[Illustration: _Yanking open the screen-door, he plunged headlong into the softly lighted veranda_] They stopped short. A woman in a filmy white gown, cut extremely low in the neck, confronted them, an expression of alarm in her wide dark eyes. She was very beautiful. They had never seen any one so beautiful, so striking, or so startlingly dressed. She had just arisen from the comfortable wicker chair beside the table, the surface of which was littered with magazines, papers and documents in all sorts of disorder. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?" she demanded, recovering her composure after the first instant of alarm. Mr. Crow found his voice. "Surrender peaceable," he said. "I've got you completely surrounded. Won't do any good to resist. My men are everywhere. Your partner will be shot down if he--" "Why, you--you old goose!" cried out the lady, and forthwith burst into a merry peal of laughter. The Marshal stiffened. "That kind of talk won't--" he began, and then broke off to roar: "Quit your laughin'! You won't be gigglin' like that when you're settin' in the 'lectric chair. Hustle inside there, men! Take her paramour, dead or alive!" "Oh, what a stupendous situation!" cried the beautiful lady, her eyes dancing. "You really are a darling, Mr. Crow--a perfect, old dear. You--" "None o' that now--none o' that!" Mr. Crow warned, taking a step backward. "Won't do you any good to talk sweet to me. I've got the goods on you. A dozen witnesses have heard you plottin' to murder. Throw up your hands! Up with 'em! Now, keep 'em up! _An' stop laughin'!_ You'll soon find out you can't murder a man in cold blood, even if he is a trespasser on your property. You can't go around killin'--Say, where is Mrs. Smith? Where's the lady of the house?" "I am the lady of the house, Mr. Crow," said the lady, performing a graceful Delsartian movement with her long bare arms. Mr. Crow and his companions stared upward at her arms as if fascinated. "I am Mrs. Smith--Mrs. John Smith." "I guess not," said Anderson sharply. "She wears a veil, asleep an' awake. Hold on! Put your hands down! She's signalin' somebody, sure as you're alive," he burst out, turning to the group of mouth-sagging, eye-roving gentlemen who followed every graceful curve and twist of those ivory arms. "What's the matter with you, Sim? Didn't I order you to go in there an' grab that bloody assassin? What--" "Not on your life! He's got a gun," exclaimed Sim Jackson. "S'pose I'm goin' in there, an'--Oh, fer gosh sake!" A man appeared in the door leading to the interior of the house. "For the love o' Mike!" issued from the lips of the newcomer. "What in thunder--what's all this?" It was Harry Squires. He gazed open-mouthed, first at the beautiful, convulsed lady, and then at the huddled group of men. "We are caught red-handed, Mr. Squires," said the beautiful lady. "Shall we go to the electric chair hand in hand?"