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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, In Old Kentucky, by Edward Marshall and
+Charles T. Dazey, Illustrated by Clarence Rowe
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: In Old Kentucky
+
+Author: Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
+
+Release Date: November 3, 2004  [eBook #13933]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN OLD KENTUCKY***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Gene Smethers, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 13933-h.htm or 13933-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/3/13933/13933-h/13933-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/3/9/3/13933/13933-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+IN OLD KENTUCKY
+
+A Story of the Bluegrass and the Mountains Founded on Charles T. Dazey's
+Play
+
+by
+
+EDWARD MARSHALL and CHARLES T. DAZEY
+
+Illustrations By CLARENCE ROWE
+
+1910
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SHE SAW THE STRANGER BREAK THROUGH THE UNDERGROWTH ABOUT
+THE POOL.]
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+She saw the stranger break through the undergrowth
+about the pool. (Frontispiece)
+
+A mighty leap had carried them beyond the blazing barrier.
+
+"No man can cross this bridge, unless--unless--"
+
+"Back! back! I'm a-comin' with Queen Bess!"
+
+"I'm standin' face to face with my own father's murderer--Lem Lindsay."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+She was coming, singing, down the side of Nebo Mountain--"Old
+Nebo"--mounted on an ox. Sun-kissed and rich her coloring; her flowing
+hair was like spun light; her arms, bare to the elbows and above, might
+have been the models to drive a sculptor to despair, as their muscles
+played like pulsing liquid beneath the tinted, velvet skin of wrists and
+forearms; her short skirt bared her shapely legs above the ankles
+half-way to the knees; her feet, never pinched by shoes and now quite
+bare, slender, graceful, patrician in their modelling, in strong
+contrast to the linsey-woolsey of her gown and rough surroundings, were
+as dainty as a dancing girl's in ancient Athens.
+
+The ox, less stolid than is common with his kind, doubtless because of
+ease of life, swung down the rocky path at a good gait, now and then
+swaying his head from side to side to nip the tender shoots of freshly
+leaving laurel. She sang:
+
+  "Woodpecker pecked as a woodpecker will,
+  Jim thought 'twas a knock on the door of the still,
+  He grabbed up his gun, and he went for to see,
+  The woodpecker laughed as he said: 'Jest me!'"
+
+She laughed, now, not at the song, which was purely automatic, but in
+sheer joy of living on that wonderful June day in those marvellous
+Kentucky mountains. Their loneliness did not depress her; indeed, to
+her, they were not lonely, but peopled by a host of lifelong friends who
+had greeted her at birth, and would, she had every reason to suppose,
+speed her when her end came. Their majesty did not overwhelm her,
+although she felt it keenly, and respected it and loved it with a
+certain dear, familiar awe. And everywhere about her was the Spring.
+Laurel blossomed at the trail's sides, filling the whole air with
+fragrance; the tardier blueberry bushes crowding low about it had begun
+to show the light green of their bursting buds; young ferns were pushing
+through the coverlet of last autumn's leaves which had kept them snug
+against the winter's cold, and were beginning to uncurl their delicate
+and wondrous spirals; maple and beech were showing their new leaves. The
+air was full of bird-notes--the plaintively pleading or exultantly
+triumphant cries of the mating season's joy and passion. Filmy clouds,
+like scattered, snowy ostrich plumes, floated, far, far up above her on
+a sea of richest blue; a fainter blue of springtime haze dimmed the
+depths of the great valley which a wide pass gave her vision of off to
+the left--and she was rather glad of this, for the haze, while,
+certainly, it hid from her much beauty, also hid the ugly scars which
+man was making there on nature's face, the cuts and gashes with which
+the builders of the new railway were marring the rich pasture lands.
+
+She turned from this to pleasanter and wilder prospects, close at hand,
+as her path narrowed, and began to sing again in sheer joyousness of
+spirit.
+
+  "Mr. Woodpecker laughed as a woodpecker will,
+  As Jim stood lookin' out of the door of the still,
+  'Mr. Jim,' he remarked, 'I have come for to ax
+  _Ef_ you'd give me a worm for my revenue tax'!"
+
+The placid ox, plodding slowly down the trail, did not swerve when the
+bushes parted suddenly at one side, as she finished this verse of her
+song, but Madge Brierly looked about with a quick alertness. The sound
+of the rustling leaves and crackling twigs might mean a friend's
+approach, they might mean the coming of one of the very enemies whom the
+song had hinted at so lightly, but against whom all the people of the
+mountains keep perpetual watch, they might even mean a panther, hungry
+after his short rations of the winter and recklessly determined on a
+meal at any cost.
+
+But it was Joe Lorey's face which greeted her as she abruptly turned to
+see. His coon-skin cap, his jerkin and trousers of faded blue-jeans, his
+high, rusty boots matched perfectly with his primitive environments. As
+he appeared only the old-fashioned Winchester, which he carried cradled
+in his crooked elbow, spoke of the Nineteenth century. His face, though
+handsome in a crudely modelled way, had been weather-beaten into a
+rough, semi-fierceness by the storms through which he had watched the
+mountain-passes during the long winter for the raiders who were ever on
+his trail. The slightly reddened lids of his dark, restless eyes, told
+of long nights during which the rising fumes of moonshine whisky
+stealthily brewing in his furtive still, cave-hidden, had made them
+smart and sting. Even as, smilingly, he came up to the strangely mounted
+maid, there was on his face the strong trace of that hunted look which
+furtive consciousness of continual and unrelenting pursuit gives to the
+lawbreaker--even to the lawbreaker who believes the laws he breaks are
+wrong and to be violated without sin and righteously.
+
+"That you, Joe?" said the girl. "You skeered me."
+
+"Did I?" he replied, grinning broadly. "Didn't plan to."
+
+From far below there came the crash of bursting powder. Quick and lithe
+as a panther the man whirled, ready with his rifle. The girl laughed.
+
+"Nothin' but the railroad blastin' down there in the valley," she said
+with amusement. "Ain't you uset to that, yet?"
+
+"No," said he, "I ain't--an' never will be."
+
+His tone was definitely bitter. Never were the "sounds of progress more
+ungraciously received than there among the mountains by the folk who
+had, hedged in by their fastnesses, become almost a race apart,
+ignorant of the outside world's progressions and distrustful and
+suspicious of them.
+
+"Where you goin', Madge?" he asked, plodding on beside the lurching ox.
+
+"I ain't tellin'," she said briefly. "But you can go part ways--you can
+go fur as th' pasture bars."
+
+"Why can't I go as fur as you go?"
+
+"Because," said she, and laughed. "I reckon maybe that th' water's
+started to warm up down in the pool, ain't it?" she cried, and laughed
+again.
+
+"Oh!" said he, a bit abashed, and evidently understanding.
+
+They did not pursue the subject.
+
+"What you got there?" he inquired, a few moments later, as they were
+approaching the old pasture. He pointed to a package carefully wrapped
+in a clean apron, which she hugged beneath her arm.
+
+"Spellin' book," said Madge, as, just before the bars she slid down from
+her perch upon the ox. "I'm learnin'."
+
+His lip curled with the mountaineer's contempt for books and all they
+have to teach.
+
+"What you want to _learn_ for?"
+
+He had gently shouldered her aside as she had stooped to raise the bars
+back to position, and, with a certain crude gallantry, had done the task
+himself.
+
+"Bleeged," she said briefly, and then, standing with one brown and
+rounded arm upon the topmost rail, paused in consideration of an answer
+to his question.
+
+The ox stopped, dully, close within the closed gap in the rough fence.
+She went closer to him and patted his side kindly. "Go on, old Buck,"
+she said. "I'm through with you for quite a while. Go on and have some
+fun or rest, whichever you like best. You certainly can stand a lot of
+rest! And here is new spring grass, Buck. I should think you would be
+crazy to git at it."
+
+As if he understood, the old ox turned away, and, slowly, with careful
+searching for the newest and the tenderest of the forage blades which
+had pushed up to meet the pleasant sunshine, showed he was well fed at
+all times.
+
+"What do I want to learn for?" the girl repeated, returning to Joe's
+question. "Why--why--I don't know, exactly. There's a longin' stirrin'
+in me.
+
+"While you was over yon" (she waved her hand in a broad sweep to
+indicate the mountain's other side). "I had to go down into town
+after--after quite a lot of things." She looked at him somewhat
+furtively, as if she feared this statement might give rise to some
+unwelcome questioning, but it did not. "I saw what queer things they are
+doin'--th' men that work there on that railroad buildin'. Wonderful
+things, lots of 'em, and the bed-rock of 'em all was learnin'. I watched
+a gang of 'em for near plum half a day. There wasn't a thing they did
+that they didn't first read from a sheet of paper about. If they hadn't
+had them sheets and if they couldn't read what had been written on 'em,
+why, they couldn't never _build_ no railroad. And not only that--they
+got all kinds of comfort out of it. They have their books that tell 'em
+what other men have done before 'em, they have their newspapers that
+tell 'em--_everyday_, Joe--what other men are doin', everywhere, fur as
+th' earth is spread.
+
+"They _know_ things, them men do, and they're heaps happier because of
+it." She paused, leaning on the old worn fence.
+
+"An' their wimmen knows things," she went on. "I'm goin' to, too. It's
+th' greatest comfort that they've got. I'm goin' to _have_ that comfort,
+Joe!"
+
+She patted the new spelling book as if it were a precious thing.
+
+"I'm goin' to have that comfort," she continued. "I'm goin' to know th'
+ins an' outs o' readin' an'" (she sighed and paused a second, as if this
+next seemed more appalling) "an' of writin'. Dellaw! That's hard! All
+sorts of curves an' twists an' ups an' downs an' things, an' ev'ry one
+means somethin'!"
+
+Joe looked at her, half in admiration, half in apprehension. "You goin'
+to git too good fer these here mountings?" he inquired.
+
+She gazed about her with a little intake of the breath, a little sign of
+ecstasy, of her appreciation of the wondrous view.
+
+"Too good for these here mountings?" she said thoughtfully. "Learnin'
+couldn't make me that! It might show me how to love 'em more. Nothin' in
+th' world, Joe, could make me love 'em less!"
+
+He became more definite, a bit insistent. It had been plain, for long,
+that it had required some self-control for him to walk as he had walked,
+close by her side, without some demonstration of his admiration for her,
+to stand there with her at the bars without some sign that in her
+presence he found happiness much greater than he had ever known, could
+ever know, elsewhere.
+
+"You goin' to git too good fer--me?" he asked.
+
+She turned toward him impulsively. Great friendship shone frankly in her
+fine eyes. On her face was that expression of complete and understanding
+comradery which one child chum may show another. Almost she said as much
+of him as she had said of the surrounding mountains, but there was that
+upon his face which stopped her. It was too plain that friendship was
+not what he wanted, would not satisfy him. There was a hungry yearning
+in his eyes, mute, respectful, worshipful, not for comradery, but for a
+closer tie. She had watched this grow in him within the recent months,
+with worry and regret. It seemed to her a tragedy that their old
+friendship should ever prove inadequate.
+
+"No," she answered gently, "I shall never get too good for you, Joe--for
+any of my friends."
+
+He looked, almost with aversion, at the book she held so closely. He
+distrusted books. Instinctively he felt them to be enemies.
+
+"If you get them there ideas about learnin', an' all that, you will!" he
+gruffly said. "Leastways you'll be goin' off, some day an' leavin'
+us--me, the mountings an'--an' all yer friends up here."
+
+An expression of great earnestness, of almost fierce intensity grew in
+his face. "Madge," he said, "Madge Brierly, you're makin' a mistake!
+You're plannin' things to take you off from here; you're plannin' things
+to make you suffer, later on. You're gettin' bluegrass notions, an'
+bluegrass notions never did no mounting-born no good." He stepped closer
+to her.
+
+The latent fires in his approaching eyes were warning for her and she
+stepped back hastily. "Joe Lorey, you behave yourself!" said she. "I--"
+
+"Can't ye see I love ye, Madge?" he asked, and then the fires died down,
+leaving in his eyes the pleading, worried look alone. "Why, Madge, I--"
+
+She tried to make a joke of it. "Joe Lorey," she said, laughing, "I
+reckon you're _plum_ crazy. An' you ain't givin' me a chance to do what
+'twas that I come down for."
+
+"But--"
+
+"I ain't goin' to listen to another word, to-day," said she, and waved
+him off.
+
+He went obediently, but slowly and unhappily, his rifle snuggling in
+the crook of his left elbow, his heavy boots finding firm footing in the
+rough and rocky trail as if by instinct of their own, without assistance
+from his brain. A "revenuer," coming up, just then, to bother him about
+his still and its unlawful product of raw whisky, would have met small
+mercy at his hands. He would have been a bad man, then, to quarrel with.
+His temper would have flared at slightest provocation. He would not let
+it flare at her; but, unseeing any of the beauties which so vividly
+appealed to her, the bitter foretaste of defeat was in his heart; and in
+his soul was fierce revolt and disappointment. He had not the slightest
+thought, however, of accepting this defeat as final.
+
+Madge watched him go with a look of keen distress upon her fresh and
+beautiful young face. She must not let him say what he had almost said,
+for she shrank from the thought of wounding him with the answer she felt
+in her heart that she would have to make. He had slouched off, half-way
+down the trail and out of sight, before she put the thoughts of the
+unpleasant situation from her mind and turned again to the great matter
+which had brought her there, that day.
+
+With a last glance at the gap in the rail fence, to make sure that it
+had been carefully replaced, so that there could be no danger of finding
+her ox gone when she returned, she started down the mountain, by a path
+different from that which Joe had taken.
+
+She had not gone very far, when, from a clump of bunch-grass just in
+front of her, only partly, yet, renewed by the new season, a hare hopped
+awkwardly, endeavoring to make off. Its progress was one-sided,
+difficult.
+
+Instantly she saw that it was wounded and with a little cry she ran
+toward it and caught it. Instinctively the tiny animal seemed to
+recognize her as a friend and ceased to struggle. One of its fore legs
+had been broken, as she quickly saw.
+
+With a little exclamation of compassion, she sat down upon a hummock,
+tore from her skirt a bit of cloth, found, on the ground, two twigs,
+made of these crude materials rude splints and bandages, bound the
+wounded creature, and sent it on its painful way again. She sighed as,
+after having watched it for a moment, she arose.
+
+"Pears like us human bein's always was a-hurtin' somethin'," she
+soliloquized, distressed. "Thar some chap has left that rabbit in misery
+behind him, and here I've sent Joe Lorey down the mountain with a worse
+hurt than it's got." She sighed. "It certain air a funny world!" she
+said.
+
+The subject of the wounded rabbit did not leave her mind until she had
+clambered down the rocky path half-way to the small stream which she
+sought below. She was ever ready with compassion for the suffering,
+especially for dumb and helpless suffering animals, and, besides, the
+episode had puzzled her. Who was there in those mountains who would
+_wound_ a rabbit? Joe might have shot one, as might any other of the
+mountain dwellers who chanced to take a sudden fancy for a rabbit stew
+for supper, but Joe nor any of the other natives would have left it
+wounded and in suffering behind him. Too sure their markmanship, too
+careful their use of ammunition, for such a happening as that. Trained
+in the logic of the woods, the presence of the little suffering animal
+was a proof to her that strangers were about. The people of the
+mountains regard all strangers with suspicion. Half-a-dozen times she
+stopped to listen, half-a-dozen times she started on again without
+having heard an alien sound. Once, from the far distance, she did catch
+a faint metallic clinking, as of the striking of a hammer against rock,
+but it occurred once only, and she finally attributed it to the
+mysterious doings of the railroad people in the valley.
+
+Down the path she sped, now, rapidly and eagerly. It was plain that
+something which she planned to do when she reached her destination
+filled her with anticipation of delight, for her red lips parted in a
+smile of expectation as charming as a little child's, her breath came in
+eager pantings not due wholly to the mere exertion of the rapid downward
+climb. When, beyond a sudden turn in the rude trail, she suddenly saw
+spread before her the smooth waters of a pool, formed by the creek in a
+hill-pocket, she cried aloud with pleasure.
+
+"Ah," said she. "Ah! Now here we be!"
+
+But it was not at this first pool she stopped. Leaving the path she
+skirted its soft edge, instead, and, after having passed down stream
+some twenty yards or more, pushed her skilled way between the little
+trees of a dense thicket and into a dim, shadowy woods chamber on
+beyond, where lay another pool, velvety, en-dusked, save for the flicker
+of the sunlight through dense foliage.
+
+Here her delight was boundless. She ran forward with the eagerness of a
+thirsty bird, and, leaning on the bank, supported by bent arms, bent
+down and drank with keenest relish of the cool spring waters gathered in
+the "cove," then dabbled her brown slender fingers in the shining
+depths, watching, with a smile, concentric, widening ripples as they
+hurried out across the glassy surface, to the ferned bank beyond. A few
+yards away a hidden cascade murmured musically. Through the sparse and
+tender foliage of spring above her, the sunlight flickered in bright,
+moving patches of golden brilliance, falling on the breast of her rough,
+homespun gown, like decorations given by a fairy queen. Around the
+water's edges budding plants and deep-hued mosses made a border lovely
+everywhere, and for long spaces deep and soft as velvet pile. A thrush
+called softly from the forest depths behind her. From the other side
+his mate replied in a soft twittering that told of love and confidence
+and comfort. A squirrel scampered up the trunk of a young beech, near
+by, and sat in the first crotch to look down at her, chattering. A light
+breeze sighed among the branches, swaying them in languorous rhythm,
+rustling them in soft and ceaseless whisperings.
