At last, with no great alacrity, he rose to his feet, but the time when he might have done anything had passed, for a masked man stood just inside the threshold with a big pistol in his hand. "I guess you'll stop just where you are," he said. Urmston stood still, as most men would have done, though Leland's rifle hung close above his head. The stranger moved forward a pace or two. He wore soft moccasins, and a strip of grain-bag, pierced at the eyes and bound about his face, added nothing to his attractiveness. "Don't move, Mrs. Leland," he said. "Where is your husband?" Carrie straightened herself with an effort. She did not like the man's tone nor his inquiry. Urmston was close beside her, but she felt that she had not much to expect from him, though she was too distracted to feel any contempt for him on that account. "I don't know," she said. "Why? Do you want him?" The man appeared to smile. "Well," he said, "I guess there's a reason for it; but, if he's willing to be reasonable, nobody's going to hurt him. In fact, we just want to make a little bargain." Carrie glanced at the watch on her bracelet, which was another of the things which her husband had given her, and realised he might be home at any time during the next half-hour. Then she glanced covertly towards the other door which led to the kitchen; but it was some distance away, and the stranger had a pistol. An almost paralysing fear came upon her, for she knew her husband was not the man to be driven into doing anything he did not like. The stranger watched her with eyes that glittered wickedly behind the mask. "You know where he went?" he said. "I do," said Carrie, a trifle too swiftly, as she remembered that he would not be there now. "He rode out to the sloos on the Traverse trail to cut prairie hay." "Exactly!" and the man laughed. "Only he went away again, or we wouldn't have come on here. Now, there are four or five of us, and we want a word with your husband, and mean to have it. It's not going to take us two minutes to find out if he's in the house." "Then why don't you do it?" The man looked at her with obvious admiration. Though there was fear in her heart, there was none in her face. She had the pride of her station, and every inborn prejudice in her protested against submission to any dictation from this intruding ruffian. There was a gleam in her dark eyes, and the red spot showed in her otherwise colourless cheeks again. "Well," said the outlaw, "I guess we mean to, but I'm not going to leave you while you and your partner sneak away." He raised his voice. "He's not here, Tom, but you may as well go round and make sure of it." There was a tramp of booted feet in the hall outside, and then footsteps on the stairs, first mounting and then again descending. "No," a voice said, "he hasn't come home."