ocked the outside door when she came in. She could not
remember having done so; probably she had not, since it is not the
habit of honest ranch-dwellers to lock their doors at night. She
wanted to get up and see, and fasten it somehow; but she was afraid the
man out there might hear her. As it was, she reasoned nervously with
herself, he probably did not suspect that there was any one in the
house. It was an empty house. And unless he had seen Pard in the
closed stall.... She wondered if he had heard Pard there, and had
investigated and found him. She wondered if he would come into this
room. She remembered how securely she had nailed up the door from the
kitchen, and she breathed freer. She remembered also that she had her
gun, there under her hand. She closed her trembling fingers on the
familiar grip of it, and the feel of it comforted her and steadied her.

Yet she had no desire, no slightest impulse to get up and see who was
there. She was careful not to move, except to cover the doorway to the
kitchen with her gun.

After a few minutes the man came and tried the door, and Jean lifted
herself cautiously upon her elbow and waited in grim desperation. If
he forced that door open, if he came in, she certainly would shoot; and
if she shot,--well, you remember the fate of that hawk on the wing.

The man did not force the door open, which was perhaps the luckiest
thing that ever happened to him. He fussed there until he must have
made sure that it was fastened firmly upon the inside, and then he left
it and went into what had been the living-room. Jean did not move from
her half-sitting position, nor did she change the aim of her gun. He
might come back and try again.

She heard him moving about in the living-room. Surely he did not expect
to find money in an empty house, or anything else of any commercial
value. What was he after? Finally he came back to the kitchen,
crossed it, and stood before the barred door. He pushed against it
tentatively, then stood still for a minute and finally went out. Jean
heard him step upon the porch and pull the kitchen door shut behind
him. She knew that squeal of the bottom hinge, and she knew the final
gasp and click that proved the latch was fastened. She heard him step
off the porch to the path, she heard the soft crunch of his feet in the
sandy gravel as he went away toward the stable. Very cautiously she
got off the couch and crept to the window; and with he