eard them upon the scattered boards near
the door, then muffled in the grass. She could not guess what he was
about.

He went to the edge of the standing grass beyond the dooryard, and
began sowing, broadcast, spikes, nails, bits of iron, intended to ruin
the sickle blades of the mowers when they came to work. Even he thrust
a spike or bolt here or there upright in the ground to catch a blade.

Mary Warren where she sat knew none of this, but she heard a sound
presently which she could not mistake--the crackling of fire! The
scent of it came to her nostrils. The man had fired the meager
remnants of Sim Gage's hay stacks.

She heard next a shot or two, but could not tell what they meant. She
could not know that he was firing into the dumb, gaunt cattle which
hung about the ricks.

Then later she heard something which caused her very soul to shiver,
made her blood run ice--the shrieking scream of a horse in death
agony--the hoarser braying of a mule, both dying amid fire! She did
not understand it, could not have guessed it; but he had set fire also
to the stables. Brutal to the last extreme, he left the animals penned
to die in the flames, and laughed at their agony.

Again and again the awful sounds came to her. She was hysterical when
she heard his footstep approach once more, shrieked aloud for mercy.
He mocked her.

"Stop it! Cut it out, I say. Come on now--do you want to stay here
and burn up in the house?"

"I can't see--I'm blind," was all she could manage to say.

"Blind, huh?" He laughed now uproariously. "Well, it's a good thing
you was blind, or else you might of seen Sim Gage! Did you ever see
Sim? What made you come here? What did you come for?"

"I'm his housekeeper. He employed me----"

"Employed you? For what?--for housekeeping? It looks like it, don't
it? Where did you come from, gal?"

"East--Ohio--Cleveland," she spoke almost unconsciously and truthfully.

"Cleveland? Plenty of our people there too still in the iron works.
Cleveland? And how come you out here?"

"I'm ill--I'm a blind woman. Can't you leave me alone? Are you any
man at all?"

He remained unmoved, phlegmatic. "So? Nice talk about you and Sim
Gage! Was you two married? I know you ain't. You come out to marry
him, though, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"Next week--he's gone for the minister to-day." She said anything, the
first thing.

"That's a lie," said the coarse voice of the man she