Grier smiled unpleasantly. "Send him along. Then get your fire lighted and look after your horses. We'll start for Prospect when you've had breakfast, but I guess some of you are going to walk a few leagues to-day."

CHAPTER XXIX

LELAND STRIKES BACK

It was about ten o'clock at night, and Carrie was sitting with Eveline Annersly in the big general room at Prospect. Leland, who had been brought downstairs to be further away from the hot roof, lay asleep in another room that opened off the corridor leading to the kitchen. Almost every man attached to the homestead was away. The threshers were expected on the morrow, for throughout that country the wheat is threshed where it stands in the sheaves, and it had always been a difficult matter to convey the mill and engine across the ravine. The thresher now expected was an unusually large one, and Gallwey had set out with most of the teams to a.s.sist the men in charge of it. He had, however, promised to come back with some of the boys that night.

Carrie was a little sleepy, for she had borne her part in the stress of work usual in a Western homestead at harvest time; but she had no thought of retiring until Gallwey arrived. Nothing had been heard of the outlaws since the fire, but since most of the harvesters would require to be paid and sent home in a day or two, there was a good deal of money for the purpose in the house. It seemed that Eveline Annersly was also thinking of it, for presently she looked at her companion with a little smile.

"It is on the whole fortunate my nerves are reasonably good," she said.

"It would be singularly inconvenient if Charley's whisky-smuggling friends should visit us to-night. Your bills could, one would fancy, be got rid of more easily than English notes, and I understand there are a good many of them in Charley's room."

Carrie laughed, for she was unwilling to admit she had any apprehensions. She felt that, if she did so, they might become oppressive.

"There are," she said. "A visit to the settlement means two days lost, and Gallwey and I decided to get enough to pay the threshers, too, so as to save another journey. I had expected him back by now."

She rose, and, going out, opened the homestead door. It was a quiet, star-lit night, with no moon in the sky, and the prairie rolled away before her dim and shadowy. Not a sound rose from it. Even the wind was still. As she gazed out across the dusky waste, something in its vastness and silence impressed her as never before. She had grown to love the prairie, but there were times when its desolation reacted almost unpleasantly on her. The homestead, with its barns and stables standing back beneath the stars, seemed so little, an insignificant speck on that great sweep of plain. She roused herself to listen, but no beat of hoofs crept out of the soft darkness, and it was evident that Gallwey was a long way off yet.

Then she turned with a little shiver, and went back into the house.

Crossing the big room, she went down the corridor, and softly opened the door of the room where her husband slept. A lamp was burning dimly, and it showed his quiet face, now a trifle haggard and lined with care.

Carrie's eyes grew gentle as she looked at him, for he had been very restless and apparently not so well that day, while it was evident to her that his vigour was coming back to him very slowly. Then, as she turned, her eyes rested on the safe, and again a thrill of apprehension ran through her. She was glad that Gallwey had the key.

She went back to the general room, and, though she had not noticed it so much before, found the stillness oppressive. There was not a sound, and, when her companion turned over a paper, the rustle of it startled her.

"I almost wish I had not let Tom Gallwey go," she said. "Still, it was necessary. The threshers couldn't have got their machine here without the boys."

Eveline Annersly looked up. "I certainly wish he had come back, though I suppose he can't be very long now. He told you ten o'clock, I think. In the meanwhile you might find this account of the wedding at Scaleby Garth interesting."

Carrie held out her hand for the paper, but her attention wandered from the description of the scene in the little English church. She had left the outer door open, and found herself listening for a rea.s.suring beat of hoofs; but nothing disturbed the deep silence of the prairie. Half an hour had pa.s.sed when she straightened herself suddenly in her chair, with her heart beating fast, and saw that Eveline Annersly's face was intent as she gazed towards the door.

"Oh!" she said. "You heard it, too?"

"Yes," said the elder lady, with a tremor in her voice. "It sounded like a step."

In another moment there was no doubt about it, and Carrie rose with a little catching of her breath as a shadowy figure appeared in the hall.

For a moment she stood as though turned to stone, and then suddenly roused herself to action as a man came into the room.

He stopped just inside the threshold, a big, dusty man, with a damp, bronzed face; but, as it happened, it was Eveline Annersly his eyes first rested on. He glanced at her suspiciously, and then swung round as he heard a rattle, just in time to see Carrie s.n.a.t.c.h down her husband's rifle.

She stood very straight, breathless, and a trifle white in face, but there was something suggestive in the way the rifle lay in her left hand. The man could see that a swift jerk would bring the b.u.t.t in to her shoulder and the barrel in line with him, while the girl's gaze was also disconcertingly fixed and steady. She had stood now and then just outside the woods at Barrock-holme, with a little 16-bore in her hands, getting her share of the pheasants as they came over. The intruder could shoot well enough himself to realise that when the barrel went up her finger would be clenched upon the trigger. His hand was at his belt, but he kept it there, and for a second or two the pair looked at one another. Then he quietly turned round, which argued courage, and called to somebody outside.

"Come in, boys," he said. "Here's a thing we hadn't quite figured on."

Carrie turned when he did, and in another moment she was standing with her back to the door that led to the corridor, while Eveline Annersly, who gasped, looked at her with horror in her eyes.

"What are you going to do?" she said.

Carrie did not look in her direction. She was watching the outer door, and stood tense and still, but with something in her pose that suggested a readiness for swift, decisive movement. In fact, her att.i.tude vaguely reminded her companion of a bent bow, or a snake half coiled to strike.

Her face was set, and there was a portentous glint in her very steady eyes. Her voice was harsh, but impressively quiet.

"If they try to get into Charley's room I am going to kill one of them,"

she said.

Then two other men came in, and one of them made a little half-whimsical gesture.

"Hadn't you better be reasonable, Mrs. Leland?" he said. "We're not going to hurt you."

"What do you want?" asked the girl.

"Money," said the man who had come in first. "Anyway, that's the first thing. You have plenty of it here. Tom Gallwey brought a big wallet out from the settlement a week ago. They're in the safe in the room behind you, too."

Carrie, nervous and overwrought as she was, decided to temporise.

Gallwey could not be long, and he had promised to bring some of the boys home with him.

"Well," she said, in a strained voice, "I haven't the key."

One of the men laughed. "That's not going to worry us. If we can't open it with a stick of giant-powder, we'll take the safe along. It's hardly likely to be a big one."

"Then it's only the money you want?"

Carrie's perceptions had never been keener than they were that night, and she saw one of the others glance at his comrade warningly. She also saw the little vindictive gleam in another man's eyes, and she understood. It was not alone to empty Leland's safe they had come, and he lay sick and helpless in the room where it stood. One other thing was also clear to her, and it was that none of them should go in there at any cost.

"Well," said the outlaw, "if we got the money without unpleasantness, it would help to make things pleasanter for everybody, and we're going to get it, anyway. The only two men about this homestead are held up in the stable, and there are quite a few of us here. I guess you had better let us in to the safe."

Carrie moved a trifle, bringing her left arm, which was aching, further forward. "I think there are two keys belonging to the safe," she said.

"I wonder if I could remember where the other one is."

She delayed them at least a minute while she appeared to consider, and then the men evidently lost their patience, for one of them turned angrily to their leader.

"We have no use for so much talking, and want to get ahead," he said.

"It's a sure thing they wouldn't leave the place empty any length of time with Leland sick, and I guess you're going to have Gallwey and the boys down on you if you stay here long."

One of his comrades growled approvingly. "Oh," he said, "quit talking.

If she hasn't got that key on her, she doesn't know where it is. We'll run in and get hold of her. It's even chances she has nothing in the gun."

It was evident that the suggestion commended itself to all of them, but the trouble was that n.o.body seemed anxious to put it into execution.

Carrie pressed down the magazine slide with one hand. It would, however, only move a very little, and she realised that the magazine was almost full. Then she laughed harshly, and the sound jarred on Eveline Annersly's ears.

"Well," she said, "why don't you come?"

Then she started, and endeavoured to put a further restraint upon herself, for it seemed to her that a very faint drumming sound rose from the prairie. None of the others, however, appeared to hear it. In another moment an inspiration seemed to dawn on one of the men.

"Put the lamp out, and we'll get her easy in the dark," he said.

Eveline Annersly failed to check a little startled cry, but Carrie turned towards the leader of the outlaws very quietly.