+
+All these familiar, pleasant sights and sounds delighted her. During the
+long winter she had been shut away from this, her favorite spot among
+the many lovely bits of wilderness about her, and now its every detail
+filled her with a fresh and keen delight. She looked and listened
+greedily, as happy as a city child, seated, for the first time in a
+space of months, before a brightly lighted stage to watch a pantomime. A
+dozen times she ran with little, bird-like cries to bend above some
+opening wild-flower, a space she spent in watching two intently busy
+king-birds, already fashioning their nest. Another squirrel charmed her
+beyond measure by sitting, for a moment, on a limb to gaze at her in
+bright-eyed curiosity, and then, with a swift run down the trunk, quite
+near to her, as if entirely satisfied that he saw in her a certain
+friend, scuttling to the water's edge for drink. She had never seen a
+squirrel drink before--few people have--and she stood, as motionless as
+might a maid of marble, watching him, until, having had his fill, he
+gave his tail a saucy flirt and darted back to his beech fortress, to
+sit again upon his limb and chatter gossip at her.
+
+After he had gone back to his tree she looked carefully about her. It
+now became apparent that she had come there to the pool for some
+especial purpose and that she wished to be quite sure of privacy before
+she put it into execution, for she went first to the path by which she
+had descended, there to listen long, intently, then, with a lithe spring
+where the brook narrowed at the pool's mouth, to the other side, where,
+at some distance in the forest, by another woods-path's edge, she stood
+again, intent and harkening.
+
+Apparently quite satisfied that so far as human beings went her solitude
+was quite complete, she returned, now, to the pool's edge and stood
+gazing down upon its polished surface. Soon she dipped the toe of one
+brown, slender foot into it, evidently prepared to draw back hastily in
+case of too low temperature, but tempted, when she found the water warm,
+she gently thrust the whole foot in, and then, gathering her skirt
+daintily up to her knees, actually stepped into the water, wading with
+little shrill screams of delight.
+
+For a moment she stood poised there, both hands busy with her skirt,
+which was pulled back tight against her knees. Then, after another hasty
+glance around, she sprang out upon the bank with a quick gesture of
+determination, and, close by the thicket's edge, disrobed entirely and
+came back to the water as lovely as the dream of any ancient sculptor,
+as alluring as the finest fancy of the greatest painter who has ever
+touched a brush.
+
+Slim, graceful, sinuous, utterly unconscious of her loveliness, but
+palpitating with the sensuous joy of living, she might have been a wood
+nymph, issuing vivid, vital, from the fancy of a mediaeval poet. The
+sunlight flecked her beautiful young body with fluttering patches as of
+palpitant gold leaf. The crystal water splashed in answer to the play of
+her lithe limbs and fell about her as in showers of diamonds. Flowers
+and ferns upon the pool's edge, caught by the little waves of overflow,
+her sport sent shoreward, bowed to her as in a merry homage to her
+grace, her fitness for the spot and for the sport to which she now
+abandoned herself utterly, plunging gaily into the deepest waters of the
+basin. From side to side of its narrow depths she sped rapidly, the
+blue-white of the spring water showing her lithe limbs in perfect grace
+of motion made mystically indefinite and shimmering by refraction
+through the little rippling waves her progress raised. She raced and
+strained, from the pure love of effort, as if a stake of magnitude
+depended on her speed.
+
+Then, suddenly, this fever for fast movement left her and she slowed to
+languorous movement, no less lovely.
+
+The trout, which had been frightened into hiding by the splashing of her
+early progress, came timidly, again, from their dim lurking places, to
+eye this new companion of the bath with less distrust, more curiosity.
+With sinuous stroke, so slow it scarcely made a ripple, so strong it
+sent her steadily and firmly on her zig-zag way, she swam, now, back and
+forth, around about, from side to side and end to end in the deep pool,
+with keen enjoyment, each movement a new loveliness, each second
+bringing to her fascinating face some new expression of delight and
+satisfaction. Behind her streamed her flowing hair, unbound and free to
+ripple, fan-like, on the water; before her dainty chin a little wave
+progressed, unbreaking, running back on either hand beside her,
+V-shaped. Her hands rose in the water, caught it in cupped palms and
+pushed it down and backward with the splashless pulsing thrust of the
+truly expert swimmer.
+
+Only the warm blood of perfect health could have endured the temperature
+of that shaded mountain pool so long, and soon even she felt its chill
+gripping her young muscles, and, as unconscious of her wholly revealed
+loveliness as any nymph of old mythology, scrambled from the water to
+the bank and stood there where a shaft of comfortable sunshine found its
+welcome way through rifted foliage above. To this she turned first one
+bare shoulder, then the other, with as evident a sensuous delight as she
+had shown when the cool water first closed over her. Then, throwing back
+her head, she stood full in the brilliance, and, inhaling deeply, let
+the sunlight fall upon the loveliness of her young chest. The delight of
+this was far too great for voiceless pleasure, and her deep, rich
+laughter rippled out as liquid and as musical as the tones of the tiny
+waterfall above the pool. She raised a knee and then the other to let
+the vitalizing sunlight fall upon them; then, with head drooped forward
+on her breast, stood with her sturdy but delicious shoulders in its
+shining path. Her happiness was perfect and she smiled continually, even
+when she was not giving vent to audible expressions of enjoyment.
+
+Suddenly, however, this idyllic scene was interrupted. In the woods she
+heard the crashing of an awkward footstep and a muttered word or two in
+a strange voice, as might come from a lowlander whose face has suffered
+from the sting of a back-snapping branch.
+
+For an instant she poised, frightened, on the bank. The intruder's
+crashing progress was bringing him, as her ears plainly told her,
+steadily in her direction. Panic-stricken, for a moment, she crouched,
+hugging her bare limbs in an ecstasy of fear. To get her clothes and put
+them on before he reached the pool would be impossible, a hasty glance
+about her showed no cover thick enough to flee to.
+
+One concealment only offered perfect hiding--the very pool from which
+she had so recently emerged. She poised to slip again into the water
+noiselessly and then caught sight of her disordered clothing on the
+bank. To leave it there would as certainly reveal her presence as to
+remain on the bank herself! Hastily she gathered it and the new spelling
+book into her arms, and, with not ten seconds of spare time to find the
+cover which she so desperately needed, endeavored to slip quietly into
+the pool again.
+
+Her certainty of movement failed her, this time, though, and one foot
+slipped. Into the pool she went, half-falling, and with a splash which,
+she was certain, would be audible a hundred yards away. Terrified anew
+by this, she dived quickly to the bottom of the pool and with all a
+trout's agility and fearlessness, her clothing and beloved book clasped
+tight against her bosom by her crooked left arm, her right arm sending
+her with rapid strokes, when she was quite submerged, the full length of
+the pool to its far end. There a fallen tree, relic of some woodland
+tempest of years gone by, extended quite from bank to bank,
+moss-covered, half hidden by small rushes and a little group of other
+water-plants. She dived beneath this log with the last atom of endurance
+she possessed and rose, perforce, upon the other side, stifling her
+gasps, but drawing in the air in long, luxurious breathings. With her
+mouth not more than half-an-inch above the water and her feet upon hard
+bottom, she crouched there, watching through the screen of plants, her
+clothes and book still pressed against her breast.
+
+As she peered across the log between the rushes, she saw the stranger,
+with a wary step, break through the undergrowth about the
+pool--cautiously, expectantly. The water heaved a bit about her chin,
+for her hidden chest was palpitating with the short, sharp intakes of a
+chuckling laughter.
+
+"Thought I were a b'ar, most likely!" she thought merrily, quite certain
+of the safety of her hiding place. "Some furriner." All strangers, in
+the mountains, are spoken of as "foreigners" and regarded with a hundred
+times the wonder and distrust shown in cities to the native of far
+lands, remote.
+
+Her guess was shrewd. The stranger had plainly been attracted by the
+sounds of her delighted splashing and had hurried up with rifle ready
+for a shot at some big game. Now he stood upon the granite edges of the
+pool, disappointed even in his instinctive search for footprints, with
+only the slowly widening circles left upon the surface by her hurried
+flight to show him that he had not wholly been mistaken in his thought
+that something most unusual had recently occurred there in the "cove."
+Eagerly his disappointed glance roved around the circling
+thicket--nowhere did it see a sign. When it neared the place of her
+concealment the hidden girl ducked, softly, making no undue commotion in
+the swiftly running water at the pool's outlet, and the searching
+glance passed on, quite unsuspecting, before her breath failed and her
+head emerged again.
+
+"Confound it!" the deeply disappointed youth exclaimed. "I was dead
+certain I heard something. I _did_ hear something, too." He sighed. "But
+it is gone, now."
+
+At length he turned away in a bad temper, and presently she heard him
+crashing awkwardly through brush and brake, departing.
+
+Shivering from her long submersion in the gelid waters of the mountain
+stream, she cautiously emerged, struggling between light-hearted
+laughter at the comedy of her escape and rueful worry about the fact
+that she was not only deeply chilled but had no clothes which were not
+wet. Her soaked spelling-book, also, gave her much concern. Before she
+spread her clothing out in the sparse sunlight, she took the dripping
+volume to the warmest little patch of brilliance on any of the rocks
+surrounding, and, as she opened its leaves to catch the sunshine,
+examined it with loving solicitude to find how badly it was damaged.
+
+"Fast color," she said happily, looking at the mighty letters of its
+coarse black print. "Ain't faded none, nor run, a mite." This plainly
+give her great relief. Deftly she turned each leaf, using the extremest
+care to avoid tearing them, handling them with loving touch. Between
+them she laid little pine cones, so that air might circulate among them
+and assist the process of their drying. Then, having wrung her clothing
+till her strong, brown, slender wrists ached, she spread that out in
+turn, but on less favored rocks, and, as her feeling of security
+increased, fell into an unconscious dance, born of the necessity of
+warmth from exercise, but so full of grace, abandon, joy, that a poet
+might have fancied her a river-nymph, tripping to the reed-born music of
+the goat-hoofed Pan.
+
+When, later, she had slowly dressed, and was kneeling at the pool's
+edge, using the now placid surface of the water as a mirror to assist
+her in rough-fashioning her hair into a graceful knot, she heard again,
+from a great distance, a metallic "tink, tink-tink," which had caught
+her ear when she had first stood on the pool's edge. It came, she knew,
+from far, however, and so did not rouse her apprehension, but, mildly,
+it aroused her curiosity.
+
+"Hull kentry's 'full o' furriners," she mused. "That railroad buildin'
+business in the valley brings 'em. Woods ain't private no more." Again
+the tink, tink-tink. "Sounds like hammerin' on rocks," she thought.
+"It's nearer than th' railroad builders, too. I wonder what--but then,
+them furriners are wonderful for findin' out concernin' ev'rythin'."
+
+She hugged her pulpy spelling book against her breast with a little
+shiver of determination. "_I'm_ goin' to l'arn, too," she said with firm
+decision as she scrambled up the rough and rocky mountain path.
+
+For a time, as she progressed, her thoughts remained afield, wandering
+in wonder of what that "furriner" might be up to with the tink-tink of
+his hammer upon rocks. This soon passed, however, and they dwelt again
+on the pool episode.
+
+She had never seen a man dressed as the stranger had been. A carefully
+made shooting-jacket had covered broad and well-poised shoulders which
+were free of that unlovely stoop which comes so early to the
+mountaineer's. A peaked cap of similar material had shaded slightly a
+broad brow with skin as white as hers and whiter. Beneath it, eyes,
+which, although they were engaged in anxious search when she had seen
+them, she knew could, upon occasion, twinkle merrily, had gazed, clear,
+calm, and brown. A carefully trimmed mustache had hidden the man's upper
+lip, but his chin, again a contrast to the mountaineers' whom she had
+spent her life among, showed blue from constant and close shaving. Yet,
+different as he was from her people of the mountains, as she recalled
+that face she could not hate him or distrust him.
+
+She had never in her life seen any one in knickerbockers and leggins
+before, and the memory of his amused her somewhat, yet she admitted to
+herself that they had seemed quite "peart" as she peered at them through
+the reeds.
+
+But it was the modern up-to-date Winchester which he had held, all
+poised to fly up to the ready shoulder should he find the splashing
+animal which had attracted his attention by its noise, which, next to
+his handsome, clean-cut face, had most aroused her admiration.
+
+"Lordy! Joe'd give his eyes to hev a gun like that," she said.
+
+And then she made a pun, unconscious of what the outer world calls such
+things, but quite conscious of its humor. "Thought I was a b'ar," she
+chuckled. "Well, I certainly _was_ b'ar!"
+
+Feeling no further fear of any one, defiant, now that she was fully
+clothed, of "furriners," rather hoping, as a matter of fact that she
+might sometime meet this one again, she let her laugh ring out
+unrestrained. A cat-bird answered it with a harsh cry; a blue-jay
+answered him with a still harsher note. But then a brown thrush burst
+into unaccustomed post-meridian song. Even his throbbing trills and
+thrilling, liquid quaverings, had not more melody in them, however, than
+had her ringing laughter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Her laugh, too, roused more than vagrant birds into attention. She had
+emerged from the abrupt little valley and was entering upon a plateau
+which had been left comparatively open by the removal of great trees,
+sacrificed to furnish ties for the new railroad building in the
+lowlands. The place was littered with the discarded tops of pines and
+other woodland rubbish and seemed forlorn and wrecked. She swept her
+eyes about with the glance of a proprietor, for Madge Brierly owned all
+of this as well as most of the land through which the brook which
+deepened into the pool of her adventure flowed. Indeed the girl was
+counted rich among her fellows and owned, also, land down in the valley
+on which she would not live, but which she rented for an annual sum to
+her significant, although it would not have kept a lowland belle in
+caramels.
+
+In the center of the disordered clearing just before her, was the person
+who, like the birds, had been roused to keen attention by the maiden's
+ringing laugh. She saw him first while he was peering here and there,
+astonished, to learn whence the sound had come, and, with the
+instinctive caution of the mountain-bred, she quickly stepped behind a
+clump of laurel, through which she peered at him.
+
+He was a man of sixty years, or thereabouts, wiry, tough and well
+preserved. His hair, of grizzled grey, was longer than most men wore
+theirs, even among the mountains, where there are few conventionalities
+in male attire. He was dressed in the ordinary garb of the Kentucky
+planter of the better class--broad soft hat, flowing necktie, long
+frock-coat, which formed a striking contrast to the coarse high-boots
+into the tops of which his trousers had been tucked--and yet he hardly
+seemed to her to belong to the class of gentlemen to which his dress
+apparently assigned him. His face was coarse and hard, his eyes, as he
+peered about in search of her, were "shifty," she assured herself. His
+hands were large and crudely fashioned.
+
+"'Pears like 'most ev'ry one is roamin' 'round my land to-day," she
+thought. "I wonder what _this_ one is up to, thar?"
+
+For fully fifteen minutes her curiosity remained unsatisfied, for,
+startled by the ringing laugh, the stranger spent at least a quarter of
+an hour in furtive peering, here and there, about the clearing, plainly
+searching for the laughter. At no time, however, did he approach her
+hiding place near enough to see her, and, finally, apparently satisfied
+that his ears had fooled him, or that whoever it had been who had
+disturbed him with the merry peal had gone away, he went back to his
+work.
+
+Just what this work could be was what she waited curiously to see. She
+felt not the least resentment of the trespass it involved, for the land
+was wild, and on it, as elsewhere in the mountains, any one was free to
+come and go who did not commit the foolishness of neglecting camp fires,
+likely to start forests into blaze, or the supreme treachery of giving
+information to the revenue officials about hidden stills. Her eager
+curiosity was aroused, more by the mysterious nature of the stranger's
+operations than by the fact that they were conducted on her land.
+
+Having satisfied himself that no one, now, was near, and, therefore,
+that he was not watched, the unpleasantly mysterious old man went back
+to the work which evidently had brought him hither. With utmost care he
+moved about the place, scrutinizing outcropping rocks, and this, as they
+were everywhere, meant a minute examination of the land. In his hand he
+carried a small hammer, and, with this, now and then, after a careful
+visual examination of a rock, he knicked it, here and there,
+investigating carefully and even eagerly the scars he made, the bits of
+rock which were clipped off, now and then even looking at the latter
+through a magnifying glass, which he took for the purpose from a pocket
+of his vest.
+
+She had watched these operations, fascinated, for, possibly, a full half
+hour, despite the discomfort of damp clothing, which had begun to chill
+her, when she saw signs of violent excitement on the old man's face and
+in his actions, after he had chipped a rock, from which he first had had
+to scrape a thin superstratum of light soil.
+
+Like a miner who has found the gold for which, for years, he has been
+searching, he arose, with the tiny fragments in his hand, to look at
+them with greedy eyes, in a more comfortable, upright posture. His face
+had very plainly paled and in his eyes was an expression of such
+avaricious eagerness and satisfaction as she had never seen before upon
+a human countenance.
+
+Before he made a sound she knew that he had found that thing for which
+he had been seeking. His grizzled countenance, intent as any alchemist's
+of old upon his search, and, as its absorption grew, continually less a
+pleasant face to contemplate, now twisted, suddenly, into an expression
+of incredulous joy. He took the fragment he had been examining in both
+his hands and held it close before his eyes. Then he made a minute
+search of it with his little magnifying glass. Then he fell upon his
+knees, and, with his clawlike fingers, scraped more earth from the rock
+whence he had chipped it.
+
+Satisfied by what he saw there, after he had done this, he rose with a
+new expression on his face--so crafty, so exultant, and, withal, so
+evil, that Madge involuntarily shrank back to better screening in her
+leafy hiding place.
+
+The old man, with sweeping movements of his heavily booted feet, swept
+the thin earth he had scraped from the rock's surface back into its
+place, thrust the fragments deep into his pocket, and started hurriedly
+away, plainly greatly pleased, along the trail which led into the
+valley. She watched him with a beating heart, much puzzled.
+
+What could it be that he had found, there, on her land? Visions of gold
+mines and of diamonds, rose within her mind, crude, unformed, childish,
+based on the imperfect knowledge she had gained of such things from the
+story-tellers of the mountains. As mountain people go she was, already,
+a rich woman, but now dreams of mightier wealth swept through her brain
+tumultuously. Ah, she would buy happiness for all her friends when she
+had, later on, unearthed the secret treasures of her backwoods clearing!
+Maybe she would, sometime, have a _real silk dress_!
+
+She hurried forward in a stooping run to make examination of the place,
+as soon as the old man had vanished down the mountain side, to see (she
+thoroughly expected it) the glitter of bright gems or yellow gold
+beneath the sand which he had with such care spread back upon the little
+scar which he had made there in the earth. With trembling fingers she
+pushed back the yellow earth, and found--nothing but black rock,
+uncouth, and unattractive.
+
+She sat there on the ground in her damp skirts, too disappointed, for a
+moment, to make an exclamation. In many ways the girl, although well
+past her sixteenth year, was but a child. The reaction from the mighty
+dreams of fortune she had built almost unnerved her.
+
+It was her native humor which now saved her. Instead of weeping she
+burst into sudden laughter.
+
+"Dellaw!" said she, aloud. "Ain't I a fool? The man was just a crazy!"
+
+For some time she sat there in the rocky clearing amidst the litter of
+pine-tops and small undergrowth, contemplating her own silliness with
+keen amusement.
+
+"Why, he had me that stirred up," said she, "that I reckoned I was rich
+a'ready!"
+
+But she put the joke aside, to be told upon herself when the first
+chance came. Her long hiding in the thicket while she watched the queer
+proceedings of the stranger had chilled her through and through.
+
+Close to the black rock which had so excited him and which she had
+uncovered after he had gone, a little forked stick stood upright, and in
+its fork, with one end slanted to the ground, a twig of green
+witch-hazel still reposed. Beneath the twig a tiny spiral of arizing
+smoke showed that here, with these primitive appliances, the treasure
+seeker had prepared his dinner, later carefully covering his fire.
+
+"No matter how queer he was dressed, or what queer things he did," she
+told herself, "he sure was mountain-born. This here's a mountain
+fireplace, sartin sure."
+
+She broke dead branches from a pine-top, not far away, but still far
+enough so that, with reasonable watching, it would not be endangered by
+a fire built on this spot (the old man plainly had considered this when
+he made the fire, for the place was almost the only one in all the
+clearing free enough from dry pine branches to make fire building safe)
+and laid them on the coals which he had buried, but which she now had
+carefully uncovered. She would, she had decided, dry her clothes before
+she started on the long, cool, woods-road climb up to her cabin.
+
+Kneeling by the coals and blowing on them, skillfully adjusting
+splinters so that they would catch the draft, she soon had started a
+small flame. Fed carefully, this grew rapidly. Within five minutes there
+was burning on the site of the old man's little cooking-fire a cheerful
+blaze of size. Its rushing warmth was very grateful to her, and she held
+her hands out to it, then her feet, one after the other, with skirts
+lifted daintily, so that her chilled limbs might catch the warmth.
+
+Invigorated by the pleasant heat, she once more yielded to the urgings
+of the bounding spirit of rich youth within her. Even as she had sported
+in the water ere the interloper came to interrupt her sylvan bath, now
+she sported there about the fire in an impromptu dance, never for a
+second uncouth, despite the fact that she was quite untrained; scarcely
+less graceful than her merrymaking in the water, although then she had
+not been, as now, hampered in her grace of movement by the unlovely
+draperies of homespun linsey-woolsey. As she had been a water-nymph, so,
+now, she might have been some Druid maid dancing by an altar fire. The
+roughness of the ground did not annoy her--her feet had not known
+dancing upon polished waxen wood; the lack of spectators did not deter
+her--those whom she had learned to know and love, the mountains, trees,
+the squirrels, and birds, were there.
+
+In the very midst of the abandon of this rustic symphony of movement,
+the thought came to her that the precious spelling-book was lying on the
+rock, near by, quite soaked, neglected. She sped to it and took it to
+the fire's edge, where, opening its pages one by one, so that each would
+get the warmth, she held it as close as she opined was safe. Having
+dried it until she no longer feared the wetting it had had would
+seriously harm its usefulness (the lovely smoothness of its magic leaves
+was gone, alas! beyond recall) she paused there for a moment, herself
+still far from dry, with a bare foot held out to the blaze, and studied
+curiously one of the book's pages.
+
+Thereon the letters of the alphabet, large, ominous, suggestive to her
+mind of nothing in the world but curlycues, loomed, mystifying. For the
+first time it occurred to her that in securing the small volume she had
+not, as she had thought to do, solved the problem of an education. The
+characters, she saw to her dismay, meant nothing to her. In the absence
+of a teacher she could not learn from them!
+
+Alas, alas! The matter was a tragedy to her. How could she have been so
+stupid as to fail to think of this at first? She stood there with
+flushed face, despairing, looking at the mystic symbols with slowly
+sinking heart.
+
+Suddenly, though the crackling of the fire filled her ears, she was
+aware, by some subtle sense, that she was now not wholly solitary there.
+Without a sound to tell her, she was conscious that some other person
+had within the moment come into the clearing. Hastily she looked about.
+To her amazement, and, for a moment, to her great dismay, she saw,
+standing on the clearing's edge, the young man who had, not long before,
+unknowingly invaded her seclusion at the pool.
+
+Instantly her body became fiercely conscious. Prickling thrills, not due
+to bonfire heat, shot over it. Shame sent the blood in mantling blushes
+to her cheeks, although she tried to stop it. Why should she blush at
+sight of him? True, she had been there in the water, bare as any
+new-born babe, when he had reached the pool's edge--but he had not seen
+her. To him she, quite undoubtedly, was a mere strange mountain maid,
+unrecognized. Self-consciousness then was quite absurd.
+
+And this man was a stranger and was on her land. She must not forget her
+mountain courtesy and fail to make him welcome.
+
+"Howdy," she said briefly.
+
+"Howdy, little girl?" said he, and looked at her and smiled.
+
+This form of address much amused her. She was not far beyond sixteen,
+but sixteen is counted womanhood, there in the mountains, and often is
+an age for wife--and motherhood as well. "Little girl," to her, seemed
+laughable. But then she suddenly remembered that to stop their flapping,
+when they were all soaked, against her ankles, she had pinned her skirts
+up--and she was not tall. The mistake, perhaps, was natural.
+
+"Got a fire here?" he inquired, inanely, for the fire was very much in
+evidence.
+
+"Looks like it, don't it?" she said somewhat saucily, but robbed the
+comment of offense by smiling somewhat shyly at him as he stood there.
+
+He was better looking, she reflected, now that she had an unobstructed
+view of him, even than he had appeared when she had peered at him from
+her concealment behind the log and barricade of rushes. Of course he
+was a "foreigner," and, therefore, a mere weakling, not to be considered
+seriously as a specimen of sturdy manhood (how often had she heard the
+mountain men speak of the lowlands men with scorn as weaklings?) but,
+none the less, he interested and attracted her, even if he did not
+inspire her with respect.
+
+He laughed. "It does," said he, "looks very much like it. Been burning
+brush?"
+
+"No," she replied, "jest warmin' up a little."
+
+"Why, it's not cold."
+
+"I--I was wet."
+
+"_Wet?_" said he, astonished.
+
+She saw her slip, and flushed. "Fell in the crik," she answered briefly,
+hastily and falsely.
+
+"Why, that's too bad," said he, with ready sympathy, unfeigned and real.
+
+All the time the girl was eying him through often-lowered lashes, and
+the more she looked at him the more she felt that he was not, like many
+"foreigners," to be distrusted and be held aloof. His clothes did not
+suggest to her the "revenuer," although they certainly were different
+from any she had ever seen before on man or beast (his knee breeches
+gave her some amusement), and he was totally unarmed, having laid his
+rifle down and left it at a distance, leaning against a stump.
+
+His hands and face were not sunburned--indeed, his hands were delicately
+fashioned and much whiter than any she had ever seen before on man or
+woman. His appearance certainly did not, to her, convey the thought of
+strength--and manhood, there among the mountains, is thought to find its
+first and last expression through its muscle; yet, for some reason,
+although her first glance made her think he was a puny creature, she
+neither scorned nor pitied him. He was, perhaps, too smoothly dressed,
+too carefully shaved; the gun he had laid down so carelessly had too
+much "bright work" on it--but on the whole, she liked him. A city maiden
+might have well been dazzled by the really handsome chap. This simple
+country girl was not--but, on the whole, she liked him.
+
+Her hand which held the spelling-book dropped, unconsciously, so that
+the open pages of the volume were revealed, upside down, against her
+knee.
+
+"Studying your lessons?" he inquired, quite casually, good-naturedly,
+coming nearer.
+
+Again her disappointment rushed upon her. Impulsively she told him of
+it.
+
+"Oh," said she, "I don't know how! I bought me this yere book down in
+th' settlement, an' thought I'd learn things outen it. But how'm I goin'
+to learn? I can't make nothin' out of it to get a start with."
+
+Instantly the pathos of this situation, not its humor, made appeal to
+him.
+
+"Isn't there a school here?" he inquired.
+
+"Nearest school is twenty mile acrost, over on Turkey Creek," she said
+briefly. "Oncet there was a nearer one, but teacher was a Hatfield, and
+McCoys got him, of course. This was McCoy kentry 'fore they all got so
+killed off. He ought to 'a' knowed better than come over here to teach."
+
+This casual reference to a famous feud--news of whose infamy had spread
+far, far beyond the mountains which had hatched it--from the lips of one
+so young and lovely (for he had long ago admitted to himself that as she
+stood there she was lovelier than any being he had ever seen before)
+appalled Frank Layson, son of level regions, graduate of Harvard, casual
+sportsman, amateur mountaineer, who had come to look over his patrimony
+and the country round about.
+
+"Ah--yes," said he, and frowned. And then: "It leaves you in hard luck,
+though, doesn't it, if you want to learn and can't," said he.
+
+"It sartin does, for--oh, I _do_ hanker powerful to learn!"
+
+"May I stay here by the fire with you a while and get warm, too," he
+asked. (The unaccustomed exercise of tramping through the mountains had
+kept him in a fever heat all day.)
+
+"An' welcome," she said cordially, moving aside a bit, so that he could
+approach without the circumnavigation of a mighty stump.
+
+He could not tell whether or not she had made note of many sweat-beads
+on his brow and wondered at them on a chilly man.
+
+"Perhaps," said he, "I might, in a few minutes, show you a little about
+what you want to know. I've been lucky. I have had a chance to learn."
+
+She liked the way he said it. There was no hint of superiority about it.
+He was not "stuck up," in his claim of knowledge. He "had had a chance,"
+and took no credit to himself for it. This pleased her, won her
+confidence--if, already, that had not been done by his frank face, in
+spite of his fancy clothes and her assumption that he was a namby-pamby
+weakling.
+
+"Oh--if you would!" she said, so eagerly that it seemed to him most
+pitiful.
+
+So, five minutes later, when all her clothing save her heavy outer
+skirt, had been quite dried there by the fire, and that same fire's
+abounding warmth had sent his temperature up to high discomfort mark,
+they sat down, side by side, upon a log, the spelling-book between them,
+and he began the pleasant task of teaching her her A, B, Cs.
+
+"'A,'" said he, "is this one at the very start."
+
+"The peaked one," said she.
+
+"Yes, that one.
+
+"And 'B,'" he went on, much amused, but with a perfectly grave face, "is
+this one with two loops fastened, so, to a straight stalk."
+
+"I know where thar _is_ a bee-tree," she remarked, irrelevantly.
+
+"It will help recall this in your mind," said he, maintaining perfect
+gravity, "imagine it with two big loops of rope fastened to one side of
+it--"
+
+"Rope wouldn't stick out that-a-way," said she, "it would just droop.
+They'd have to be of somethin' stiffen"
+
+"Well--" said he, and tried to think of something.
+
+"You could use that railroad-iron that I saw 'em heat red-hot an' bend,
+down in the valley," she suggested.
+
+"That's it," said he. "Two loops of railroad-iron fastened to a
+bee-tree" (he pointed) "just as these loops, here, are fastened to the
+straight black stem. That's 'B.'"
+
+"I won't forget," said she, her beautiful young brow puckered earnestly
+as she stored the knowledge in her brain.
+
+"And this is 'C,'" said he.
+
+"'C,' 'C'" said she. "Jest take off one of th' loops an' use it by
+itself."
+
+"That's so," said he. "And here is 'D'"
+
+"Cut off th' top th' tree," said she. "Just cut it plumb off, loop an'
+all."
+
+He laughed. It was clear that she would be an earnest and quick-thinking
+pupil to whomever had the task of giving her her education.
+
+As he looked at her, now, he for the first time fully realized her
+beauty. He had known, from the first, that she was most attractive, most
+unusual for a mountain maid; but now, laughing, although her head was
+still bent to the book, her big eyes, sparkling with her merriment,
+raised frankly to his face, were revelations to him. He had not seen
+such eyes before, and all the old-time similes for deep-brown orbs
+sprang instantly to mind. "Fathomless pools," "translucent amber"--no
+simile would really describe them. Late hours had never dimmed them,
+illness had never made them heavy, he was sure a lie had never made them
+shift from their straight gaze for one short second. He had not seen
+such eyes in cities!
+
+And from careful contemplation of the eyes, he kept on with a careful
+contemplation of the other beauties of his fair and unexpected pupil.
+Her homespun gown, always ill-shaped and now unusually protuberant in
+spots, unusually tight in others, because of its late wetting and
+impromptu, partial drying, could not hide the sylvan grave of her
+small-boned and lissome figure, just budding into womanhood. Her feet,
+crossed on the ground, were as patrician in their nakedness as any
+bluegrass belle's in satin slippers. Her ankles, scratched by casual
+thorns and already beginning to blush brown from the June sun's ardent
+kisses, were as delicate as any he had ever seen enmeshed in silken
+hose. Her hands, long, slender, taper-fingered, actually dainty,
+although brown and roughened by hard labor, were, it seemed to him,
+better fitted for the fingering of a piano's keys than for the coarse
+and heavy tasks to which he knew they must be well accustomed. He gazed
+at her in veritable wonder. How had she blossomed, thus, here in this
+wilderness?
+
+"Where do you live?" he asked, interrupting their scholastic efforts.
+
+"Up thar," she pointed, and, above, he could just see the top of a
+mud-and-stick chimney rise above a crag between the trees.
+
+"Have you brothers or sisters?"
+
+"Ain't got nobody," she answered, and to her face there came a look of
+keen resentment rather than of sorrow or of resignation. "I'm all th'
+feud left," she said simply. She looked at Layson quickly, wondering if
+he would be surprised that she should not have fought and also died.
+"Girl cain't fight alone, much," she went on, in hurried explanation,
+or, rather, quick excuse. "I might take a shot if I should git a chanst,
+but I ain't had none, an', besides, I guess it air plum wrong to kill,
+even if there's blood scores to be settled up. I toted 'round a rifle
+with me till last fall, but then I give it up. They won't git me--but
+maybe you don't know what feuds are in the mountings, here."
+
+He was looking at her with new interest. All his life he had heard much
+about the dreadful mountain feuds. As the bogey-man is used in Eastern
+nurseries, so are the mountaineers used in the nurseries of old Kentucky
+and of Tennessee to frighten children with. Their family fights, not
+less persistent or less deadly than the enmities between the warring
+barons of the Rhine in middle ages, form a magnificent foundation for
+dire tales.
+
+"Yes," said he, "I know about the feuds, of course. But you--"
+
+It did not seem possible to him, even after her frank statements, that
+this bright and joyous creature could in any way be joined to such a
+bloody history as he knew the histories of some of these long feuds to
+be.
+
+"It's been thirty years an' better," said the girl, "since the Brierlys
+and Lindsays had some trouble about a claybank filly an' took to
+shootin' one another--shootin' straight an' shootin' often an' to kill.
+For years th' fight went on. They fired on sight, an' sometimes 'twas a
+Lindsay went an' sometimes 'twas a Brierly. Bimeby there was just two
+men left--my pappy an' Lem Lindsay.
+
+"One day Lem sent word to my pappy to meet him without no weepons an'
+shake han's an' make it up."
+
+Her face took on a look of bitterness and hate which almost made her
+hearer shiver, so foreign was it to the fresh, young brightness he had
+watched till now.
+
+"My daddy come, at th' ap'inted time," she went on slowly, "but dad--he
+knowed Lem Lindsay, an' never for a minute trusted him. He ast a friend
+of his, Ben Lorey, to be a hidden witness. Ben hid behind a rock to
+watch. 'Twas right near here--just over thar." She pointed.
+
+"Soon Lem, he come along, a-smilin' like a Judast, an', after some fine
+speakin', as daddy offered him his hand, Lem whipped out a knife,
+an'--an' struck it into my daddy's heart."
+
+The girl's recital had been tense, dramatic, not because she had tried
+or thought to make it so--she had never learned not to be genuine--but
+because of the real and tragic drama in the tale she told, the
+matter-of-course way in which she told it.
+
+It made Layson shudder. What sort of people were these mountaineers who
+went armed to friendly meetings and struck down the men whose hands they
+offered to clasp? Where was the other man while his friend's enemy was
+at this dreadful work?
+
+"But Lorey," said her fascinated listener, "the man who was in hiding as
+a witness, made him pay for his outrageous act!"
+
+"No," said the girl, with drooping head. "He stepped out from behind the
+rock where he was hidin', an' he pulled the trigger of his rifle. But
+luck was dead against us that day. Wet powder--somethin'--nobody knows
+what. The gun did not go off. Before he got it well down from his
+shoulder so's to find out what it was that ailed it, Lem Lindsay was
+upon him like a mountain lion--an' he laid him thar beside my daddy. He
+didn't mean that there should be no witnesses."
