The boy’s first care, after he had removed the rope, was to bandage the wounds as well as he could, and to lead the dog to a comfortable bed on the porch, where he left him to await the arrival of the doctor; for Frank resolved that, as Marmion had received his injuries during the performance of his duty, he should have the very best of care.

Frank never closed his eyes that night.  He passed the hours in pacing up and down the porch watching for the Ranchero, who made his appearance shortly after daylight, accompanied by the doctor.  Mr. Winters’s wound, although very painful, was not a dangerous one, and after it had been dressed by the skillful hands of the surgeon, he felt well enough to enter into conversation with those around him.

“Now,” said Frank, who had been impatiently awaiting an opportunity to talk to his uncle, “I’d like to know what brought you back here last night?”

“I came after the twelve thousand dollars,” replied Mr. Winters.  “When I arrived in the city, I learned that Mr. Brown had left there early in the morning to pay us a visit, taking with him the money he owed me.  I wanted to use it immediately, and as I did not know what might happen if it should become known that there was so much money in the house, and no one here to take care of it, I came home; but I should have lost the money after all, if it hadn’t been for you, Frank, and I might have lost my life with it; for I believe the villain was in earnest.”

“I am quite sure he was,” said Frank, feeling of his neck, which still bore the marks of the lasso in the shape of a bright red streak.  “If you had stayed away five minutes longer, I should have been hanged.  O, it’s a fact!” he added, earnestly, noticing that the doctor looked at him incredulously.  “I came very near dancing on nothing, now I tell you; and if you only knew all that has happened in this house since dark, you wouldn’t say that there was no one here to take care of that money.  But, uncle, how came you by that wound?”

“Pierre gave it to me,” was the reply.  “He slipped up behind me when I was dismounting, and struck me with something.  But what did he do to you?”

“He pulled me up by the neck with my own lasso,” replied Frank; “that’s what he did to me.”

“The scoundrel!” exclaimed the doctor.  “Tell us all about it.”

Thus encouraged, Frank began and related his story, to which his auditors listened with breathless attention.  He told what he had done with the twelve thousand dollars, where he had hidden the keys, how he had detected Pierre watching him through the window, and how the Ranchero had told him that Marmion was off hunting rabbits, when he was lying bound and muzzled in some out-of-the-way place.  Then he explained how the robber had overpowered him while he was reading, how he had searched his pockets for the keys, and pulled him up by the neck because he refused to tell where he had hidden them, and how he was on the very point of hanging him in earnest when the arrival of Uncle James alarmed him.  Mr. Winters was astonished, and so was the doctor, who patted Frank on the head, and said: