They were still discussing the best course to be adopted when a faint sound in the distance struck on their ears—a sound so faint and far that, had it not been for the wonderful clearness and stillness of the dry, crisp, dewless air, it could not have reached them.
"Hark! What is that?" said Desmond, holding his breath.
"We can see the road better from the upstairs windows—come!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet. She hastily closed the outer door into the court-yard, which still stood open, and ran upstairs, followed by Desmond. From the highest window of the house—a sort of landing or look-out at the top of the stairs—they had a view of the windings of the white road between wood and hillside.
The night had fallen like a dark mantle over the land; but the sky was clear; the moon had risen; and in the dusk they could just distinguish the pale, dim line of the road between the shadows of the trees—could even discern upon it, though some distance off as yet, what looked at first like a dark, blurred, swift moving spot, then resolved itself into a group of mounted men riding straight for the Saucel Ranch.
"There they are," said Oliver Desmond in a low voice; but he was suddenly and strangely calm now the danger was at his door. "They're coming here. There's a handy tree I see over yonder, just outside your gates," he added, with the frequent tendency of men who are used to carry their lives in their hands to "jest upon the axe which kills them." Barbara clasped and wrung her hands.
"Too late to fly!" she said. "Before we could get Sultan out of the stable and saddle him they'll be here! There's no time for escape. You must hide!"
"If they've got dogs, I'm a dead man," he rejoined, staring at the fast nearing horsemen; "and I shall be dangling from that tree before an hour has passed!"
Barbara flew to the nearest door and opened it, then the next, and the next, glancing in wild and eager haste into each room to see in which any hiding-place might be found—although she knew too well the simple arrangements of the ranch offered no facilities for concealment. No secret chambers, no sliding panels, no dark recesses nor trap-doors in this plain wooden "frame" house. The outhouses? No, they would probably be the first places searched; the natural idea of the pursuers would be that he might have sought refuge there unknown to the inmates of the house. There were no cellars, no possible safe hiding-places on the lower floor; on the upper floor there were but three rooms—Mr. and Mrs. Thorne's room, Barbara's room, and the "guest-room." All were plainly furnished with bare necessaries: no "old oak chests," no tapestries nor hanging draperies, no curtained recesses, no place to hide a good-sized dog, much less a full-grown man. Barbara's was the only one of the bedrooms that could boast of a cupboard—a long, narrow cupboard which she used as a wardrobe, and kept her dresses there hung on pegs. This was the only place.
There was not a moment to lose in talk. Barbara had hardly time to go downstairs, look round the kitchen, and assure herself that there were no traces of Desmond's presence to be detected there, when the trampling of horses sounded close at hand. She heard some of the party ride to the front, some to the back, and she knew they were surrounding the house, before there was a sharp, imperative knock on the front door. Barbara opened it. She stood there—a candle she had just lighted in her hand—a graceful, composed figure, with a placid, inquiring look.
The men who were gathered on the threshold looked somewhat taken aback by the appearance of a lady then and there.