"Walk in. The door's open." "You think you are smart, don't you?" snarled Pete, in anger. "You tell me where the chest is located; but it couldn't be brought out by day. But at night---- My soul, man! I had the team all ready and waiting the other night, and I could have got the thing if I'd had luck." "You didn't have luck," chuckled Ratty M'Gill. "And I don't believe you'd 'a' had much more luck if you'd got away with the old Cap's chest." "I tell you there's a fortune in it!" "You don't know----" "And I suppose you do?" snarled Pete. "I know no sane man ain't going to keep a whole mess of jewels and such, what you talk about, right in his house. He'd take 'em to a bank at Amarillo, or somewhere." "Not that old codger. He'd keep 'em under his own eye. He wouldn't trust a bank like he would himself. Humph! I know his kind. "Why," continued Pete, excitedly, "that old feller at Bylittle is another one just like him. These old-timers dug gold, and made their piles half a dozen times, and never trusted banks--there warn't no banks!" "Not in them days," admitted Ratty. "But there's a plenty now." "You say yourself he's got the chest." "Sure! I seen it once or twice. Old Spanish carving and all that. But I bet there ain't much in it, Pete." "You'd ought to have heard that doddering old idiot, Lonergan, talk about it," sniffed Pete. "Then your mouth would have watered. I tell you that's about all he's been talkin' about the last few months, there at Bylittle. And I was orderly on his side of the barracks and heard it all. "I know that the parson, Mr. Tooley, was goin' to write to this Cap Rugley. Has, before now, it's likely. Then something will be done about the treasure----" "Waugh!" shouted Ratty. "Treasure! You sound like a silly boy with a dime story book." The puncher evidently did not believe his friend knew what he was talking about. Pete glowered at him, too angry to speak for a minute or two. Frances began to worm her way back through the brush. She put the biggest trees between her and the ford of the river. When she knew the two men could not see or hear her, she ran. She had heard enough. Her mind was in a turmoil just then. Her first thought was to get away, and get Molly away. Then she would think this startling affair out. CHAPTER XI FRANCES ACTS She got away from the Bottom without disturbing Ratty and the man from Bylittle. Once Molly was loping over the plain again, Frances began to question her impressions of the dialogue she had overheard. In the first place, she was sure she had heard the voice of the man, Pete, before. It was the same drawling voice that had come out of the darkness asking for food and a bed the evening Pratt Sanderson stopped at the Bar-T Ranch.