+
+She paused so long that Layson was about to speak, feeling the silence
+troublesome and painful, but before he had decided what to say in
+comment on a tale so dreadful, she went on:
+
+"He didn't mean there should be no witnesses, Lem Lindsay didn't, but as
+it happened there was two. My mother, me clasped in her arms, had stole
+after my daddy, fearin' that somethin' wicked would come out o' that
+there meetin' with his old-time enemy. She spoke up sudden, an'
+surprised th' murderer, standin' there by th' two poor men he'd killed.
+At first it scared him. I can't remember everythin' about that awful
+day, but I can see Lem Lindsay's face as she screamed at him, just as
+plain this minute as I seed it then. I'll never forget that look if I
+live a thousand years!
+
+"At first he was struck dumb, but then that passed. He give a yell of
+rage an' started toward us on th' run. She jumped, with me a-hinderin'
+her. Like a mountain deer she run, in spite of that. She was lighter on
+her feet than he was upon his, an' soon outdistanced him. He hadn't
+stopped to pick his rifle up--he only had th' knife he'd done th'
+killin' with, so he couldn't do what he'd 'a' liked to done--shoot down
+a woman an' a baby!
+
+"We lived where I live now, alone, an' then, as now, there was a little
+bridge that took th' footpath over th' deep gully. Them days was wicked
+ones in these here mountains, an' daddy'd had that foot-bridge fixed so
+it would raise. My mother just had time to pull it up, when we had
+crossed, before Lem Lindsay reached there. He stopped, to keep from
+fallin' in the gully, but stood there, shakin' his bare fist an'
+swearin' that he'd kill us yet. But that he couldn't do. Folks was
+mightily roused, and he had to leave th' mountings, then an' thar, an'
+ain't been in 'em since, so far as anybody knows."
+
+Her brows drew down upon her eyes. Her sweet mouth hardened. "He'd
+better _never_ come!" she added, grimly.
+
+After a moment's pause she went on, slowly: "So, now, here we be--Joe
+Lorey, Ben's son, an' me. My mother died, you see, not very many years
+after Lindsay'd killed my daddy. Seein' of it done, that way, had been
+too much for her. I reckon seein' it would have killed me, too, if I'd
+been more'n a baby, but I wasn't, an' lived through it. Ben's lived
+here, workin' his little mounting farm, an'--an'--"
+
+She hesitated, evidently ill at ease, strangely stammering over an
+apparently simple and unimportant statement of the condition of her
+fellow orphan. She changed color slightly. Layson, watching her, decided
+that the son of the one victim must be the sweetheart of the daughter of
+the other, and would have smiled had not the very thought, to his
+surprise, annoyed him unaccountably. Whether that was what had caused
+her stammering, he could not quite decide, although he gave the matter
+an absurd amount of thought. She went on quickly:
+
+"He's lived here, workin' of his little mounting farm an'--an'--an'
+doin' jobs aroun', an' such, an' I've lived here, a-workin' mine, a
+little, but not much. After my mother died there was some folks down in
+th' valley took keer of me for a while, but then they moved away, an' I
+was old enough to want things bad, an' what I wanted was to come back
+here, where I could see th' place where mother an' my daddy had both
+loved me an' been happy. I've got some land down in th' valley--fifty
+acres o' fine pasture--but I never cared to live down there. Th' rent I
+get for that land makes me rich--I ain't never wanted for a single thing
+but just th' love an' carin' that my daddy an' my mother would 'a' give
+me if that wicked man hadn't killed 'em both. For he _did_ kill my
+mother, just as much as he killed daddy. She died o' that an' that
+alone."
+
+Again she fell into a silence for a time, looking out at the tremendous
+prospect spread before them, quite unseeing.
+
+"Oh," she went on, at length, her face again darkened by a frown, her
+small hands clenched, every muscle of her lithe young body drawn as taut
+as a wild animal's before a spring. "I sometimes feel as if I'd like to
+do as other mountain women have been known to do when killin' of that
+sort has blackened all their lives--I sometimes feel as if I'd like to
+take a rifle in my elbow an' go lookin' for that man--go lookin' for him
+in th' mountings, in th' lowlands, anywhere--even if I had to cross th'
+oceans that they tell about, in order to come up with him!"
+
+Her voice had been intensely vibrant with strong passion as she said
+this, and her quivering form told even plainer how deep-seated was the
+hate that gave birth to her words. But soon she put all this excitement
+from her and dropped her hands in a loose gesture of hopeless
+relaxation.
+
+"But I know such thoughts are foolish," she said drearily. "He got away.
+A girl can't carry on a feud alone, nohow. There's nothin' I can do."
+
+Again, now, with a passing thought, her features lighted as another
+maiden's, whose young life had been cast by fate in gentler places might
+have lighted at the thought of some great pleasure pending in the
+future.
+
+"There is a chance, though," she said, with a fierce joy, "that Lem
+Lindsay, if he is alive, 'll git th' bullet that he earned that day. Joe
+Lorey's livin'--that's Ben's son--an' he--well, maybe, some time--ah, he
+can shoot as straight as anybody in these mountings!"
+
+The look of a young tigress was on her face.
+
+It made the young man who was listening to her shudder--the look upon
+her face, the voice with which she said "And he can shoot as straight as
+anybody in these mountings!" For a second it revolted him. Then,
+getting a fairer point of view, he smiled at her with a deep sympathy,
+and waited.
+
+He had not to wait long before a gentler mood held dominance. It came,
+indeed, almost at once.
+
+"No," she said slowly, "a girl can't carry on a feud alone, nohow....
+And, somehow, when I think of it most times, I really don't want to.
+It's only now an' then I get stirred up, like this. Most times I'd
+rather learn than--go on fightin' like we-all always have.... I'd rather
+learn, somehow.... An'--an'--an' that's been mighty hard--_is_ mighty
+hard"
+
+"You--haven't had much chance," said he, looking at her pityingly.
+
+She gave him a quick glance. Had she really thought he pitied her she
+would have bitterly resented it.
+
+"Had th' same chance other mounting girls have," she said quickly,
+defending, not herself, but her country and her people.
+
+She stood, now, at a distance from the fire, for it was blazing merrily,
+but her face was flushed by its radiant heat, its lurid blaze made a
+fine background for the supple, swaying beauty of her slim young body.
+She raised her arms high, high above her head, with that same
+genuineness of gesture, graceful and appealing, which he had seen in all
+her movements from the first and then clasped them at her breast.
+
+"But oh," said she, "somehow, I want to learn, now, terrible!"
+
+"Let me help you while I'm in the mountains," he replied, impulsively.
+"I'll be glad to help you every day."
+
+"Would you?" she said. "I would be powerful thankful!" Her bright eyes
+expressed the gratitude she felt.
+
+While they had talked a strange paradox had come about there by the fire
+without their notice. The long, black outcropping of rock against which
+they had brought the old man's blaze to life, had, instead of keeping
+the fire from spreading to the undergrowth, strangely permitted it to
+pass.
+
+It was the girl who first discovered this. She sprang up from her place
+with a startled exclamation.
+
+"Oh," said she, "th' fire is spreadin'!"
+
+He rose quickly to his feet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+They were appalled by the predicament in which they found themselves.
+The thing seemed quite mysterious.
+
+The rock against which the fire had been built was all aglow, as if it
+had been heated in a furnace till red hot--strange circumstance; one
+that would have fascinated Layson into elaborate investigation had he
+had the time to think about it--and, beyond it, evidently communicated
+through it as a link, the rustling leaves of the past autumn, their
+surface layers sun-dried, were bursting into glittering little points of
+flame all about the narrow ledge of rock on which they were standing. As
+they gazed, before Layson could rush forward to stamp out these
+sparkling perils, the fire had spread, as the girl, wise in the direful
+ways of brush-fires, had known at once that it would spread, to the
+encircling pine-tops, left in a tinder barricade about the clearing by
+the sawyers and the axemen.
+
+"Oh," she said, distressed, "we're ketched!"
+
+Layson, less conscious of their peril because less well informed as to
+the almost explosive inflammability of dry pine-tops, took the matter
+less seriously. "We'll get out, all right," said he. "Don't worry."
+
+"There's times _to_ worry," said the girl, "an' this, I reckon--well,
+it's one of 'em."
+
+As if to prove the truth of what she said, with a burst almost like that
+of flame's leap along a powder-line, the fire caught one resinous
+pine-top after another with a crackling rush which was not only
+fearfully apparent to the eye, but also ominously audible. Within ten
+seconds the pair were ringed by sound like that of crackling musketry
+upon a battlefield, and by a pyrotechnic spectacle of terrifying
+magnitude. Layson had heard guns pop in untrained volleys at State Guard
+manoeuvres, and was instantly impressed by the amazing similarity of
+sound, but he had never in his life seen anything to be compared to the
+towering ring of flame-wall which almost instantly encircled them. He
+lost, perhaps, a minute, in astonished contemplation of the situation.
+Then realization of their peril burst upon him with a rush. To wait
+there, where they were, too evidently meant certain death. Not only
+would the pulsing heat from the pine-tops already burning soon become
+unendurable, but there was enough of tindrous litter strewn about the
+entire area of the little clearing to make it horribly apparent to him
+that, in a moment, it would all become a bed of glittering flame. He
+gazed at the menacing, encroaching fire, appalled.
+
+Madge, understanding the desperation of their situation even better than
+he did, knowing, too, that a stranger could, indeed, scarce conceive the
+deadly peril of it, was, at first, the cooler of the two. Her life there
+in the mountains, where any man she knew might meet, and her own father
+had met, death stalking with a rifle in his bended elbow, or a knife
+clutched in his clenched hand, had given her a certain poise in time of
+peril, an admirable self-control, quick wits, firm nerves. She felt that
+there was small chance of escape, yet she was not visibly terrified, and
+made no outcry.
+
+Had she been caught, thus, with a mountaineer (which scarcely could have
+happened) she would have felt small apprehension. Learned in the perils
+of the woods, heavy-booted, sturdy-legged, a native, like Joe Lorey, for
+example, would, she felt quite certain, have been able to effect her
+rescue. But the chances, she decided, were practically nil, with this
+untrained "foreigner" as her companion. She had been told that
+"bluegrass folks" were lacking in strong nerves and prone to panic if
+real danger threatened. Barefooted as she was, there was little she,
+herself, could do. She knew that she would quickly fall unconscious from
+intolerable pain if she so much as tried to make a dash for safety. That
+she was badly frightened she would have readily admitted, that she was
+panic-stricken none who looked at her could, for a moment, dream.
+
+She glanced at Layson with a curiosity which was almost calm, as, for a
+moment quite bewildered, he ran from side to side of their rapidly
+narrowing space of safety, endeavoring to find a weak spot in the wall
+of flames through which they might escape, but failing everywhere. For a
+moment she thought that he had lost his head, and thus proved all too
+true those tales which she had heard of "foreigners." It was almost as
+one race gazing at another suffering ordeal in test, that she observed
+his every movement, each detail of his facial play. While they had sat
+there on the log, intent upon their work above her spelling-book, she
+had wondered if the harsh, uncharitable mountain judgment of the
+"foreigners" had not been too merciless. Now she felt that she began to
+see its justification. The man, undoubtedly, she thought, showed an
+unmanly panic.
+
+"No use tryin' to get out that-a-way," she said calmly. "You'd better--"
+
+Even as she spoke, and before her words could possibly have influenced
+him, she saw a change come over him. The signs of fear, which had so
+displeased her, faded from his actions and his facial play. Placed in
+unusual, unexpected circumstances, for a second he had been bewildered,
+but, as soon as opportunity had come for gathering of wits, he found
+composure, coolness, nerve. She did not even finish out her sentence.
+Instead, her thoughts turned to that acme of breeding, nerve, endurance
+and high spirit dear to all Kentuckians, the race horse. "He's found his
+feet!" she thought.
+
+The man impressed her, now, even more than when, with courtesy, such as
+she had never known, tact which had maintained her comfort when she
+might have felt humiliated, learning which to her seemed marvellous, he
+had offered her the key to learning's mysteries upon the log. She saw
+that he had quickly won a mighty victory over self. She thought of tales
+which she had heard by mountain fireplaces about "bad men," who, when
+they first had heard a bullet's song, had dodged and whitened, only to
+recover quickly and be nerved to peril evermore thereafter. Her doubt of
+Layson fell away completely. Instead of thinking of him as of one whose
+manhood is inferior to that of the rough mountaineers she knew, perforce
+she saw in him superiorities. There was not the least sign of
+bragadocio, of counterfeit, about his new-found calm. It was, she
+recognized at once, entirely genuine. "Rattled for a minute," she
+thought, wisely, again amending her first judgment, "but cooler, now,
+than cucumbers."
+
+She looked gravely at him as he moved about investigating, not
+excitedly, alertly, full of the necessary business of escape. "Looks
+bad, don't it?" she said gravely. "Like powder, them thar pine-tops."
+
+"Oh, we'll get out all right," he answered, easily, and now she felt a
+comfort in the fact that he was intentionally minimizing danger to give
+confidence to the supposed weakness of her sex.
+
+"Maybe so an' maybe not," said she, discovering, to her disgust, that it
+was hard, now that he was showing strength, to keep the panic tremolo
+from her own voice.
+
+The fire had, by this time, encircled them completely, and from a
+hundred points was running in toward them on tinder lines of dry
+pine-needles and old leaves, flashing at them viciously along the crisp,
+dry surface of old moss and lichens on the rocks. A wind had suddenly
+arisen, born, no doubt, of the fire's own mighty draft. Bits of blazing
+light wood, small, burning branches, myriads of flaming oak leaves and
+pine-cones were swept up from the ring of fire about them, in the
+chimney of the blaze, to lose their impetus only at a mighty height, and
+then fall slowly, threateningly down within the burning ring. So
+plentiful were these little, vicious menaces, that, within another
+minute, they were dodging them continually.
+
+He now took his place close by her side and gazed upon the spectacle,
+calm-eyed, as if he found it interesting rather more than terrifying.
+
+"Oh, we'll get out, all right," said he, again.
+
+And then he turned to her in frank and unexcited inquiry. To her
+increased disgust the sobs of growing fear convulsed her throat. She
+fought them back and listened to his question.
+
+"You know more about woods-fires than I do," he said evenly. "Better
+tell me what to do, eh?"
+
+This confession of his ignorance strengthened her growing confidence in
+him instead of weakening it. The fact that he could ask advice so calmly
+made her think that, probably, he would be calm in taking it if she
+could offer it. It steadied her and helped her think. And then she saw
+him spring, and, actually with a smile, strike in the air above her
+head, diverting from its downward path which would have landed it upon
+her, a flaming fragment of pine-top fully five feet long. He actually
+laughed.
+
+"Like handball," he said cheerily. "Don't worry. I won't let anything
+fall on you. You just--_think!_"
+
+Her panic, now, had vanished as by magic. Instantly she really _ceased_
+to worry. He would _not_ let fire fall on her. He would get her out of
+that. She was certain of it. She _could_ think--calmly and with care.
+
+But she could not think of a way out--at least she could not think of a
+way out for her. Barefooted as she was, she scarcely could expect to
+find, even in her strong young body, strength enough to endure the pain
+of treading, as she would be forced to if she made a dash, on an almost
+unbroken bed of glowing coals and smouldering moss ten yards in width.
+He, with his heavy boots, might manage it. Therefore there was hope for
+him; but for her to try it would be madness.
+
+Had he been a sturdy mountaineer, she wofully reflected--having found a
+detail of lowland inferiority which, she was quite certain, would not be
+dispelled as had some others--he might, in such a desperate case, have
+summoned strength to "tote" her through, although she scarcely thought
+Joe Lorey, the best man whom she knew, could really do it; still there
+would have been the possibility. But no weak-muscled "foreigner,"
+pap-nurtured in the lowlands, could, she knew, of course, accomplish
+such a feat. It was fine to know things, as he did, but _muscle_ was
+what counted now! In queer, impersonal reflection, born, doubtless, of a
+dumb hysteria, she reflected bitterly upon the healthy weight of her own
+mountain-nourished person.
+
+"If I was only like them triflin' bluegrass gals Joe tells about," she
+thought, "made up of nothin' or a little less, it wouldn't be no trick
+to tote me outen this; but dellaw! I'm just as much as that there ox of
+mine feels right to carry when I got a couple bags o' grist on, back an'
+front."
+
+She looked around the ring of fire, dull-eyed, disheartened. "Ain't no
+use," said she, aloud.
+
+He seemed to almost lose his temper. "Use?" said he, "of course there's
+use! You tell me where the best chance is and we'll fight out, all
+right."
+
+She did not even answer; the situation seemed to her so wholly
+hopeless.
+
+He acted, then, without further question. Hastily throwing the loop of
+his gun over his shoulder, he crooked one arm beneath her
+much-astonished knees, clasped another tight about her waist, and
+started for the fire with a determined spring.
+
+"No, no; not there!" she screamed, astonished, terrified, and yet,
+withal, delighted by the unexpected hardness of the muscles in the arms
+which held her, the unexpected spring in the apparently not overburdened
+limbs which bore them up, the unexpected nerve, determination of the
+man's initiative.
+
+This "foreigner," it seemed, was not so weak, was not so namby-pamby as
+his class had been described to be. She did not struggle in the circling
+arms, she only made an explanation.
+
+"That's hard wood, burnin' there," said she. "Burnin' hard wood's harder
+to break through an' hotter, too. Try some place where it's pine.... But
+you can't never do it!"
+
+"Where?" said he. "Show me! You know, I don't."
+
+"Well--over thar," she said, and indicated, with a pointing hand, the
+place in the encircling conflagration where passage seemed least
+hopeless.
+
+At that moment fire blazed high there, but her knowing eye told her that
+it was largely flaring needles, brittle twigs, and easily dissipated
+cones which fed it.
+
+A few great springs, such as she now felt that the quivering, eager
+limbs which held her, were possessed of the ability to make, might take
+them through this flimsiest spot in the terrible barricade. The
+crackling, burning branches of the dead pine-tops would be likely to
+give way before them, not to trip them up, as oak would, to thrust them,
+falling, on the bed of glowing coals fast forming on the ground.
