followed and gripped his arm.

"Don't open that door."

"Wait, Mother--"

"We're trying to find the way to Mr. Wilkinson's--can you tell us?"

"Sure I can."

He moved to open the door. Again his wife held him.

"Don't do it!"

Doyle brushed her aside.

"Don't be foolish, Mahala," he protested indignantly. "I'm a poor sort
o' man if I can't tell a lost traveler the way out of the woods."

"They're lyin'!"

"We'll see."

He raised the latch and six men crashed their way through the door. John
Brown led the assault. He held a dim lantern in his hand which he lifted
above his head, as he surveyed the room. He kept his own face in shadow.

With a smothered cry, the mother backed against the trundle bed
instinctively covering the sleeping figures of the girls.

Brown pointed a cocked revolver at Doyle's breast and said in cold
tones:

"Call those three boys down."

Doyle hesitated.

Brown's eye glanced down the barrel of his revolver:

"Quick!"

The man saw he had no chance.

He mounted the ladder, the revolver following him. The mother's
terror-stricken eyes saw that each man was armed with two revolvers, a
bowie knife and cutlass.

"Don't you scare 'em," Brown warned.

"I won't."

"Tell 'em to come down and show us the way to Wilkinson's."

"Boys!" the father called.

There was no answer at first, and the father wondered if they had heard
and gotten weapons of some kind. He hoped not. It would be a useless
horror to try to defend themselves before a mother's eyes, and those
little girls screaming beside her.

He hastened to call a second time and reassure their fears.

"Boys!"

William, the older one, answered drowsily:

"Yessir--"

"Come down, all of you. Some travelers are here who've lost the way.
They want you to help them get to Mr. Wilkinson's."

"All right, sir."

The boys hastily slipped on their trousers and shoes.

"Tell 'em to hurry," Brown ordered.

"Jest slip on yer shoes and britches," Doyle called.

The Surveyor held the lantern behind his body until the three sons had
come down the ladder and he saw that they were unarmed.

He stepped to the fireplace, took the shotgun from the rack and handed
it to Weiner.

The boys, startled at the group of stern armed men, instinctively moved
toward their father, dazed by the assault.

Brown faced the group.

"You four men are my prisoners."

The mother left the trundle bed and faced the leader.

"Who are you?"

B