“You’re a chip of the old block.  And did you not tell him where you had put the key?”

“No, sir;” was the answer.  “He choked me pretty hard, though, and my throat feels funny yet.”

The boy having finished his story, Mr. Winters took it up where he left off, and told the doctor how Frank had rescued him from the robber, and how hard he had worked to effect his capture, and all who heard it declared that he was a hero.

CHAPTER VII.

Frank meets A highwayman.

Frank passed the next day in making up for the sleep he had lost the night before.  About three o’clock in the afternoon he arose refreshed, and visited his uncle, whom he found fast asleep.  Now that Archie was gone, the old house was quiet and lonesome—­too much so, indeed, to suit Frank, who, after trying in vain to find some way to amuse himself until supper time, saddled Roderick, and set out for a short gallop over the prairie.  As he was about to mount his horse, Marmion came out of the court, and frisked about his master as lively as ever, apparently none the worse for the ugly-looking wounds he had received during his encounter with the robber.

“Go home, sir,” said Frank.  “Don’t you know that you are under the doctor’s care?”

If Marmion did know it, he didn’t bother his head about it.  He had a will of his own; and having always been permitted to accompany his master wherever he went, he did not feel disposed to remain behind.  Instead of obeying the command to go home, he ran on before, and Frank made no further attempts to drive him back.

Frank, having by this time become well acquainted with the country for twenty miles around his uncle’s rancho, knew where he wanted to go, and about an hour after he left home, he was stretched at full length beside a spring among the mountains, where he and his friends often camped to eat their dinner during their hunting expeditions.  Roderick stood close by, lazily cropping the grass, but Marmion was not in sight.  The last time his master saw him, he was trying to gnaw his way into a hollow log where a rabbit had taken refuge.

Frank lay beside the spring until his increasing hunger reminded him that it was nearly supper time, and then he mounted his horse, and started for home.  Roderick being permitted to choose his own gait, walked slowly along a narrow bridle-path that led out of the mountains, and Frank sat in his saddle with both hands in his pockets, his sombrero pulled down over his eyes, and his thoughts wandering away to the ends of the earth.  He had ridden in this way about half a mile, when he was suddenly aroused from his meditations by a commotion in the bushes at his side, and the next moment a man sprang in front of the horse, and seized him by the bridle.

“Pierre Costello!” exclaimed Frank, as soon as he had somewhat recovered from his astonishment.