+
+"Over thar," said she, again. "I reckon that's the best place--but you
+cain't--"
+
+With the new respect the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles
+brought to her, arose in her a towering admiration of him. When she
+first had seen him, there beside the pool, she definitely had liked him;
+while they had delved into the mysteries of the alphabet upon the log
+his patient, willing, helpful kindness had increased her prepossession
+in his favor. It was only when, after disaster had so swiftly, so
+unexpectedly, descended on them and she had compared his body, made
+apparently more slender in comparison to the rude-limbed mountaineers
+she knew than it was really by tight-fitting knickerbockers and
+golf-stockings and its well-cut shooting-jacket, that she had lost
+confidence in him. But now his muscles, closing round her, seemed like
+thews of steel. She had never heard of athletes, she did not dream that
+muscle-building is a part of modern education--that alertness on the
+baseball, polo, football fields, count quite as much, at least in
+college popularity, as ready tongues and agile wits. The last fibres of
+destroyed respect for him rebuilt themselves upon the minute. Her
+confidence returned completely in a sudden flash--quicker than the magic
+leapings of the fire about them. She knew that he would take her through
+to safety.
+
+A thought occurred to her, for, suddenly, with the new respect for him
+the knowledge of his trained and ready muscles gave her, arose a new
+consideration for him, almost motherly. He would be breasting dreadful
+peril in the passage of the flames--peril to his eyes and face and
+clinging, tight-clasped hands especially. And round her limbs there was
+the means of saving him, in part, from it.
+
+"You let me down for just a minute," she said briefly. "Just a minute.
+Then I'll let you take me up an' carry me. An' you can _do_ it, too!
+You're strong, ain't you?"
+
+Wondering, he released his hold on her, and she slid to her feet. Then,
+with a quick movement, she unbuttoned the waistband of her outer skirt,
+and, letting it slip down to the ground, stepped out of it.
+
+"Ain't it lucky I got wet?" said she, and smiled. "It ain't more'n half
+dry yet. The under one is wet, too, and both of 'em are wool--and that
+don't burn like cotton would.
+
+"Now pick me up again an' I'll just fix this
+skirt--so--there--now--that's the way. Can you see, now? All right?
+Well, it'll keep th' fire from catchin' in our hair, an' it'll save your
+eyes."
+
+[Illustration: A MIGHTY LEAP HAD CARRIED THEM BEYOND THE BLAZING
+BARRIER]
+
+He laughed. "That's fine!" said he, and, almost before she realized that
+they were under way, a mighty leap had taken them close to the blazing
+barrier, another one had landed them within its very midst, another one
+had carried them beyond its greatest menace, another had delivered them
+from actual peril, leaving them on ground where filmy grass, dead
+leaves, dry needles, had blazed quickly, with a consuming flash, and,
+utterly and almost instantly destroyed, had left behind them only thin,
+hot ash, devoid of peril, scarce to be considered.
+
+But he did not let her feet touch ground again until they were even
+beyond this. Finally, when they reached a rocky "barren," where the
+little fire had found no fuel, she felt his tautened thews relax.
+
+Instantly she slipped from his encircling arms, and he began to whip the
+flames in grass and little brush close to them with the dampened skirt.
+Even on the little isle of safety they found it necessary, still, to
+agilely avoid innumerable bits of floating "light-wood" brands, and, for
+a time, to beat, beat at the hungry little flames around them, but, at
+last, the danger was all over, and they stood there, looking at each
+other, with a sense of great relief. He smiled, breathing hard, but not
+exhausted.
+
+"Tight work, eh?" he said cheerfully.
+
+"Jest _wonderful_!" she answered, with a ready tribute.
+
+Then the memory of his embracing arm, the fact that her own arms had
+been as tightly clasped about his neck, came to her with a rush,
+although, while they had raced across the burning strip she had not
+thought of these things. Shyness stirred in her almost as definitely as
+it had while she lay hidden at the pool's mouth, watching him and
+tingling with shamed thrills at thought of her amazing plight there. No
+man had ever had his arms about her in her life before.
+
+But, even while she blushed and thrilled with this embarrassment, she
+fought to put it from her. He, evidently, had not thought of it at all,
+was, now, not thinking of it. What had been done had been a part of the
+day's work, a quick move, made in an emergency, when nothing else would
+serve. His attitude restored her own composure.
+
+And gratitude welled in her. She struggled to find words for it.
+
+"I--I'm much obleeged to you," were all she found, and she was conscious
+of their most complete inadequacy.
+
+"No reason why you should be," he said gayly. "We got caught in a tight
+place, that's all, and we helped one another out of it."
+
+She laughed derisively. "I helped _you_ out a lot, now didn't I?" she
+asked.
+
+Again she made a survey of him, standing where he had been when he had
+loosed his hold of her, unwearied, smiling, and she looked with actual
+wonder. Good clothes and careful speech were not, of a necessity, the
+outward signs of weaklings, it appeared!
+
+Joe Lorey, in a dozen talks with her, had told her that they were. She
+did not understand that this had been a clumsy and short-sighted
+strategy, that, finding her more difficult than other mountain
+girls--the handsome, sturdy young hill-dweller had not been without his
+conquests among the maidens of his kind; only Madge had baffled him--he
+had feared that, now when the railroad building in the valley had
+brought so many "foreigners" into the neighborhood, one of them might
+fascinate her, and it had been to guard against this, as well as he was
+able, that he had spoken slightingly of the whole class. He had
+delighted in repeating to her tales belittling them, deriding them, and
+she, of course, had quite believed his stories.
+
+But her experience with this one had not justified that point of view,
+and the matter largely occupied her thoughts as they walked slowly
+through the thickets of a bit of "second-growth" beyond the fire, which,
+stopped by the rocky "barrens," was dying out behind them. Her
+companion was, to her, an utterly new sort of being, not better trained
+in mind alone, but better trained in body than any mountaineer she knew;
+doubtless ignorant of many details of woods-life which would be known to
+any child there in the mountains, but, on the other hand, even more
+resourceful, daring, quick, than mountain men would have been, similarly
+placed, and, to her amazement, physically stronger, too!
+
+The fact that he had shown himself more thoughtful of and courteous to
+her than any other man had ever been before, made its impression, but a
+slighter one. Hers were the instincts of true wisdom, and she valued
+these things less than many of her city sisters might, although she
+valued them, of course. She looked slyly, wonderingly at him. He was a
+very pleasant, very admirable sort of creature--this visitor from the
+unknown, outside world. She quite decided that she did not even think
+his knickerbockers foolish, after all.
+
+For a moment, even now, she thrilled unpleasantly with a mean suspicion
+that he might be a "revenuer," after all, and have done the good things
+he had done as a part of that infernal craft which revenuers sometimes
+showed when searching for the hidden stills where "moonshine" whisky is
+illegally produced among the mountains; but she put this thought out of
+her heart, indignantly, almost as quickly as it came to her.
+Instinctively she felt quite certain that duplicity did not form any
+portion of his nature. They had not been traitor's arms which had so
+bravely (and so firmly) clasped her for the quick and risky dash across
+that terrifying belt of fire!
+
+"No," said she, determined to give him fullest measure of due credit, "I
+didn't help you none. I didn't help you none--an' you did what I don't
+believe any other man I ever knew could do. I'm--"
+
+Again she paused, again at loss for words, again the quest failed
+wholly.
+
+"I'm much obleeged," said she.
+
+Then, suddenly, the thought came to her of that other and less
+prepossessing "foreigner" whom, that day, she had seen there in her
+mountains. She described him carefully to Layson, and asked if he could
+guess who he had been and what his business could have been.
+Descriptions are a sorry basis for the recognition of a person thought
+to be far miles away, a person unassociated in one's mind with the
+surroundings he has suddenly appeared in; and, therefore, Layson, who
+really knew the man and who, had he identified him with the unknown
+visitor, would have been surprised, intensely curious, and, possibly,
+suspicious, could offer her no clue to his identity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+That same "foreigner," for a "foreigner," was acting strangely. Surely
+he was dressed in a garb hitherto almost unknown in the rough mountains,
+certainly none of the mountaineers whom he had met (and he had met, with
+plain unwillingness, a few, as he had climbed up to the rocky clearing
+where his fire had blossomed so remarkably) had recognized him. But,
+despite all this, it was quite plain that he was traveling through a
+country of which he found many details familiar. Now and then a little
+vista caught his view and held him for long minutes while he seemed to
+be comparing its reality with pictures of it stored within his memory;
+again he paused when he discovered that some whim of tramping
+mountaineers or roaming cattle, some landslide born of winter frosts;
+some blockade of trees storm-felled, had changed the course of an old
+path. Always, in a case like this, he investigated carefully before he
+definitely started on the new one.
+
+When he had first come into the neighborhood he had made his way with
+caution, almost as if fearing to be seen, but now, after the bits of
+rocks which he had taken from Madge Brierly's clearing, had slipped into
+his pocket, he used double care in keeping from such routes as showed
+the marks of many recent footsteps, in sly investigations to make sure
+the paths he chose were clear of other wayfarers. His nerves evidently
+on keen edge, he seemed to fear surprise of some unpleasant sort. Each
+crackling twig, as he passed through the thickets, each rustling of a
+frightened rabbit as it scuttled from his path, each whir of startled
+grouse, or sudden call of nesting king-bird, made him pause cautiously
+until he had quite satisfied himself that it meant nothing to be feared.
+He was ever carefully alert for danger of some sort.
+
+But not even his continual alarms, his constant watchfulness, could keep
+his mind away from the rough bits of rock which he had chipped from the
+outcropping in the clearing. More than once, as he found convenient and
+safe places--leafy nooks in rocky clefts, glades in dense, impenetrable
+thickets--he took out the little specimens, turned them over in his
+hands with loving touches, and gazed at them with an expression of
+picturesquely avaricious joy. Had any witnessed this procedure they
+would have found it vastly puzzling, for the specimens seemed merely
+small, black stones and valueless. But once, while looking at them
+lovingly, he burst into a harsh and hearty laugh as of great triumph,
+quite involuntarily; but hushed it quickly, looking, then, about him
+with an apprehensive glance. Each step he made was, in the main, a
+cautious one, each pause he made was plainly to look at some familiar,
+if some slightly altered, vista.
+
+It was quite clear that with the finding of the little bits of rock he
+had achieved the errand which had brought him to the mountains, and that
+now he roamed to satisfy his memory's curiosity. Smiles of recognition
+constantly played upon his grim and grizzled face at sight of some old
+path, some distant, mist-enshrouded crag, even some mighty pine or oak
+which had for years withstood the buffeting of tempestuous storms; now
+and then a little puzzled frown, added its wrinkles to the many which
+already creased his brow, when, at some spot which he had thought to
+find as he had left it, long ago, he discovered that time's changes had
+been notable.
+
+Once only did the man become confused among the woods-paths (where a
+stranger might have lost himself quite hopelessly in twenty minutes) and
+that was at a point not far from where Madge Brierly and Layson had, on
+their way up from the clearing, paused while she told her youthful
+escort of the grim but simple tragedy of her feud-darkened childhood.
+Before the old man reached this spot he had been traveling with puzzled
+caution, for a time, across a slope rough-scarred by some not ancient
+landslide which had changed the superficial contour of the
+mountain-side. When, suddenly, he debouched upon the rocky crag, hung, a
+rustic, natural platform above a gorgeous panorama of the valley, the
+view came to him, evidently, as a sharp, a startling, most unpleasant
+shock.
+
+That the place was quite familiar to him none who watched him would have
+doubted, but no smiles of pleasant memories curved his thin, unpleasant
+lips as he surveyed it. He did not pause there, happily, communing with
+his memory in smiling reminiscence as he had at other points along the
+way. Instead, as the great view burst upon his gaze, he started back as
+if the outlook almost terrified him. He had been traveling astoop,
+partly because the burden of his years weighed heavy on his shoulders,
+partly as if his muscles had unconsciously reverted to the easy,
+slouching, climbing-stoop of the Kentucky mountaineer. But at sight of
+this especial spot his attitude changed utterly, the whole expression,
+not of his face, alone, but of his body, altered. His stoop became a
+crouch. His hands flew out before him as if, with them, he strove to
+ward away the charming scene. His feet paused in their tracks, as if
+struck helpless and immovable by what his eyes revealed to him.
+
+For a full moment, almost without moving, he stood there, fascinated by
+some old association, plainly, for there was nothing in the prospect
+which, to an actual stranger, would have seemed more notable than
+details of a dozen other views which he had peered at through his
+half-closed, weather-beaten eyes within the hour. Here, clearly, was the
+arena of some great event in his past life--an arena which he gladly
+would have never seen again. His face went pale beneath its coat of tan,
+his shoulders trembled slightly as he tried to shrug them with
+indifference to brace his courage up. Twice he started from the spot,
+determined, evidently, to shut away the crowding and unpleasant
+recollections it recalled to him, twice he returned to it, to carefully,
+if with evident repugnance, make closer study of some detail of its
+rugged picturesqueness. More than once, as he lingered there against his
+will, his hands raised upward to his eyes as if to shut away from them
+some vivid memory-picture, but each time they fell, with strangely
+hopeless gesture. The picture which they strove to hide plainly was not
+before his eyes in the actual scene, but painted in the brain behind
+them and not to be shut out with screening, claw-curved fingers.
+
+The effect of this especial spot on the old man, indeed, was most
+remarkable. His lips, as he stood gazing there, moved constantly as if
+with words unspoken, and, once or twice, the crowding sentences found
+actual but not articulate voice. Whenever this occurred he started, to
+look about behind him as if he feared that some one, who might overhear,
+had crept up upon him slyly. Finally, making absolutely certain that he
+had not been observed by any human being, and evidently yielding to an
+impulse almost irresistible, he went over the ground carefully,
+examining each foot of the little rocky platform with not a loving, but
+a fascinated observation.
+
+When he finally left the spot a striking change had come upon his
+features. He had reached the place sly, cunning, and, withal,
+triumphant, as if he had accomplished, that day, through securing the
+small stones, some secret thing of a great import. His countenance, as,
+at length, he went away, was not triumphant but half terrified. It was
+as if some long-forgotten scene of horror had been brought before his
+gaze again, to terrify and astonish him.
+
+His footsteps had been slow and leisurely, the footsteps of a
+contemplative, if a surreptitious sightseer, but now they quickened
+almost into running, and the intensely disagreeable effect of the
+mysterious episode had not left him wholly, when, twenty minutes
+afterward, he had mounted the rocky hill path by a precipitous climb and
+found himself within a little, cupped inclosure in the rocks, secluded
+enough and beautiful enough to be a fairies' dancing-floor. There,
+again, he seemed to recognize old landmarks, but with fewer of
+unpleasant memories connected with them. Plain curiosity glowed, now, in
+his narrow, crafty eyes.
+
+"I wonder," he exclaimed, "if it's here yet."
+
+As he spoke his glance flashed swiftly to the far side of the little
+glade, where, on the face of a dense thicket, a trained eye, such as
+his, might mark a spot where bushes had been often parted with extreme
+care not to do them injury and thus reveal the fact that through them
+lay a thoroughfare. Noting this with a wry smile of malicious
+satisfaction, he started slowly toward the spot.
+
+The caution of his movements was redoubled, now. While he had worked,
+back in the clearing, cooking his simple noonday meal and chipping off
+the little specimens of rock, he had shown that he wished not to have
+his strange activities observed. On the mountain paths he had plainly
+been most anxious not to run across chance wayfarers who might ask
+questions, or (the possibility was most remote, but still a possibility)
+remember him of old. He had been merely cautious, though, not definitely
+fearful.
+
+Now, however, actual and obsessive dread showed plainly on his face and
+in his movements. Such a fear would have induced most men to abandon any
+enterprise which was not fraught with compelling necessity; with him
+insistent curiosity seemed to counterbalance it. The man's face, rough,
+hard, cruel, was, withal, unusually expressive; its deep lines were more
+than ordinarily mobile, and every one of them, as he proceeded,
+soft-footed as a cat, amazingly lithe and supple for his years, as
+competent to find his way unseen through a woods country as an Indian,
+showed that irresistible and fiercely inquisitive impulse was
+offsetting in his mind a deadly apprehension.
+
+In one way only, though, in spite of the accelleration of his eager
+curiosity, did he drop his guard, at all, and this was quite apparently
+the direct result of high excitement. That he had dropped it he was
+clearly quite unconscious, but when his lips moved, now, they more than
+once let fall articulate words.
+
+"Ef th' old still's thar ..." they said at one time; then, after a long
+pause devoted to worming troublous way through tangled areas of
+windfall, they muttered, in completion of the sentence: "... it'll be
+th' son that's runnin' it." Another busy silence, and: "Thar was a girl
+... th' daughter of...."
+
+Either a spasmodic contraction of the throat at mere thought of the
+name--a grimace, almost of pain, which suddenly convulsed the old man's
+evil face might well have made a stranger think that his muscles had
+rebelled--or an unusually difficult struggle across a fallen tree-trunk
+prevented further speech, as, probably, it prevented for the time,
+consecutive further thought of old-time memories. His mind was tensely
+concentrated on the work of climbing through the tangle of dead trunks
+and branches, and, when he had accomplished the hard passage, was turned
+wholly from the things which he had been considering by a slight
+crackling, as of some one stepping on a brittle twig, at a distance in
+advance of him.
+
+Instantly he was on his guard, showing signs quite unmistakable of
+deadly fear. He shrank back into the thicket with the speed and silence
+of a frightened animal.
+
+The panic which had seized him soon had passed, however, for, within a
+few short seconds it was clear to him that the noise which he had heard
+had not been made by any one suspicious of his presence or a-search for
+him.
