! What do you know about that? From good old Lon, who was my partner for twenty years. I've got a letter here that one of the boys brought from the station just now, from a minister, back in Mississippi. Poor old Lon's in a soldier's home, and he's just got track of me. "My soul and body, Frances! Think of it," added the excited Captain. "He's been living almost like a beggar for years in a Confederate soldiers' home--good place, like enough, of its kind, but here am I rolling in wealth, and that treasure chest right here under my eye, and Lon suffering, perhaps----" The Captain almost broke down, for with the pain he was enduring and all, the incident quite unstrung him. Frances had her arms about him and kissed his tear-streaked cheek. "Foolish, am I?" he demanded, looking up at her, "But it's broken me up--hearing from my old partner this way. Read the letter, Frances, won't you?" She did so. It was from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home, of Bylittle, Mississippi. "Captain Daniel Rugley, "Bar-T Ranch, "Texas Panhandle. "Dear Sir: "I am writing in behalf of an old soldier in this institution, one Jonas P. Lonergan, who was at one time a member of Company K, Texas Rangers, and who before that time served honorably in Company P, Fifth Regiment, Mississippi Volunteers, during the War between the States. "Mr. Lonergan is a sadly broken man, having passed through much evil after his experiences on the Border and in Mexico in your company. Indeed, his whole life has been one of privation and hardship. Now, bent with years, he has been obliged to seek refuge with some of his ancient comrades at Bylittle. "In several private talks with me, Captain Rugley, he has mentioned the incidents relating to the looting and destruction of Señor Morales' _hacienda_, over the Border in Mexico, while you and he were on detail in that vicinity as Rangers. "Perhaps the old man is rambling; but he always talks of a treasure chest which he claims you and he rescued from the bandits and removed into Arizona, hiding the same in a certain valley at the mouth of a cañon which he calls Dry Bone Cañon. "Mr. Lonergan always speaks of you as 'the whitest man who ever lived.' 'If my old partner, Captain Dan, knew how I was fixed or where I was, he'd have me rollin' in luxury in no time,' he has said to me; 'providing he's this same Captain Dan Rugley that's owner of the Bar-T Ranch in the Panhandle.' "You know (if you know him at all) that Mr. Lonergan had no educational advantages. Such men have difficulty in keeping up communication with their friends.