He smiled—a smile of exultation and triumph.
“My Quaker friend will be surprised to find me gone. He will understand John Fox a little better. He will have to wait a little longer for his thousand dollars.”
John Fox was himself again, but for the first time in ten years, except when he was the temporary tenant of a jail, he was unarmed.
“What has that fellow done with my revolver?” he asked himself. “If it is anywhere in the house I won’t go off without it.”
Half an hour earlier he would have been content with his liberty. Now he wanted his revolver, and his thoughts recurred to the money which the farmer had drawn that morning from the bank. It was five hundred dollars, as Luke had rather incautiously let out.
John Fox was not without hopes of securing both. The coast was clear, and only Mrs. Mason was left in the house. He might terrify her, and so secure what he had set his heart upon. But there was no time to be lost, as Luke and the farmer might return any minute.
The outlaw went downstairs, stepping as lightly as he could.
On the lower floor Mrs. Mason was in the kitchen preparing the evening meal. She had at first been reluctant to remain alone in the house with the outlaw, but Luke had reassured her by the statement that he was securely bound and could not get away.
She turned from the stove at the sound of a foot-fall. There was the notorious outlaw standing in the doorway with an ironical smile upon his face.
The terrified woman sank back into a chair and regarded John Fox with a scared look.