+
+Peering cautiously between the slender boles of crooked mountain-laurel
+bushes, he soon found a vantage point from which he could see on beyond
+the densely woven foliage, and, to his astonishment, found, before he
+had thought, possible that he had progressed so far, that he had already
+reached the place he sought. Memory had made the way to it a longer one
+than it was really, and, in spite of the delays caused by his advancing
+age and awkward muscles, long unaccustomed to the work of threading
+mountain paths, he had traveled faster than he thought.
+
+Not fifty feet away from him, separated from the thicket he was hiding
+in but by a narrow stretch of mountain sward, he saw, among the mountain
+side's disordered rocks, the carefully masked entrance to a cave.
+
+An untrained eye would never have made note of the few signs which made
+it clear to him, at once, that this cave was, as it had been long years
+before when he had known it well, a place of frequent call for footsteps
+skilled in mountain cunning. No path was worn to its rough entrance,
+but, here and there, a broken grass-blade, in another place a pebble
+recently dislodged from its accustomed hollow, elsewhere a ragged bit of
+paper, torn from a tobacco-package, proved to him that, although hidden
+in the wilderness of old Mount Nebo's scarred and inaccessible sides,
+this spot was yet one often visited by many men.
+
+A grim smile stirred the leathern folds of his old cheeks.
+
+"Thar yet," he thought, "an' doin' business yet."
+
+Again, after he had worked about to get a better view.
+
+"Best-hidden still in these here mountings. Revenuers never _will_ get
+run of it."
+
+The place had a mighty fascination for him, as if it might have played a
+tremendous part in long-gone passages of his own life. As he stood
+gazing at it cautiously, the mountaineer seemed definitely to emerge
+from his low-country dress and superficial "bluegrass" manner, fastened
+on him by long years of usage. Old expressions of not only face but
+muscles came clearly to the front. Now, no person watching him, could
+ever for a moment doubt that he was mountain-born and mountain-bred, if
+they but knew the ear-marks of that people--almost a race apart. The
+sight of the old cave-mouth plainly stirred in him a horde of memories
+not wholly pleasant. Leathern as his face was, it none the less showed
+his emotions with remarkable lucidity now that he was off his guard. Now
+sly cunning dominated it, with, possibly, a touch left of the early fear
+to flavor it.
+
+"I bet a hundred revenuers in these mountains have looked for that there
+still," he thought, "an' no one ever found it, yet. Forty years it's
+been thar--through three generations o' th' Loreys--damn 'em!--an' no
+one's ever squealed on 'em. I ... wonder...."
+
+A look of vicious craft and malice wholly drove away the searching
+curiosity which had possessed the old man's features. For a time he
+plainly planned some work of bitter vengefulness. Then, with shaking
+head, he evidently abandoned the enticing thought.
+
+"Too resky," he concluded, and edged a little nearer to the thicket's
+edge. "Might stir up old--"
+
+He paused suddenly, alert and keenly listening. From another path than
+that by which he had approached the place there came the sound of voices
+raised in talk and laughter. He easily identified them, to his great
+surprise, as those of some young mountain-girl and some young bluegrass
+gentleman. Their tones and accents told this story plainly. Surprised
+and curious, he went farther, his head bent, with study of the voices,
+peering, meanwhile, through the thicket's tangle to get sight of them
+as soon as they appeared within the clearing. Suddenly he dropped his
+jaw in blank amazement.
+
+"Frank Layson!" he exclaimed.
+
+The girl's voice he did not recognize, but knew, of course, from its
+peculiar accent, that it was some mountain maiden's.
+
+"Well!" he exclaimed beneath his breath in absolute astonishment. "I
+didn't think it of Frank Layson! What would Barbara--"
+
+The pair emerged, now, from a gully by-path, and came into view. He
+tightly shut his jaws and watched them with a peering, eager curiosity.
+
+A moment later, and by her wonderful resemblance to her dead mother, he
+recognized the girl.
+
+She, above all people, must not know that he was there, even if she only
+thought him to be Horace Holton, newcomer among the bluegrass gentry in
+the valley. His plans had been laid carefully, and for her to find them
+out would almost certainly upset them all. He was far from anxious to
+meet Layson, there among the mountains, for it would mean awkward
+questioning, but he was doubly anxious to avoid a meeting with the girl,
+first because she owned the land on which he had secured the bits of
+rock then nestling in his pocket, and, second, because she was the
+daughter of--
+
+His thoughts were interrupted, for, for a second, he thought they must
+have seen him, so definite was their approach straight toward the
+thicket where he hid. He crouched, frightened. It would be a very
+awkward matter to be found there by them, and, besides, he did not know
+who might be out of sight within the hidden still. It was quite possible
+that there might lurk a deadly enemy. He must worm back through the
+thicket with great caution, and, following the secluded ways which he
+had traversed in his coming, get back to the railroad camp, where was
+safety.
+
+He stepped backward hastily, and, in so doing, trod upon a rotten
+branch. He had not been as cautious as he had intended, and this
+mis-step unbalanced him and sent him to the ground, with a tremendous
+crashing of the brittle twigs and dead-wood.
+
+Springing to his feet while the young people, startled by the great
+disturbance, paused where they were standing, for an instant, he hurried
+back into the hidden, thicket-bordered path, now using all his
+recrudescent skill of silent woods-progression, and made complete
+escape, leaving them not sure that the disturbance had been caused by
+human blundering and not some vagrant beast's.
+
+Madge held back, but Layson hurried to the thicket, with gun raised
+ready for a shot.
+
+Just then, from the carefully concealed cave-entrance, came Joe Lorey,
+rifle poised for trouble, eyes gleaming fiercely, evidently keyed to
+meet a raid by revenuers.
+
+It was plain enough that he believed the noise which had disturbed,
+alarmed him, had been made by this young sportsman. Indeed, as he who
+really had caused the uproar was, now, well on a cautious backward way
+along the path by which he had come up, and the girl and Layson were the
+only folk in sight, the young moonshiner's mistake was natural.
+
+Madge, almost as much disturbed as Lorey was by the crashing in the
+thickets, was looking in the direction whence the noise had come, and,
+at first, did not see him. When she did she smiled at him, and called to
+him, but, absorbed in study of the bluegrass youth who had so suddenly
+appeared there in his secret place among the mountains in company with
+the girl whom he, himself, adored, Joe did not answer her, at first.
+When he did it was with nothing more than a curt nod. He was astonished
+and alarmed to see her in such company.
+
+After that curt nod he waited for no explanation, but, like a shadow,
+slipped into a thicket, disappearing instantly. No Indian from Cooper's
+tales could have more instantly obliterated all trace of himself, could
+have more quickly, noiselessly, mysteriously disappeared amongst the
+greenery, than did this mountaineer. His movements, made with the
+instinctive cunning of the woodsman and with muscles trained not only by
+wild life there in the mountains to speed, endurance and exactitude,
+but by many an hour of stealthy stalking of the "revenuers" sent to
+search out his moonshine still, raid it, take him prisoner, were almost
+magically active, cautious, furtive and effective.
+
+For an instant Madge herself, accustomed to the native's skill in
+woodcraft, as she was, gazed after him, astonished by the magic of his
+disappearance, and, at first, piqued not a little by his scanty
+courtesy. Then realizing that the mountaineer was, possibly, quite
+justified in feeling grave suspicions of the stranger who was with
+her--of any stranger coming thus, without a herald to the mountains--she
+turned again to Layson, and, with her hand lightly guiding him by touch
+as delicate, almost, as a wind-blown leaf's upon his sleeve, led him to
+the nearest mountain path and on, toward a point whence she could
+clearly point out to him the way to his own camp.
+
+And, suddenly, her own heart throbbed with worry. Had she not done wrong
+in bringing this unknown and, therefore, this mysterious stranger so
+close upon the heart of Lorey's secret? She had chosen the path
+thoughtlessly. She realized that, now, and much regretted it. The man
+had wholly won her confidence, but had it been considerate or fair to
+Joe, her lifelong friend, or to the other people of the mountains who
+had things to hide from strangers, to be quite so frank with him in her
+revelation of the byways of the wilderness?
+
+Between the mountain-dwellers and the people of the lowlands never
+could exist real confidence or friendship. From her babyhood she had
+been taught to feel suspicion of all strangers: that was, indeed, first
+article in the creed of all folk mountain-born. Why had she so freely
+dropped her mantle of reserve before _this_ stranger? That he had saved
+her from the bush-fire was excuse for her own gratitude, but was it
+valid reason for exposing her best friends to danger at his hands, if
+they proved treacherous? The revenuers, she had been informed, were men
+of devilish craft, unscrupulous cunning. Might not this youth with the
+fine clothes, the splendid manner, the great learning, the soft voice,
+the quick resource and the undoubted bravery, very well be one of them?
+
+She had once heard a mountain preacher draw a picture of the devil,
+which made him most attractive and in the same way that this youth was
+most attractive. Certain of the sympathies of his rough hearers, the man
+had painted Beelzebub with broad, rough, verbal strokes, as a bluegrass
+gentleman intent on the destruction of the honor, independence, liberty
+of mountaineers. The mountaineer has never and will never understand
+what right the government of state or nation has to interfere with
+whatsoe'er he does on his own land with his own corn in his own still.
+Just why he has no right to manufacture whiskey without paying taxes on
+the product he really fails to comprehend. He regards the "revenuer" as
+the representative of acute and cruel injustice and oppression. When he
+"draws a bead" on one he does it with no such thoughts as common
+murderers must know when they shoot down their enemies. He does not
+think such killings are crude murder, any more than he regards feud
+killings as assassinations.
+
+With such ideas Madge had been, to some extent, imbued. With feud
+feeling she was quite in sympathy--had not she lost her loved ones
+through its awful work? Could she ever have revenge on those who had
+thus bereaved her through any means save similar assassination?
+
+And certainly the revenuers were her enemies, for they were the foemen
+of her friends. If this young man should be a revenuer she might have
+done a harm incalculable by guiding him along the secret mountain byways
+which they had been travelling.
+
+Her heart was in her throat from worry, for an instant. Had she, whose
+very soul was fiercely loyal to the mountains and their people, been the
+one to show an enemy the way into their citadel? Had she, bound
+especially to Joe Lorey, not only by the ties of lifelong friendship but
+by that other comradeship which had grown out of mutual wrongs and
+mutual hatred of Ben Lindsay (not dimmed, a whit, by the mere fact that,
+terrified, he had, years ago fled from the mountains), done Joe the
+greatest wrong of all by leading this fine stranger to the very
+entrance of his hidden still? _Was_ he a revenuer in disguise?
+
+The magnitude of her possible indiscretion filled her with alarm. That
+crashing in the bushes back of them might have been made by some
+associate of his, who had trailed them at a distance, ready to give
+assistance, if needs be, or, in case all things went right and the
+bolder man who had gone first and fallen into the great luck of an
+acquaintance with her had no need of help, to corroborate his
+observations, help him to scheme the way by which to make attack upon
+the still when the time for it should come.
+
+As she considered all these possibilities, quite reasonable to her
+suspicious mind, she shuddered.
+
+But then, as she went slowly down the mountain path beside the stranger
+she looked up and caught the frank calm glances of his eyes.
+
+Surely there was nothing of cowardice such as would fool a trusting girl
+into betrayal of her friends, in them; surely there was not the low
+craft of a spy in them; surely their clear and unexcited gaze was not
+that of a keen hunter, unscrupulously on the trail of human game, who
+has just learned through the innocent indiscretion of a girl who trusted
+him, the secret of its covert.
+
+As she looked at him she was convinced of two things, vastly comforting.
+One was that Layson had no knowledge of the still; that, untrained to
+mountain ways and unsuspicious, he had not even guessed at the secret
+of the little hidden place among the mountains. Another was--and this
+gave her, although she could have scarcely explained why, a greater
+comfort than the first had--that had he had that knowledge he would not
+have used it meanly.
+
+She thrilled pleasantly with the complete conviction that the man whom
+she had liked so much at first sight, the man who had shown such pluck
+in saving her from fire, the man who had exhibited such thoughtfulness
+and helpfulness in starting her upon the rocky path toward education,
+was true and fair and fine--was, in the curt language of the mountains,
+"decent."
+
+When she left him at the foot of the rough path which wound up to the
+cabin where she lived alone, she had quite recovered confidence in him.
+She eagerly assented to his suggestion that they meet again, the
+following day, for the continuation of her studies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Their next lesson was in a new school-room. The clearing where they had
+had their first, was, now, charred and blackened, not attractive, after
+the small fire; so, after going to it, the following day to look it over
+with that interest with which the man who has escaped from peril seeks
+again, the scene of it in curiosity, they found another glade wherein to
+carry on their delving after knowledge of the ABC's.
+
+There, beneath a canopy of arching branches and the sky, between
+rustling walls of greenery pillared by the mighty boles of forest trees,
+they had the second lesson of the course which was to open up to Madge
+the magic realm of books and of the learning hidden in them.
+
+Nor did her investigations now, confine themselves, entirely to the
+things the small book taught. She questioned Layson about a thousand
+things less dry and matter-of-fact than shape of printed symbols and the
+manner of their combination in the printed word. Life, life--that was to
+her, as it has ever been to all of us, the most fascinating thing. Here
+was one who had come from far, mysterious realms which she had vaguely
+heard about in winter-evening gossip at the mountain-cabin firesides;
+realms where men were courteous to women, careful in their speech; where
+women did not work, but sat on silken chairs with black menials ready to
+their call to serve their slightest wish; where maidens were not clad as
+she was clad, and every woman she had ever known was clad, in calico or
+linsey-woolsey homespun, but richly, wondrously, in silks and satins,
+laces, beaded gew-gaws. In her imagination's picture, the maids and
+matrons of the bluegrass were as marvellous, as fascinating, as are the
+fairies and the sprites of Anderson and Grimm to girls more fortunately
+placed. No tale of elf born from a cleft rock, touched by magic wand,
+ever more completely fascinated any big-eyed city child, than did the
+tales which Layson told her--commonplace and ordinary to his mind: mere
+casual account of routine life--about his family and friends down in the
+bluegrass, the enchanted region separated from them where they sat by a
+hundred miles or so of rugged hills and billowing forests. Her eager
+questions especially drew from him with a greed insatiable account of
+all the gayeties of that mysterious existence.
+
+"And that aunt of yours--Muss Aluth--Aluth--"
+
+"Miss Alathea Layson?" he inquired, and smiled.
+
+"Yes; what queer names the women have, down there! Is she pretty? Does
+_she_ dress in silks and satins, too, like the girls that go to them big
+dances?"
+
+He laughed. "None of them are always dressed in silks and satins," he
+replied. "Perhaps I've given you a wrong idea. We work down there, as
+hard, perhaps, as you do here, but we have more things to work with.
+Don't get the notion, little girl, that all these things which I have
+told you of are magic things which surely will bring happiness! There is
+no more of that, I reckon, in the bluegrass than there is here in the
+mountains. Silks and satins don't make happiness, balls and garden-fetes
+don't make it. A girl who's sobbing in a ball gown can be quite as
+miserable as you would be, unhappy in your homespun."
+
+She was impatient of his moralizing. "I know that," she said. "Dellaw,
+don't you suppose I've got some sense? But it ain't _quite_ true,
+neither. Maybe if I was going to be unhappy I'd be just as much so in a
+silk dress as I would in this here cotton one that I've got on; but I
+guess there's times when I'd be happier in the silk than I _would_ be in
+this. My, I wisht I had one!"
+
+He looked at her appraisingly. She would, he thought, be wondrous
+beautiful if given the accessories which girls more fortunate had at
+their hand. Beautiful, she was, undoubtedly, without them; with them she
+would be--he almost caught his breath at thought of it--sensational!
+
+Mentally he ran over all the girls he knew in a swift survey of memory.
+Not one of them, he thought, could really compare with her. Even Barbara
+Holton, with her haughty, big featured, strikingly handsome face,
+although she had attracted him in days passed, seemed singularly
+unattractive to him, now.
+
+While he sat, musing thus, almost forgetful of the puzzling ABC, she
+gazed off across the valley dreamily, the ABC's as far from her. It was
+a lovely prospect of bare crag and wooded slope, green fields and
+low-hung clouds, with, at its center, here and there the silver of the
+stream which, back among the forest trees, supplied the water to the
+hidden pool where she had watched him, furtively, the first time she had
+ever seen him. But it was not of the fair prospect that the girl was
+thinking. The coming of the stranger had brought into her life a hundred
+new emotions, ten thousand puzzling guesses at the life which lay beyond
+and could produce such men as he. Were all men in the bluegrass like
+Frank Layson--courteous, considerate, and as strong and active as the
+best of mountaineers? If so--what a splendid place for women! She was
+sure that men like him were never brutal to their wives and daughters,
+sisters, mothers, as the mountaineers too often are; she was certain
+that they did not craze themselves with whisky and terrify and beat
+their families; she was sure that when one loved a girl the courtship
+must be all sweet gentleness and happiness and joy, not like the quick
+succession of mad love-making and fierce quarrels which had
+characterized the heart-affairs that she had watched, there in the
+mountains.
+
+She, herself, had had no love-affairs. Instinctively she had held
+herself aloof from the ruck of the young mountain-men, neither she nor
+they knew why, unless it was because she owned the valley land and so
+was what the mountain folk called rich. Most of them had tried to pay
+her court, but none of them, save Joe, had in the least attracted her,
+and she had let them know this (strangely) without arousing too much
+anger.
+
+Now she had one suitor, only, who was at all persistent--Joe. She had
+sometimes thought she loved him. Now she knew, quite certainly, that she
+did not, and, in a vague way, was sorry for him, for she was quite
+certain of his love for her. It never once occurred to her that she was
+rapidly falling in love with the young man by her side. She had not
+thought of him as being socially superior: the spirit of independence,
+of equality of men, is nowhere stronger, even in this land of
+independence and equality, than it is among the mountains of the
+Cumberland; but she knew he was most wise. Had not the puzzling symbols
+in the spelling-book been, to him, as simple matters? She knew that he
+was gentle-hearted, for the kindness of his acts proved that. She knew
+that he was, really, a gentleman, for his manner was so perfectly
+considerate, so ever kind. She did not realize that she was thinking of
+him as a lover; but she dreamed, there, of the girls down in the
+bluegrass and wondered how it must seem to them to have lovers such as
+he. She could but very vaguely speculate as to their emotions or
+appearance, but her speculations on both points, vague as they might be,
+made her suffer strangely and cast queer, furtive little side-glances at
+him. In her heart were stirrings of keen jealousy of these distant
+maidens, but this she did not realize.
