"What do you want?" asked the girl.
"Money," said the man who had come in first. "Anyway, that's the first thing. You have plenty of it here. Tom Gallwey brought a big wallet out from the settlement a week ago. They're in the safe in the room behind you, too."
Carrie, nervous and overwrought as she was, decided to temporise. Gallwey could not be long, and he had promised to bring some of the boys home with him.
"Well," she said, in a strained voice, "I haven't the key."
One of the men laughed. "That's not going to worry us. If we can't open it with a stick of giant-powder, we'll take the safe along. It's hardly likely to be a big one."
"Then it's only the money you want?"
Carrie's perceptions had never been keener than they were that night, and she saw one of the others glance at his comrade warningly. She also saw the little vindictive gleam in another man's eyes, and she understood. It was not alone to empty Leland's safe they had come, and he lay sick and helpless in the room where it stood. One other thing was also clear to her, and it was that none of them should go in there at any cost.
"Well," said the outlaw, "if we got the money without unpleasantness, it would help to make things pleasanter for everybody, and we're going to get it, anyway. The only two men about this homestead are held up in the stable, and there are quite a few of us here. I guess you had better let us in to the safe."
Carrie moved a trifle, bringing her left arm, which was aching, further forward. "I think there are two keys belonging to the safe," she said. "I wonder if I could remember where the other one is."
She delayed them at least a minute while she appeared to consider, and then the men evidently lost their patience, for one of them turned angrily to their leader.