By the time the men entered the door she had raised the weapon, and as the first figure burst through the opening, she leveled the weapon and pulled the trigger.

The gun went off, but did no apparent damage, and before she could fire again the men were upon her.  She threw the heavy weapon into the face of the man nearest her—­she did not look at him; and ran through the nearest door, which opened into the kitchen.  She heard the man curse as the weapon struck him full in the face, and she knew, then, that she had struck Dale.

In the kitchen the girl hesitated.  She would have gone outside, on the chance that the men there might not see her, but, hesitating at the kitchen door, she saw a big man running toward it.

So she turned and ran into the room she used as a pantry, slamming the door behind her, bolting it and leaning against it, breathing heavily.

She had not, however, escaped the eyes of the man who had been running toward the kitchen door.  She heard Dale’s voice, asking one of the men if he had seen her, and the latter answered: 

“She ducked into the pantry and closed the door.”

She heard a man step heavily across the kitchen floor, and an instant later he was shoving against the door with a shoulder.

“Bolted, eh?” he said with a short laugh.  He walked away, and presently returned.  “Well, you’ll keep,” he said, “there ain’t any windows.”

She knew from his voice that the man was Dale.  He had gone outside and had seen there was no escape for her except through the door she had barred.

There came a silence except for the movements of the men, and the low hum of their voices.  She wondered what had become of Owen, but she did not dare unbolt the door for fear that Dale might be waiting on the other side of it.  So, in the grip of a nameless terror she leaned against the door and waited.

She heard Dale talking to his men; he was standing near the door behind which she stood, and she could hear him distinctly.

“You guys hit the breeze after Sanderson.  Kill him,—­an’ anybody that’s with him!  Wipe out the whole bunch!  I’ll stay here an’ make the girl tell me where the coin is.  Get goin’, an’ go fast, for Sanderson will travel some!”

The girl heard the boots of the men clatter on the floor as they went out.  Listening intently, she could hear the thudding of their horses’ hoofs as they fled.  She shrank back from the door, looking hard at it, wondering if it would hold, if it would resist Dale’s efforts to burst it open—­as she knew he would try to do.

She wished, now, that she had followed Sanderson’s suggestion about riding after Williams.  This situation would not have been possible, then.

Working feverishly, she piled against the door all the available articles and objects she could find.  There were not many of them, and they looked a pitifully frail barricade to her.