+
+She broke into his revery with: "Don't you know any women, down there,
+but your aunt?"
+
+"Er--what?"
+
+"Don't you know any women, down there, but your aunt?"
+
+"Why, yes," said he, and laughed. "I know a lot of women, down there;
+lots and lots of women, certainly."
+
+"All them that go to balls, and such?"
+
+"Many of them."
+
+"Do you like to dance with them?"
+
+"Oh, yes; of course."
+
+"Tell me--all about the things they wear." This was not quite the
+question she had started out to ask, but an answer to it might be very
+interesting.
+
+She settled comfortably back upon the boulder she had chosen as a seat,
+her hands clasped about one knee, her face turned toward him eagerly,
+her eyes sparkling with keen zest.
+
+But he looked at her, appalled. "Why," said he, "why--I don't believe I
+can. I know they always seem to be most charming in appearance, but just
+how they work the magic _I_ don't know."
+
+"Can't you tell me nothing?" Her voice showed bitter disappointment. She
+unclasped the hands about her knee and sat dejected on the boulder. She
+gave him not the slightest hint of it, but, suddenly, a plan had come
+into her mind.
+
+He looked at her regretfully. "Perhaps you'd better question me," said
+he. Maybe I can scare up details if you'll let me know just what you
+wish to hear about."
+
+"How are their dresses made?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, skirt, and waist, and so on," he airily replied.
+
+She made a gesture of impatience. "Well, then, how is the skirt made?
+Tell me that. Tell me everything that you remember about skirts. Are
+they loose as mine, or tighter?" She rose and stood before him, in her
+scant drapery of homespun, turning slowly, so that he might see.
+
+It was very clever. Instantly it brought to mind the last girls he had
+seen down in the lowlands at a lawn-party, with their wide and much
+beruffled skirts.
+
+"Oh, they're looser," he said gravely. "Much, much looser. Why, they are
+as big around as that!" He made a sweeping, circular gesture with his
+arms.
+
+"What for trimmings do they have?"
+
+"Oh, all sorts of things--ruffles, frills, embroidery and laces."
+
+"What's embroidery?"
+
+He tried to tell her, but he did not make it very clear, and, realizing
+that he had done quite his best although he had not done so very well,
+she sighed and dropped that detail of the subject. But she knew what
+frills and ruffles were.
+
+"And how about their waists?" said she. "Like mine, are they?"
+
+He looked, appraisingly, at the loose basque, which, because of the
+budding beauty of her form rather than because of any merit of its own,
+had seemed to him most charming and attractive. Close examination did
+not show this to be the case. It was a crude garment, certainly, of
+crude material, crude cut, crude make. The beauty all was in the
+wearer's soft young curves and lissome grace.
+
+"No," he answered, honestly, "they're not like that. In the summer, and
+for evenings--such as dances and the like--they are cut low at the neck.
+And they are tighter."
+
+"I suppose," said she, "they wear them things that they call corsets,
+under 'em. I've heard of 'em--I saw one, once--but I ain't never had
+one. Maybe I had better get one."
+
+He spoke hastily. At that moment, as he gazed at her slim grace,
+undulant, untrammelled and as willowy as a spring sapling's, it seemed
+to him that it would be a sacrilege to confine it in the stiff rigidity
+of such artificialities as corsets. It seemed a bit indelicate, to him,
+to talk to her about such matters, but her guilelessness was so real and
+he was so assured of his own innocence, that he did what he could to
+make things clear to her. He descanted with some eloquence upon the
+wickedness of lacing, the ungracefulness of artificial forms and the
+beauty of her own wholly natural grace.
+
+"I'm glad you think I'm pretty," she said frankly, plainly greatly
+pleased, "but I reckon I'd be prettier if I had one of them there
+corsets."
+
+His protests to the contrary were not convincing, in the least.
+
+So the lessons from the book did not go so very far that day.
+
+"Furbelows have always interested females, I suppose," said he, "but I
+didn't really think you'd lose your interest in spelling-books because
+of them."
+
+"I ain't lost interest in spelling-books," she said. "I ain't lost
+interest, at all. After I've studied good and hard I can read all about
+such things in the picture-papers that Mom Liza has down to the store.
+They've got all kinds of pictures in 'em--all of fancy gowns and hats
+and things like that. She showed one to me, once, but all I could make
+out was just the pictures, and she couldn't manage to make out much
+more. She can read the names on all the letters comin' to the
+post-office, for there's only three folks ever gets 'em, but she ain't
+what you'd really call a scholar."
+
+He laughed heartily. "So, even in the mountains, here, they take the
+fashion papers, do they?"
+
+"No; she don't pay for 'em," she gravely answered. "They're always
+marked with red ink, 'Sample Copy,' so she says; but they send 'em ev'ry
+once a while. If you're in th' post-office, you get a lot o' things,
+like that--all sorts o' picture-papers, an' cards, all printed up in
+pretty colors, to tell what medicines to take when you get sick."
+
+"Ah, patent-medicine advertisements."
+
+"Yes; that's what she calls 'em, an' she's read me some powerful amazin'
+stories out of 'em--them as was in short words--of folks that rose up
+almost from th' dead! They're wonderful!"
+
+"They are, indeed!"
+
+"But what I always liked th' best was them there papers tellin' about
+clo'es."
+
+"Eternal feminine!"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that, but they are mighty peart, some o'
+them dresses pictured out in them there papers."
+
+"I've not the least doubt of it."
+
+"And I suppose they are th' kind th' girls you know, down in th'
+bluegrass, wear for ev'ry day!" she sighed.
+
+He looked at her in quick compassion and in protest.
+
+"Madge," he said, "please listen to me. It's not dress that makes the
+woman, any more than it is coats that make the man. You would like me
+just as well if I were dressed in homespun, wouldn't you?"
+
+"That's different."
+
+"It isn't; it's not, a bit."
+
+"Laws, yes! It's--oh--heaps different!" She nodded her lovely head in
+firm conviction. "It's heaps different and I'm goin' to know more about
+such things as clo'es. I ain't plumb _poverty_ poor, like lots o' folks,
+here in th' mountings. I got land down in th' valley I get rent
+from--fifty dollars, every year! I'm goin' to find out about such
+things."
+
+He looked at her, almost worried. It would be a pity, he thought
+instantly, for this charming child of nature to become sophisticated and
+be fashionably gowned; but, of course, he made no protest.
+
+"You can learn a little something about such things if you stay right
+here," said he. "I'm going to have visitors, sometime before the
+summer's over, at my camp. My aunt, Miss Alathea, will be here, and our
+old friend, Colonel Sandusky Doolittle. He's a great horseman."
+
+Instantly the girl showed vivid interest, not, as he had thought she
+would, in his aunt, Miss Alathea, but in the Colonel from the
+Bluegrass, who also was a horseman.
+
+"Horseman, is he?" she exclaimed, her eyes alight.
+
+"Yes; he's famous as a judge of horses."
+
+"At them races that they tell about? Oh, I'd like to see one of them
+races!"
+
+"Yes, he goes to races, everywhere, although he always means to stop
+immediately after the next one. It has been the races which have kept
+him poor and kept him single."
+
+"How've they kept him poor?"
+
+He told her about betting, while she listened, wide-eyed with amazement
+at the mention of the sums involved.
+
+"How've they kept him single?"
+
+"He's been in love with my Aunt Alathea for a good many years, but she
+won't marry him until he keeps his promise to avoid the race-tracks."
+
+"What makes your aunt hate hawsses?"
+
+"Oh, she loves good horses, but the Colonel always bets, and, as I have
+said, it keeps him poor. It's the gambling that she hates, and not the
+horses. Every year he plans to keep away from all horse-racing for her
+sake; every year he tries to do it, but quite fails."
+
+She laughed heartily. "An' she thinks he loves th' races more than he
+does her?" she asked. Then, more soberly: "I don't know's I blame her,
+none. When's she comin'? I'll be powerful glad to see her."
+
+"I don't know just when she's coming, but she's promised me to have the
+Colonel bring her up here. I want to have her see the beauty of the
+mountains."
+
+"I'll like him, sure, whether I like her or not."
+
+He was astonished. "But you said you would be sure to love her!"
+
+"Uh-huh; but I'd be surer to like anyone who is as fond of hawsses as
+you say he is. Why, when I ride--"
+
+"I didn't know you ever rode a horse. I've only seen you on your ox."
+
+"Poor old Buck! It's true, I have been ridin' him, when I felt lazy,
+lately, but my pony--ah, that's _fun_!"
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+They had started strolling down the trail and were near the pasture
+bars, where she had left Joe Lorey on the morning of her bath, after
+having ridden down to them upon her ox.
+
+She hurried to them, now, and, leaning over them, puckered her red lips
+and sent a shrill, clear whistle out across the pasture. Immediately
+from a thicket-tangle at the far end of the half-cleared lot appeared a
+shaggy pony, limping wofully, but with ears pricked forward as a sign of
+welcome to his mistress.
+
+"Come on, Little Hawss!" she called. "Come on! It hurts, I know, for
+you to step, but come on, just th' same. I got a turnip for you."
+
+She turned to Layson with an explanation. "He's lame, poor Little Hawss
+is. Don't know's he'll ever get all right ag'in."
+
+"Oh!" said Layson. "And I didn't even know you had a horse." Horses are
+less common in the mountains than are oxen, although nearly every
+mountain farm has one, for riding. Oxen, though, are the section's
+draught-animals.
+
+"Didn't think I had a hawss?" she said, and laughed. "I'd _die_ without
+a hawss! Why, they say, here in the mountains, that I'm a good rider.
+I've raced all the boys and beat 'em on my Little Hawss."
+
+She petted the affectionate, uncouth little beast and fed him slowly,
+lovingly. "Little Hawss, before he hurt his hoof, was sure-footed as a
+deer. Didn't have to be afraid to run him anywhere, on any kind of road
+at any time of day or night," said she. "Never stumbled, never missed
+the way, and, while he don't _look_ much--he never did--he could just
+carry _me_ to suit me! But--well, I don't know as he will ever carry me
+again!"
+
+Layson, himself a great horse lover, went up to the shaggy little beast
+and petted him. The pony knew a friend instinctively and rubbed his nose
+against the rough sleeve of his jacket while he munched the turnip.
+
+Madge stooped and lifted the poor beast's crippled foot.
+
+"Looks bad, don't it?" she said anxiously, asking Frank's opinion as an
+expert.
+
+He looked the bad foot over carefully and shook his head.
+
+"Madge, I am afraid it does," said he. "But wait until the Colonel
+comes. He'll tell you what to do. No man knows horses better than the
+Colonel does.
+
+"I've never told you of my horse, have I?" he asked.
+
+"Why, no; you got one, too?"
+
+He drew a long breath of enthusiasm at the mere thought of his greatest
+treasure. "Such a mare," said he, "as rarely has been seen, even in
+Kentucky. She's famous now and going to be more so. She's the very apple
+of my eye."
+
+The girl looked at him wide-eyed with a fascinated interest. "What color
+is she?"
+
+"Black as night."
+
+"And gentle?"
+
+"Ah, gentle as a dove with friends; but she's not gentle if she happens
+to dislike a man or woman! Why, if she hates you, keep away from her.
+She'll side-step with a cunning that would fool the wisest so's to get a
+chance for a left-handed kick; she'll bite; she'll strike with her
+forefeet the way a human fighter would."
+
+"Oh!" said the girl. "Ain't it a pity she's so ugly?"
+
+"I said she's gentle with her friends. She'd no more kick at me than I
+would kick at her. She knows it. She's intelligent beyond most
+horseflesh."
+
+"Has she ever won in races?"
+
+"She's won in small events, and great things are expected of her by more
+folk than I when she gets going on the larger tracks. I'm counting on
+her for good work this year, after I go home again."
+
+"Ah," sighed the girl, carried quite away by his excited talk about his
+favorite, "how I'd love to see her run!"
+
+"It's poetry," he granted; "the true poetry of motion."
+
+"And this Cunnel--Cunnel--"
+
+"Colonel Doolittle?"
+
+"Uh-huh. Will he help me, do you s'pose, to get my Little Hawss cured of
+his lameness?"
+
+"You may count on that."
+
+"Who else is comin' here to see you?" she inquired, as they left Little
+Hawss wistfully agaze at them across the old log fence.
+
+Layson, for no reason he could think of, felt a bit uncomfortable, as he
+replied. He temporized before he really told her of what worried him.
+
+"Well," said he, "there'll be old Neb--"
+
+"Who's he?"
+
+"A servant who has been in our family for years. He is a fine old
+darkey and we love him--everyone of us."
+
+"And will he be all?"
+
+"No; I understand that Mr. Horace Holton, also, will come with the
+party. Mr. Holton and his daughter."
+
+It is possible that he may have flushed a little, as he spoke about this
+matter, or there may have been some slight hint of the unusual in his
+voice. At any rate, the notice of the girl was instantly attracted.
+
+"Daughter?" she inquired.
+
+"Yes," said Frank, "his daughter Barbara."
+
+"How old is she?" Madge's curiosity had been aroused at once.
+
+"About your age."
+
+She was delighted. "And will I surely see her?"
+
+"Yes; of course."
+
+"Do you suppose she'll like me?"
+
+Layson, from what he knew of Barbara Holton, scarcely thought she would.
+He could not make his fancy paint a picture of the haughty lowlands
+beauty showing much consideration for this little mountain waif; but he
+did not say so. He answered hesitatingly, and she noticed it.
+
+"You don't think she'll like me!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I didn't say so. Certainly she'll like you. Who could help it, Madge?"
+He smiled. It did not seem to him, as his eyes studied her, that anybody
+of sound sense could.
+
+She sighed. "A woman could." She spoke with an instinctive wisdom which
+her isolated life among the crags and peaks had not deprived her of. "A
+woman always can. But, my, I hope she will!"
+
+"She will," said Frank. "She will. And my dear Aunt--oh, you will love
+her."
+
+"Miss Aluth--Aluth--?" She stopped, questioningly, still bothered by the
+name.
+
+"Miss Alathea," he prompted. "She'll like you and you'll love her."
+
+The girl smiled happily. "Uh-huh." Her acquiescence was immediate.
+"Reckon maybe I'll love _her_, all right, and I _hope_ the other will
+come true, too." Suddenly she was stricken with a fear. "But she won't,
+though--dressed the way I be!"
+
+"What you wear would make no difference to my Aunt Alathea," Frank
+protested, "any more than it would make to Colonel Doolittle."
+
+She did not speak again for quite a time, walking along the narrow
+mountain-path with eyes fixed, but unseeing, on the trail. It was plain
+that in her mind grave problems were being closely studied.
+
+"Maybe," she said, at length, "I won't be so very _awful_ as you
+_think_!"
+
+They had reached the path which led first to the bridge across the
+mountain-chasm making the rock on which her cabin stood an island, and
+then, across this draw-bridge, to the cabin itself. She waved a gay and
+unexpected good-bye to him.
+
+He felt strangely robbed. He had expected another half-hour with her.
+It astonished him to learn through this tiny disappointment how
+agreeable the little mountain maid's society had come to be.
+
+He was wakeful that night till a later hour than usual.
+
+Somehow he was not as thoroughly delighted as he felt that he should be
+by the prospect of his guests' arrival. His journey to the mountains and
+his sojourn there had been considered rather foolish by his friends, but
+he had wished to make quite sure that what was said about the wild
+mountain lands which formed the greater portion of his patrimony--that
+they were practically valueless--was true, ere he gave up all hope of
+profiting from them.
+
+The building of the railroad through the valley had imbued him with some
+hope that they might not prove to be as useless as they had been thought
+to be, and it had been that which had induced him, at the start, to make
+the journey.
+
+Once arrived he had found the mountain air delightful, the fishing fine,
+the shooting all that could be wished, and had enjoyed these to their
+full, investigating, meanwhile, his rough property; but as he lay there
+in his shack of logs and puncheons he acknowledged to himself that it
+was none of these things which now made the mountains so attractive. It
+was the nymph of the woods pool, the mountain-side Europa on her bull,
+his little pupil of the alphabet, in plain reality, who now held him to
+the wilderness.
+
+He wondered just what this could mean. Could it be possible that he was
+thinking seriously of the little maid _in that way_?
+
+He almost laughed at the idea, there alone in the woods cabin, with the
+stars in their deep velvet canopy twinkling through the window at him
+and the glow of his cob pipe for company.
+
+But his laugh was not too genuine. He found himself, to his amazement,
+comparing Madge, the mountain girl, with Barbara Holton, the elegant
+daughter of the lowlands, and finding many points in favor of the little
+rustic maiden. He wondered just how serious his attentions to fair
+Barbara had been thought to be by her, her father, Horace Holton, and by
+other people. There were many things about Madge Brierly, which, as he
+sat there, reflective, he found admirable, besides her vivid, vigorous
+young beauty. He could not bring himself, as he sat thinking of the two
+girls, widely separated as they were in the great social plane, unevenly
+matched as they had been in early training, to admit that the whole
+advantage was upon the side of Barbara Holton.
+
+And above him, in her lonely little cabin on the towering rock, upon all
+sides of which the mountain-torrent, making it an isle of safety for her
+there in the wilderness, roared rythmically, the mountain maiden who so
+occupied his thoughts was busy with her crude wardrobe.
+
+In complete dissatisfaction she put aside, at length, every garment of
+her own which she possessed as unsuitable for the great day when she was
+to meet the bluegrass gentlefolk.
