It was the day he set the cradle rocking that she awoke in the night, her fear full upon her. He was at her side, sleeping heavily. The baby was on her other arm. Yet it seemed to her that the menace from Tenney had pierced her to reach the child and, on its passage, stabbed through her racing heart. Then her temptation came upon her, so simple a thing she seemed stupid never to have thought of it before. She rose to a sitting posture, put her feet out of bed, took the child, and carried him with her into the sitting-room. She laid him on the couch and covered him, and then stole back into the bedroom. The crutch was there, in its habitual place at night, leaning against the foot of the bed. She could put her hand on it in the dark. Tenney, too, she had begun to reflect, could put his hand on it. What deeds might he not do with it in those hours when the sanities of life also sleep? She took it gently and went out again through the sitting-room and kitchen into the shed. Her purpose had been to hide it behind the wood. But if he came on it there, it would not be a crutch he found. It would be a weapon. She put her hand on an upright beam, as she stood painfully thinking it out, and touched the handle of a saw, hanging there on a nail; immediately she knew. She went back into the kitchen, lighted the lantern and carried it into the shed. There stood the crutch leaning against the beam below the saw, a weapon beyond doubt. She set down her lantern, laid the crutch on the block Tenney used to split kindlings, set her foot upon it and methodically sawed it into stove wood lengths. When it was done she gathered up the pieces, carried them into the sitting-room, to the stove where Tenney always, in winter weather, left a log to smoulder, dropped them in and opened the draught. Then she went back to the shed, swept up her scattering of sawdust, hung the saw in its place, gave a glance about her to see that everything was in its usual order, and returned into the kitchen. She put out the lantern, hung it on its nail, went into the sitting-room and partially shut the draft on the noisy blaze. She did not dare quite shut it, lest a bit of the weapon should be left to cry out from the ashes and tell. When she was back in bed again, the child on her arm, Tenney, disturbed by her coming, woke and turned. He lifted his head from the pillow, to listen, and she wondered if he could hear the beating of her heart. "You there?" he asked. "What's that stove started out roarin' for? The chimbly ain't afire?" "No," said Tira. "Mebbe somethin's ketched." She got out of bed, ran into the sitting-room, noiselessly shut the crack of draught, and came back. "Them knots are kinder gummy," she said calmly, and was heartened by the evenness of her voice. "I guess 'twon't roar long."