"We have fixed up this lot in the packing shed; my regular hands leave
me in winter," Farnam replied, indicating a wooden building at some
distance from the house. "However, we'll go home. There are some
accounts I must examine before I start for Montreal."

They went on, and when after supper Mrs. Farnam grumbled at being left
without a man in the house, Farnam took out an automatic pistol and
explained how it was used.

"I don't know why I bought the thing, unless it was to satisfy Mabel,"
he said to Agatha. "It's curious, but while she could handle mutinous
pupils and bluff the managers, she quakes if a door rattles on a windy
night. One's rather safer in our homestead than a Montreal hotel; but
Mabel has lived in the cities and the Wild West tradition dies hard. As
a matter of fact, there never was a Wild West in Canada." He opened the
pistol. "You put the cartridge shells in like this--"

"You can show Agatha how it works; I won't touch the thing," Mrs. Farnam
declared. "She's something of a sport, but I'm a womanly woman, except
when I teach school."

Farnam laughed. "On the whole, it might be better to leave the
cartridges out. If somebody did break in, all you need do would be to
pretend you were asleep. Everybody in the neighborhood knows where my
office is and an intelligent burglar begins at the safe. There's no
money in mine now."

After a little good-humored banter, Agatha took the pistol and Farnam
went to his office at the other end of the house. Next day he started