“Why don’t ye go now?” she questioned. Suddenly the lamp flickered. The flame flared up, then down, then up again, smoking the chimney as a gust of wind swept down the hall and into the room. Allston’s hand flew back to his automatic. Clutching it he ran out into the empty hall. At the same moment Roxie ran to the table and extinguished the light. CHAPTER XIX Bud had escaped. That was the meaning of the flickering lamp. And Roxie understood well the danger to Allston of standing exposed, after this, in a lighted room. Bud’s gun was here, to be sure, but he might have another hidden about the place--in the barn or the spring-house. Allston had run into the hall and, finding his man gone, had promptly closed and locked the door through which he had escaped. The problem no longer was to keep Bud in, but to keep him out. Cursing his stupidity in not having maintained a closer watch, he struck a match in order to search both side rooms. Roxie, running to his side, warned him of the danger. “He’ll shoot through the winder!” she cried. This was a chance he had to take. Remembering his own ruse which had gained him admission in the first place, he did not care to see it repeated by another. He found both rooms empty. Bud had sought the open where he would be able to secure another gun and ammunition. It was uncanny how in the space of less than a minute the whole situation had changed for all three of them. Roxie was quicker to realize this fact than Allston. She was quicker because for her the change meant more. Bud was now completely out of her power. As long as he had lain there in the hall, she was still in control of him. She had within herself the tribute price for Allston’s ransom. But with Bud gone this opportunity had been snatched away from her. She was left quite helpless--pitifully helpless. And yet for a moment she felt as though suddenly soaring into the clouds like a released bird. If she had lost her power over Bud, he in turn had lost his power over her. For her this meant, for the time being, freedom--a wild, unnatural sort of freedom. She was a prisoner here with the man she loved. Their interests now, instead of being opposed, were mutual. Bud was against them both. And there was nothing she could do to prevent this; nothing Allston could do--until morning, anyway. They were as isolated as on a desert island. Allston himself did not see this, at first, quite as clearly. He was for immediate action. “We must get out of here quick!” he snapped. “But we can’t,” she broke in eagerly. “He--he’ll kill us both. Bud’ll kill us both.” “You forget I’ve got his gun.” “You’ve gut _one_ gun.” “It’s the only one he had.” “In his pocket. But outside he mought have others, an’ long’s ye don’ know, it’s jest as bad.” “But when you don’t know you always have a chance.” “If he ain’t gut a gun, he’s gut sticks and stones. He’d kill with somethin’ afore yuh could git through the door.”