t was like the fulfillment of some dreadful dream when the door opened.
A man entered softly, slowly; the flickering fire showed his shadow--was
it?--nay, another man, and still another, and another.

The old crone in the corner sprang up, screaming in a shrill, tremulous,
cracked voice. For they were masked. Over the face of each dangled a
bit of homespun, with great empty sockets through which eyes vaguely
glanced. Even the coarse fibre of the intruders responded to that
quavering, thrilling appeal. One spoke instantly:

"Laws-a-massy! Mis' Pearce, don't ye feel interrupted none--nor Mis'
Gryce nuther. We-uns ain't harmful noways--jes want ter know whar that
thar black mare hev disappeared to. She ain't in the barn."

He turned his great eye-sockets on Eugenia. The plaid homespun mask
dangling about his face was grotesquely incongruous with his intent,
serious gaze.

"I dunno," she faltered; "I dunno."

She had caught at the spinning-wheel for support. The fire crackled. The
baby was counting aloud the grains of corn popping from the ashes. "Six,
two, free," he babbled. The kettle merrily sang.

The man still stared silently at the ranger's wife. The expression in
his eyes changed suddenly. He chuckled derisively. The others echoed his
mocking mirth. "Ha! ha! ha!" they laughed aloud; and the eye-sockets in
the homespun masks all glared significantly at each other. Even the dog
detected something sinister in this laughter. He had been sniffing
about the heels of the strangers; he bristled now, showed his teeth, and
growled. The spokesman hastily kicked him in the ribs, and the animal
fled yelping to the farther side of the fireplace behind the baby, where
he stood and barked defiance. The rafters rang with the sound.

Some one on the porch without spoke to the leader in a low voice. This
man, who seemed to have a desire to conceal his identity which could not
be served by a mask, held the door with one hand that the wind might not
blow it wide open. The draught fanned the fire. Once the great bowing,
waving white blaze sent a long, quivering line of light through the
narrow aperture, and Eugenia saw the dark lurking figure outside. He had
one arm in a sling. She needed no confirmation to assure her that this
was Sam Peters, whom her husband had shot at the stable door.

The leader instantly accepted his suggestion. "Wa'al, Mis' Gryce, I
reckon ye dunno whar Tobe be, nuther?"

"Naw, I dunno," she said, in a tre