"What?" he answered, and then her meaning came to him as his first hint of what Tira might have done. He drew himself away from the kind hand and sat up straight. "No," he said sharply. "It was an accident. She never meant"--it had come upon him that this was what she had meant and what she had done. But it must not be told of her, even to Nan. "Where's Tenney?" he said. "Where do you think he is?" Charlotte hesitated. "He's up there," she said, after a moment while Raven waited, "up to the hut. He said he's goin' to git his gun out o' there if he had to break an' enter. He said he see it through the winder not two days ago. An' Jerry hollered after him if he laid hand to your property he'd have the law on him. Jerry was follerin' on after him, but you went by in the car an' I called on him to stop. O Johnnie, don't you go up there, or you let Jerry an' me go with you. If ever a man was crazed, that man's Isr'el Tenney, an' if you go up there an' stir him up!" "Nonsense!" said Raven, in his old kind tone toward her, and Charlotte gave a little sob of relief at hearing it again. "I've got to see him and tell him what I've told you. You and Jerry stay where you are. Tenney's not dangerous. Except to her," he added bitterly to himself, as he left the house. "And a child in its cradle. My God! he was dangerous to her!" And Charlotte, watching from the window, saw him go striding across the road and up the hill. Raven, halfway up, began to hear an unexpected sound: blows, loud and regular, wood on wood. When he had passed the turning by the three firs he knew, really before his eyes confirmed it. Tenney was there at the hut, and he had a short but moderately large tree trunk--almost heavier than he could manage--and was using it as a battering ram. He was breaking down the door. Raven, striding on, shouted, but he was close at hand before Tenney was aware of him and turned, breathless, letting the log fall. He had actually not heard, and Raven's presence seemed to take him aback. Yet he was in no sense balked of his purpose. He faced about, breathless from his lifting and ramming, and Raven saw how intense was the passion in him: witnessed by the whiteness of his face, the burning of his eyes. "I come up here," said Tenney, "after my gun. You can git it for me an' save your door." Raven paid no attention to this. "You'd better come along down," he said. "We'll stop at my house and talk things over." This he offered in that futile effort the herald of bad news inevitably makes, to approach it slowly. "Then," said Tenney, "you hand me out my gun. I don't leave here till I have my gun." "Tenney," said Raven, "I've got bad news for you." "Yes," said Tenney blankly. "She's run away. You carried her off this mornin'. You don't need to tell me that."