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"HE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE
right. ' ' Jack felt braced by her confidence. He thrust the revolver into his belt and turned to go. "Well, so long."
Their little unpleasantness was evidently effaced, for she graciously accompanied him to the door and flashed him so friendly a smile that he was on the verge of again disgracing himself. However, he restrained himself and crossed the dusty strip and the platform, and then plodded thru deeper dust and sand in the cut that led down into the crude little town.
Grace returned to her novel with a meditative and tender light in her eyes, that was marvelously at variance with her anger of less than an hour before. She took up her novel and sent her imagination with a plunge into a world far removed from Hillville.
She had read several pages, when, without knowing why, she looked up, startled. She listened, but could hear nothing. In spite of the warmth of the summer noon, she shivered. A quick glance out the window brought nothing unusual within her range of vision.
"Why," she laughed to herself, "I believe I was frightened ! Jack 's silly nervousness must have affected me without my knowing it."
She went back to her book, but again that creepiness stole over her. She turned her head quickly, to see
GRACE EXPLODES THE CARTRIDGE
two evil faces drop below the ledge of the window. Now she was frightened! There was not a living soul within a mile of the station. She would have to keep off these robbers until help arrived, for Jack had entrusted the $2,000 to her keeping, and she would have to defend it. As quickly as possible, she made a dash for the outside door. She had just locked it when the tramps, suspecting her design, threw themselves against it. Grace, in a fury of fear and desperation, summoned all her strength to help out the lock which was visibly giving way against the repeated assaults. When she saw that it would hold out but a few moments longer, she retreated to her office and locked herself in.
Panting with terror, she shuddered as she heard the outer door give way and heard the ruffians in the baggage room.
"Where d' youse t'ink de guy put de cush?" asked one, as they looked around.
"Dis'll about be it," replied the other, discovering the express box.
Together they examined it, then hastily hunted about for the key.
"De dame in de next room's got it, dat's what," declared the more aggressive of the two. "An' we got no time to crack dat bin, so de door '11 have to break. ' '
Grace, standing just inside, heard them try the door; then she heard it creak as they forced their weight against it. Again she opposed them with her girlish strength. The lock was strong, but Grace knew it could not long resist that relentless battering. She looked about wildly for some suggestion, and her eyes lighted on the box of cartridges that Jack had left on her desk. Oh, if she only had the revolver ! Then, to her whirling, terrified mind came the remembrance of something she had read once. The circumstances were not clear, but the one important idea she acted upon immediately. Picking up a cartridge, she inserted it in the large keyhole. A number of tools lay in a heap near the door. Taking a