At the instant she spoke the men moved as though by prearrangement. By the time her voice reached Owen's ears the men had scattered, running in all directions. Several ran directly away from the house, others toward it, some went toward the corners of the building nearest them. All were running zigzag fashion.
Owen, his eyes blazing, fired three times in rapid succession. One of the men tumbled, headlong, turning over several times and landing face downward on the sand of the yard; but several others, apparently uninjured, ran straight for the ranchhouse.
There were no stationary targets for Owen to shoot at. By the time he had fired the three shots the men were all moving. Several the girl saw as they ran around the ranchhouse; three or four others ran straight for the door in which she stood.
She cried sharply to Owen, and the latter fired once, as three or four figures crossed the porch. The girl could not tell whether or not Dale was one of the three, for the men moved quickly.
Owen missed; Mary heard him curse. And before he had time to do either again the men were inside. Mary was standing near Owen, and she had reached down for one of the pistols that lay on the floor.
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: