The fountain was playing, the trees rustled softly overhead, a little breeze played in some mysterious way over the court, and from the distance came the tinkle of some Mexican mandolins, for Frances had hidden José and his brother in one of the shadowy rooms. "Oh, it's quite _al fresco_, don't you know," drawled Sue. "Altogether novel and chawming--isn't it, Mrs. Edwards?" The neighboring rancher's wife had originally come from the East herself; but she had lived long enough in the Panhandle to have quite rubbed off the veneer of that "culchaw" of which Sue was an exponent. "The Bar-T is the show place of the Panhandle," she said, promptly. "We are rather proud of it--all of us ranchers." "Indeed? I had no idea!" cooed the girl from Boston. "And I thought all you ranch folk had your wealth in cattle, and re'lly had no time for much social exchange." "Oh!" exclaimed the Captain, "when we have folks come to see us we manage to treat 'em with our best." Sue was obliged to note that the service and the napery were dainty, and what she had seen of the furnishings of the darkened hall amazed her--as it had Pratt on his first visit. The food was, of course, good and well prepared, for San Soo was "A Number One, topside" cook, as he would have himself expressed it in pigeon English. Yet Sue could not satisfy herself that these "cattle people" were really worthy of her attention. Had she not been with Mrs. Edwards she would have made open fun of the old Captain and his daughter. Frances of the ranges looked a good deal like a girl on a moving picture screen. She was in her riding dress, short skirt, high gaiters, tight-fitting jacket, and with her hair in plaits. The Captain looked as though he had never worn anything but the loose alpaca coat he now had on, with the carpet-slippers upon his blue-stockinged feet. "Re'lly!" Sue whispered to Pratt, as they all arose to return to the front of the house, "they are quite too impossible, aren't they?" "Who?" asked Pratt, with narrowing gaze. "Why--er--this cowgirl and her father." "I only see that they are very hospitable," the young man said, pointedly, and he kept away from the Boston girl for the remainder of their visit to the Bar-T ranch-house. CHAPTER XXI IN THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY Silent Sam had reported some jack-rabbits on one of the southern ranges, and the Captain thought it would interest the party from the Edwards ranch to come over the next day and help run them. Jack-rabbits have become such a nuisance in certain parts of the West of late years that a price has been set upon their heads, and the farmers and ranchmen often organize big drives to clear the ranges of the pests. This was only a small drive on the Bar-T; but Captain Rugley had several good dogs, and the occasion was an interesting one--for everybody but the jacks.