"She'll do it, too," muttered Steve, who was standing near the captain. "She'll have bran'-new poles up almost before we can get home." "The only way to get rid of this gate is to burn it, I think," said the captain, with an oath. "As she wants to come out so much, suppose we give her a chance. Get an armful of straw from the stable an' bring it here! We'll smoke her out." While Steve hurried off to obey the order, two of the others gathered up some of the dry chips and splinters of wood from the cut poles, and when Steve returned with the straw a fire was kindled on the platform in a sheltered corner, farthest from the door. As the flames quickly leaped up the walls of the toll-house, igniting the dry timbers, the flash of light, the smoke, the crackle of burning wood, all speedily revealed to the two within the building what was taking place without. "I tould ye to shut up, ye screechin' varmint!" cried Pat, in a terror-stricken voice. "They're burnin' us up aloive. The howly saints protect us!" Maggie gave a loud whoop, this time rather of fear than of rage, though the two were strongly blended. "Help! Murdher!" she shrieked. "I thought she'd change her tune, the wildcat!" muttered the captain, grimly. A few minutes later the back door of the toll-house was thrown quickly open, but as the two terror-stricken inmates of the burning building appeared in the doorway, ready to flee into the night, they were confronted by a couple of raiders with masks and drawn pistols. "Go back!" the men sternly commanded. "For the love o' hiven, don't shoot!" pleaded Pat. "Go back!" the men repeated, leveling their weapons threateningly. In silent terror the two obeyed and shiveringly drew back into the burning house. Dark spirals of smoke were by this time curling from the roof in several places, and soon little jets of flame thickly dotted it, shooting up from between the smoking shingles; then finally one broad sheet of flame overspread the top--a canopy of fire. Milt looked on in a sort of spell-bound fascination. What did the raiders mean to do? Surely not to burn these two helpless people within the toll-house. That were a crime far too serious for even this spirit of outlawry. He stood silent, watching with a growing fear the smoke escaping from the roof, then the little spurting jets of flame, and when they united in a broad, livid sheet, he felt no longer able to restrain his pity, but started to where the captain sat on his horse, calmly watching the proceedings, intending to petition him for mercy toward the two hapless ones within the doomed toll-house.