"We've got to get more shells," Bruce told Linda. "The Turners won't be such fools as to wait until we have the moon again to attack. I can't understand why they haven't already come. Of course, they don't know the condition of our ammunition supply, but it doesn't seem to me that that alone would have held them off. They are sure to come soon, and you know what we could do with five cartridges, don't you?" "I know." She looked up into his earnest face. "We could die--that's all." "Yes--like rabbits. Without hurting them at all. I wouldn't mind dying so much, if I did plenty of damage first. It's death for me, anyway, I suppose--and no one but a fool can see it otherwise. There are simply too many against us. But I do want to make some payment first." Her hand fumbled and groped for his. Her eyes pled to him,--more than any words. "And you mean you've given up hope?" she asked. He smiled down at her,--a grave, strange little smile that moved her in secret ways. "Not given up hope, Linda," he said gently. They were standing at the door and the sunlight--coming low from the South--was on his face. "I've never had any hope to give up--just realization of what lay ahead of us. I'm looking it all in the face now, just as I did at first." "And what you see--makes you afraid?" Yet she need not have asked that question. His face gave an unmistakable answer: that this man had conquered fear in the terrible night with the Killer. "Not afraid, Linda," he explained, "only seeing things as they really are. There are too many against us. If we had that great estate behind us, with all its wealth, we might have a chance; if we had an arsenal of rifles with thousands of cartridges, we might make a stand against them. But we are three--two women and one man--and one rifle between us all. Five little shells to be expended in five seconds. They are seven or eight, each man armed, each man a rifle-shot. They are certain to attack within a day or two--before we have the moon again. In less than two weeks we can no longer contest their title to the estate. A little month or two more and we will be snowed in--with no chance to get out at all." "Perhaps before that," she told him. "Yes. Perhaps before that." They found a confirmation of this prophecy in the signs of fall without--the coloring leaves, the dying flowers, the new, cold breath of the wind. Only the pines remained unchanged; they were the same grave sentinels they always were. "And you can forgive me?" Linda asked humbly. "Forgive you?" The man turned to her in surprise. "What have you done that needs to be forgiven?" "Oh, don't you see? To bring you here--out of your cities--to throw your life away. To enlist you in a fight that you can't hope to win. I've killed you, that's all I've done. Perhaps to-night--perhaps a few days later." He nodded gravely.