It was of his old partner he thought most. That the affairs of the ranch would go on all right in the hands of his young daughter and Silent Sam, he seemed to have no doubt. But the letter from the chaplain of the Bylittle Soldiers' Home was forever troubling him. Between his spells of agony, or when his mind was really clear, he talked to Frances of little but Jonas Lonergan and the treasure chest. "He is troubling his mind about something, and it is not good for him," the doctor, who came every third day (and had a two hundred-mile jaunt by train and buckboard), told Frances. "Can't you calm his mind, Miss Frances?" She told the medical man as much about her father's ancient friend as she thought was wise. "He desires to have him brought here," she explained, "so that they can go over, face to face and eye to eye, their old battles and adventures." "Good! Bring the man--have him brought," said the physician. "But he is an old soldier," said Frances. She read aloud that part of the Reverend Decimus Tooley's letter relating to the state of Mr. Lonergan's health. "Don't know what we can do about it, then," said the doctor, who was a native of the Southwest himself. "Your father and the old fellow seem to be 'honing' for each other. Too bad they can't meet. It would do your father good. I don't like his mind's being troubled." That night Frances was really frightened. Her father began muttering in his sleep. Then he talked aloud, and sat up in bed excitedly, his face flushed, and his tongue becoming clearer, although his speech was not lucid. He was going over in his distraught mind the adventures he had had with Lon when they two had foiled the bandits and recovered possession of the Señor's treasure chest. Frances begged him to desist, but he did not know her. He babbled of the long journey with the mule team into the mouth of Dry Bone Cañon, and the caching of the treasure. For an hour he talked steadily and then, growing weaker, gradually sank back on his pillows and became silent. But the effort was very weakening. Frances telephoned from the nearest station for the doctor. Something _had_ to be done, for the exertion and excitement of the night had left Captain Rugley in a state that troubled the girl much. She had no friend of her own sex. Mrs. Bill Edwards was a city woman whom, after all, she scarcely knew, for the lady had not been married to Mr. Edwards more than a year. There were other good women scattered over the ranges--some "nesters," some small cattle-raisers' wives, and some of the new order of Panhandle farmers; but Frances had never been in close touch with them. The social gatherings at the church and schoolhouse at Jackleg had been attended by Frances and Captain Rugley; but the Bar-T folk really had no near neighbors.