went softly into the room where she had faced Chadron a few hours
before, and crossed to the fireplace, where the last coals of the fire
that had kept her company were red among the ashes. It was dark yet,
only a little grayness, like murky water, showing under the rim of the
east, but she knew where the antlers hung above the mantel, with the
rifle in its case, and the two revolvers which Alvino had brought to
his mistress from the wounded foreman in the bunkhouse.

But the antlers were empty. She felt them over with contracting heart,
then struck a match to make sure. The guns were gone. Saul Chadron had
removed them, foreseeing that they might stand her in the place of a
friend.

She lit a lamp and began a search of the lower part of the house for
arms. There was not a single piece left in any of the places where
they commonly were a familiar sight. Even the shotgun was gone from
over the kitchen door. She returned to the sitting-room and laid some
sticks on the coals, and sat leaning toward the blaze in that sense of
comradeship that is as old between man and fire as the servitude of
that captive element.

Her elbows were on her knees, and her gloved hands were clasped, and
the merry little fire laughed up into her fixed and thoughtful eyes.

Fire has but one mood, no matter what it cheers or destroys. It always
laughs. There is no melancholy note in it, no drab, dull color of
death such as the flood comes tainted with. Even while it eats away
our homes and possessions, it has a certain comfort in its touch and
glow if we stand far enough away.

Dawn broadened; the watery light came in like cold. Frances got up,
shivering a little at the unfriendly look of the morning. She thought
she heard a cautious foot stealing away from the window, and turned
from it with contemptuous recollection of Chadron's threat to set
spies over her.

Frances left the house with no caution to conceal her movements, and
went to the barn. Alvino was hobbling about among the horses with his
lantern. He gave her an open and guileless good-morning, and she told
him to saddle her horse.

She was determined to ride boldly out of the gate and away, hardly
convinced that even those seasoned ruffians would take a chance of
hitting her by firing at her horse. None of the imported shooters was
in sight as she mounted before the barn door, but two of them lounged
casually at the gate as she approached.

"Where was you aimin' to go so early?