"Lots you know about it, Sissy. And don't you be too sassy, understand? I could squeeze yer breath out!" He stretched forth a clawlike hand as he spoke, and pinched the thumb and finger wickedly together. That expression and gesture was the first thing that really frightened the girl--it was so wicked! She shuddered and fell back against the tree trunk. Never in her life before had Frances Rugley felt so nearly hysterical. The realization that she was in this man's power, and that he had reason to hate her, shook her usually steady nerves. After all, Ratty M'Gill was little more than a reckless boy; but this older man was vile and bad. As he squatted over the fire, puffing at his pipe, with his head craned forward, he looked like nothing so much as a bald-headed buzzard, such as she had seen roosting on dead trees or old barn-roofs, outside of Amarillo. Pete finally knocked the ashes out of his pipe on his boot heel and then arose. Frances could scarcely contain herself and suppress a scream when he moved. She watched him with fearful gaze--and perhaps the fellow knew it. It may have been his intention to work upon her fears in just this way. Brave as the range girl was, her helplessness was not to be ignored. She knew that she was at his mercy. When he shot a sideways glance at her as he stretched his powerful arms and stamped his feet and yawned, he must have seen the color come and go faintly in her cheeks. Rough as were the men Frances had been brought up with--for from babyhood she had been with her father in cow-camp and bunk-house and corral--she had always been accorded a perfectly chivalrous treatment which is natural to men of the open. Where there are few women, and those utterly dependent for safety upon the manliness of the men, the latter will always rise to the very highest instincts of the race. Frances had been utterly fearless while riding herd, or camping with the cowboys, or even when alone on the range. If she met strange men she expected and received from them the courtesy for which the Western man is noted. But this leering fellow was different from any person with whom Frances had ever come in contact before. Each moment she became more fearful of him. And he realized her attitude of fear and worked upon her emotions until she was almost ready to burst out into hysterical screams. Indeed, she might have done this very thing the next time Pete came near her had not suddenly a voice spoken her name. "Frances! what is the matter with you?" "Oh!" she gasped. "Pratt!" The young man stepped out of the bushes, not seeing Pete at all. He had been watching the girl only, and had not understood what made her look so strange. "You haven't been thrown, Frances, have you?" asked Pratt, solicitously. "Are you hurt?" Then the girl's frightened gaze, or some rustle of Pete's movement, made Pratt Sanderson turn. Pete had reached for his rifle and secured it. And by so doing he completely mastered the situation.