squirm out of
sight.

There were a dozen questions in Frances' mind. How did he get here? Who
was he? What did he want? Was he the man Captain Rugley had seemed to be
expecting to try to make a raid upon the ranch-house? Was he alone? How
did he know he could make the hook of his ladder fast at this point? Was
there a traitor about who had broken a slate in the roof? Or was the
broken place the result of an accident, and the marauder had noted it by
daylight from the ground?

Question after question flashed through her mind. But there was one
query far more important than all the others:

Where was the man going over the roof?

Frances let the ladder swing away from her clutch again. If she held it
the fellow above might become alarmed.

She turned from the window and darted back along the hall. At the end
was a door leading out onto the balcony which surrounded the inner court
of the house at the level of the second story. The roof sloped out from
the main wall of the building at this inner side, just as it did in
front--indeed, the eaves were even longer. But the pillars of the
balcony met the overhang at its verge, making it very easy indeed for an
active person to swarm down from the roof.

Once on the balcony, the interior of the house was open to a marauder by
a dozen doors, while there were likewise two flights of stairs
descending directly into the court.

There were no lamps in the court now. It was a well, filled with grey
shadows. Frances leaned over the balustrade and heard no sound. She
looked up. The edge of the roof was a sharply defined line against the
lighter background of the sky. But there was no moving figure
silhouetted against that background.

Where had the man gone who had climbed the rope ladder? He could not so
quickly have descended into the court; Frances was positive of that.

She shivered a little. There was something quite disturbing about this
mysterious marauder. She wished now she had aroused her father
immediately on first descrying the man.

She started around the gallery. Her father's room lay upon the other
side of the house. She could reach his windows by descending the outside
stairway there. Her slippered feet made no sound; the wool robe did not
rustle. Had she been seen by anybody she might have been taken for a
ghost. But the black shadow of the roof of the gallery swathed Frances
about, and it would have taken keen eyes indeed to distinguish her form.

Down th