+
+Then, remembering suddenly an old chest which held her mother's wedding
+finery, she strained her fine young muscles as she dragged it out of
+storage; and sitting on the floor beside it where the great blaze of
+pine-knots in the big "mud-and-broke-rock" fireplace lighted it and her
+with flickering brilliance, she went through it with reverent fingers,
+searching, searching for such garments and such adornments as it might
+hold to make her fit to meet the friends of the young lowlander who had
+captured her imagination with his bravery, resource and courtesy.
+
+There were a few things in the chest which pleased her, and she smiled
+as she discovered them, smiled as she tried them on, smiled as she saw
+the image wearing them in the cracked mirror by the side of the big
+fireplace. She had to make experiments with dripping tallow dips before
+she got a light which would enable her to get the full effect of an
+ornate old poke-bonnet which was the chief treasure from the chest, but
+finally she did so, and exclaimed in pleasure as she managed it.
+
+It was, indeed, a charming picture which she saw there in the glass--a
+face with rosy cheeks, bright eyes, red lips set off with softly waving
+auburn hair and framed delightfully in the old arch of shirred red
+silk--and when she took it off, at last, she was convinced that one, at
+least, of her big problems had been solved. She had a bonnet, certainly,
+which was as lovely as the finest thing that any bluegrass belle could
+wear. There was not the slightest doubt that all its shirring was of
+real, _real_ silk! She had run her fingers over it caressingly,
+delighted by its sheen and gloss when she had been a little girl; now
+she fondled it with loving touch, high hopes. Surely no young lady
+visitor, even from the far off and to her mysterious bluegrass could
+have anything much finer than that bonnet with its silken facings! She
+tied the wide strings underneath her chin in a great, flaring bow, and
+peeped forth from the cavernous depths of the arched "poke" with quite
+unconscious coquetry, flirting, with the keenest relish and most
+completely childish pleasure with the charming creature whom she saw
+reflected on the little mirror's cracked, imperfect surface.
+
+It was while she stood thus, innocently coquetting with her own
+delightful picture, that a great plan for the plenishment of her
+otherwise imperfect wardrobe popped into her active, searching mind.
+Carefully she considered this, first before the glass and then, with
+feet crossed and clasped hands between her knees, before the roaring
+fire of resinous pine-knots in the old fireplace.
+
+Having finally decided that it was a good one, she went about the cabin
+seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows, wholly unafraid despite
+her solitude. There was but one way of approaching this, her fastness in
+the rocks, and the bridge, had been drawn up for the night. Safe she was
+as any Rhenish baron in his moated stronghold.
+
+Conscious that a busy day was looming large before her, she now blew out
+her candles and crept into her little curtained bed, to dream, there,
+vividly, of haughty beauties from the bluegrass staring in astonishment
+as they first glimpsed the beauty of a little mountain girl in such a
+gorgeous outfit as they had not in all their pampered lives conceived;
+of lovely aunts who smiled with pleasure when they saw their handsome
+nephews step up to this splendid maiden and take her hands in theirs; of
+wondrous youths--ah, these images were never absent from the scenes her
+fancy painted!--who scorned the haughty bluegrass beauties in favor of
+the freckled little fists of those same brilliant mountain maidens, and,
+lo! by taking those same freckled fists in theirs, removed the freckles
+and the callouses of work as if by magic, making them as white and
+fine--aye, whiter, finer!--than the haughty bluegrass beauty's. And in
+her dreams, too, was a gallant horseman, wise in equine ways, who came
+to her with handsome chargers trailing from fair-leather lead straps to
+present her with the thoroughbreds because her little, shaggy pony
+limped.
+
+Queer fancies of the strange life of the lowlands which he had
+described to her, flashed, also, through her ignorant but active brain
+in fascinating visions. She thought she saw the houses on the tops of
+houses which he had described to her, in efforts to assist her to
+imagine structures more elaborate than the little, single storied cabins
+which were all that she had ever seen. Strange conceptions of the
+railroad, with its monstrous engines puffing smoke and fire would have
+been terrifying had there not been, ever at her side as dreams revealed
+them, a stalwart youth in corduroys to bear her from their path through
+rings of burning thickets.
+
+Again she trembled in imagination at the thought of meeting the fine
+ladies who would be dressed with such elaboration and impressive
+elegance; but each time, when her dream seemed actually to lead her to
+them, there he was to help her through the great ordeal with heartening
+smiles and comforting suggestions.
+
+Her sleep was restless, but delightful. Once she woke and left her bed
+to peer out of the window, wondering if, by chance, she might not
+glimpse a light in Layson's camp far down the mountain-side. She was
+disappointed when she found she could not, but went back to bed to find
+there further compensating dreams.
+
+There might have been still greater compensation for her had she known
+that at the very moment when she peered out through the darkness,
+looking for some vagrant glimmer of a light from Layson's camp, he had,
+himself, just gone back to his cabin after having stood a long time
+staring through the darkness toward her own small cabin in its fastness.
+
+He was thinking, thinking, thinking. The little mountain maid had
+strangely fascinated the highly cultivated youth from the far bluegrass.
+He did not know quite what to make of the queer way in which her fresh
+and lovely, girlish face, obtruded itself constantly into his thoughts.
+And as for the haughty bluegrass belle whom poor Madge dreaded so--he
+did not think of her, at all, save, possibly, with half acknowledged
+annoyance at the fact that she was coming to spy out his wilderness and
+those who dwelt therein. He would have been a little happier if he could
+have remained there, undisturbed, for a time longer.
+
+Day had not dawned when Madge awoke. The sun, indeed, had just begun to
+poke the red edge of his disc above Mount Nebo, when, having built her
+fire and cooked her frugal breakfast, she loosed the rope which held the
+crude, small draw-bridge up and lowered the rickety old platform until
+it gave a pathway over the deep chasm and carried her to the mainland,
+ready for the journey to the distant cross-roads store.
+
+Dew, sparkling like cut diamonds, cool as melting ice, was everywhere in
+the brilliant freshness of the morning; the birds were busy with their
+gossip and their foraging, chattering greetings to her as she passed; in
+her pasture her cow, Sukey, had not risen yet from her comfortable night
+posture when she reached her. The animal looked up gravely at her,
+chewing calmly on her cud, plainly not approving, quite, of such a very
+early call. While the girl sat on the one-legged stool beside her,
+sending white, rich, fragrant streams into the resounding pail, her
+shaggy Little Hawss limped up, nosing at her pocket for a turnip, which
+he found, of course, abstracted cleverly and munched.
+
+Having finished with the cow she set the milk in a fence-corner to wait
+for her return, and, when she left the lot, the pony followed her,
+making a difficult, limping way along the inside of the rough
+stump-fence until he came to a cross barrier. Then, as he saw that she
+was going on and leaving him behind, he nickered lonesomely, and,
+although she planned, that day to accomplish many, many things, and, in
+consequence, was greatly pressed for time, she went back to him and
+petted him a moment and then found another turnip for him in her pocket.
+
+The journey which began, thus, with calls on her four-footed friends,
+was solitary, afterward, although in the narrow road-bed, here and
+there, she saw impressions of preceding footsteps, big and deep. They
+aroused her curiosity, and with keen instinct of the woods she studied
+one of them elaborately. Rising from her pondering above it she decided
+that Joe Lorey had gone on before her, and wondered what could possibly
+have sent him down the trail so early in the morning. When she noted
+that his trail turned off at the cross-roads which might lead to
+Layson's camp (or other places) her heart sank for a moment. She
+realized how bitterly the mountaineer felt toward the bluegrass youth
+whom he considered his successful rival and she hoped that trouble would
+not come of it. She did not love Joe Lorey as he wished to have her love
+him, but she had a very real affection for him, none the less.
+And--and--she did--she did--she _did_--this morning she acknowledged
+it!--love Layson. The matter worried her, somewhat. Trouble between the
+men was more than possible, she knew; but, on reflection, she decided
+that Joe had not been bound for Layson's camp, but, by a short cut, to
+the distant valley. This alone would have explained his very early
+start. He was not one to seek to take his enemy while sleeping, and she
+knew and knew he knew that the lowlander slept late. Lorey would not do
+a thing dishonorable. She put the thought of trouble that day from her,
+therefore, yielding gladly to the joyous and absorbing magic of the
+growing, splendid morning.
+
+The rising sun, with its ever changing spectacle, exhilerating,
+splendid, awe-inspiring, there among the mountains, raised her spirits
+as she travelled, and drove gloomy thoughts away as it drove off the
+brooding mists which clung persistently, tearing themselves to tattered
+ribbons ere they would loose their hold upon the peaks beyond the valley
+and behind her.
+
+A feeling of elation grew in her--elation born of her abounding health,
+fine youth, the glory of the scene, the high intoxication of first love.
+
+She beguiled the way with mountain ballads, paused, here and there, to
+pluck some lovely flower, accumulating, presently, a nosegay so enormous
+as to be almost unwieldy, whistled to the birds and smiled as they sent
+back their answers, laughed at the fierce scolding of a squirrel on a
+limb, heard the doleful wailing of young foxes and crept near enough
+their burrow to see them huddled in the sand before it, waiting eagerly
+for their foraging mother and the breakfast she would bring.
+
+When the trail crossed a clear brook she paused upon the crude, low
+bridge and watched the trout dart to and fro beneath it; where it
+debouched upon a hill-side of commanding view she stopped there,
+breathing hard from sheer enjoyment of the glory of the prospect spread
+before her in the valley.
+
+She was very happy, as she almost always was of summer mornings. The
+mountain air, circulating in her young and sturdy lungs, was almost as
+intoxicating as strong wine and made the blood leap through her
+arteries, thrill through her veins.
+
+The worries of the night before seemed, for a time, to have been
+groundless. She ceased to fear her meeting with the bluegrass gentlefolk
+and looked forward to it with real confidence and pleasure. Her
+confidence in Layson was abounding, and she assured herself till the
+thought became conviction that he never would permit her to subject
+herself to anything which properly could be humiliating.
+
+The problem of her garb, too, began to seem far less insoluble than it
+had seemed the night before. She felt certain, as she travelled with her
+springing step, that she would find it possible to meet creditably the
+great emergency with what she had at home and could discover at the
+little general-store which she was bound for.
+
+When she reached the tiny, mud-chinked structure at the cross-roads,
+though, and caught her first glimpse of its lightly burdened shelves,
+her heart sank for an instant. Could it be possible that from its stock
+she would be able to select material with which she could compete with
+folk from the far bluegrass in elegance of garb?
+
+But after she had made investigation and had interested in her project
+the lank mountain-woman who presided at the counter, she lost fear of
+the result. Together they made careful study of the fashion-papers which
+the woman had preserved and which the girl had, the night before,
+remembered with such vividness. Through discussion and reiterated
+reassurance from her friend, she finally arrived at the decision that
+with what she had at hand at home and what she could buy here, she could
+prepare herself to meet the elegant lowlanders with a fairly ample
+rivalry.
+
+There were few bolts of cloth, of whatever quality or character in the
+pitiful little general-store's stock which both women did not finger
+speculatively that morning; there was not a piece of pinchbeck jewelry
+in the small showcase which they did not study carefully. Especially
+Madge dwelt on combs, for Layson, once, had mentioned combs as parts of
+the adornment of the women whom he knew. There in the mountains young
+girls did not wear them, save of the "circular" variety, designed to
+hold back "shingled" tresses. But from underneath a box of faded
+gum-drops and the store's one carton of cigars, came some of imitation
+tortoise-shell, gilt ornamented, of the sort old ladies sometimes stuck
+into their hirsute knots for mountain "doings" of great elegance, and
+the best of these Madge bought. Also she bought lace--great quantities
+of it, although, even after she had made the purchase, she had some
+doubt of just what she would do with it; she also had some doubt about
+its quality, for in the chest at home there had been lace, ripped from
+her mother's wedding gown, of far different and more convincing texture
+and design. She realized, however, that what was there must be what must
+suffice and purchased nearly all the woman had of cheap, machine-made
+mesh and home-worked, coarse-threaded tatting.
+
+She could not manage gloves. The store had never had gloves in its stock
+designed for anything but warmth, and, although Layson had explained to
+her, in answer to her curious pleadings, that the girls he knew down in
+the bluegrass sometimes wore gloves covering their bare arms to the
+elbows, she gave up the hope of finding anything of that sort without a
+visit to the distant valley town, and this was quite impossible, now
+that her pony had gone lame, so she sighed and gave up gloves entirely.
+
+But she bought ribbons by the bolt, some gay silk-handkerchiefs, a
+little of the less obtrusive of the jewelry, and needles, thread and
+such small trifles by the score to be utilized in making alterations in
+the finery from her dead mother's treasure chest at home there in the
+mountain cabin. It was with heart not quite so doubtful of her own
+ability to shine a bit, that, after she had borrowed every fashion-plate
+the woman owned (many of them ten years old; not one of them of later
+date than five years previous), she set out upon the long and weary
+homeward way.
+
+Instinctively as she progressed she searched the soft mud in the
+shadowed places of the road, the soft sand wherever it appeared, for
+signs that those great foot-marks which she had thought she could
+identify as Lorey's in the morning, had returned while she was at the
+store. Nowhere was there any trace that this had happened, and again she
+thrilled with apprehension. Almost she made a detour by the road which
+led to Layson's camp to make quite sure that all was right with the
+young "foreigner," but this idea she abandoned as much because she felt
+that such a visit would necessitate an explanation which she would
+dislike to make, as because her many burdens would have made the way a
+long and difficult one to tread. How could she tell Layson that Joe
+Lorey might resent his helping her to study, might resent the other
+hours which they had spent so pleasantly among the mountain rocks and
+forest trees together, might, in short, be jealous of him?
+
+Her shy, maiden soul revolted at the thought and perforce she gave
+investigation up, her thoughts, finally, turning from the really remote
+chance of a difficulty between the men to the pleasanter task of
+carrying on her planning for new gowns and small accessories of finery.
+
+The homeward way was longer than the journey down had been, because of
+her new burdens and the frequently steep mountain slopes which she must
+climb, but she travelled it without much thought of this.
+
+Never in her life had come excitement equal to that which possessed her
+as she thought about the visitors, longed to make a good impression and
+not shame her friend, wondered how the bluegrass ladies would be
+dressed, would talk, would act, and what they all would think of her.
+She had decided, in advance, that she would like Miss Alathea, aunt of
+her woodland instructor; she knew positively that she would like the
+doughty colonel, lover of god horses, barred from racing by his love for
+Frank's inexorable aunt.
+
+But the other members of the party he had told about--the Holtons--she
+was not so sure that she would care for them. Frank, himself, when he
+had told her of them, had spoken of the father without much enthusiasm,
+and she felt quite sure that she could never like the daughter. She had
+noticed, she believed, that when it came to talk of her her friend had
+hesitated with embarrassment. Could it be possible that this young lady
+who had had the chances she, herself, had been denied, for education and
+for everything desirable, would seem to him, when she appeared upon the
+scene, less lovely, less desirable, than a simple little mountain maid
+like poor Madge Brierly? The thought seemed quite incredible and the
+worry of it quite absorbed her for a time and drove away forebodings
+about the possible hatred of Joe Lorey for Layson and his possible
+expression of resentment. She even ceased her wonderings about the
+footsteps which had gone down the road, that morning, and which, so far
+as she could see, had not come back again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+They were, indeed, the great imprints of Joe Lorey's hob-nailed boots,
+quite as she suspected. Long before the sun had risen the young
+mountaineer, distressed by worries which had made his night an almost
+sleepless one, had risen and wandered from his little cabin, lonelier in
+its far solitude, even than the girl's. For a time he had crouched upon
+a stump beneath the morning stars with lowering brows, sunk deep in
+harsh, resentful thought, forgetful of the falling dew, the chill of the
+keen mountain air, of everything, in fact, save the gnawing apprehension
+that the "foreigner," who had invaded this far mountain solitude might,
+with his better manners, infinitely better education and divers other
+devilish wiles of the low country, snatch from him the prize which he
+had grown up longing to possess.
+
+The youthful mountaineer's distress was not without its pathos. He loved
+the girl, had loved her since they had been toddling children playing in
+the hills together. Never for an instant had his firm devotion to her
+wandered to any other of the mountain girls; never for an instant had
+he had any hope but that of, some day, winning her. That he recognized
+the real superiority of Layson made his worry the more tragic, for it
+made it the more hopeless.
+
+A dull resentment thrilled him, not only against this man, but against
+the whole tribe of his people, who were, in these uncomfortable days,
+invading the rough country which, to that time, had been the undisputed
+domain of the mountaineer. He thought with bitterness about the growing
+valley towns, which he had sometimes visited on court days when some
+mountain man had been haled there to trial for moonshining or for a feud
+"killing." He did not understand those lowland people who assumed the
+right to dictate to him and his kind as to the lives which they should
+lead in their own country, and he hated them instinctively. Vaguely he
+felt the greater power which education and a rubbing of their elbows
+with the progress of the world had given them and definitely resented
+it. Scotch highlander never felt a greater hatred and distrust of
+lowland men than does the highlander of the old Cumberlands feel for the
+people who have claimed the rich and fertile bottom lands, filled the
+towns which have sprung up there, established the prosperity which has,
+through them, advanced the state. The mountain men of Tennessee and of
+Kentucky are almost as primitive, to-day, as were their forefathers,
+who, early in the great transcontinental migration, dropped from its
+path and spread among the hills a century ago, rather than continue with
+the weary march to more fertile, fabled lands beyond.
+
+It had not been, as Madge had feared, his definite hatred of Frank
+Layson which had started him upon the road so early in the morning, but,
+rather, an unrest born of the whole problem of the "foreigners'"
+invasion of the mountains. His restless discontent with Layson's
+presence had left him ready for excitement over wild tales told in store
+and cabin of what the young man's fellows were doing in the valley. He
+had determined to go thither for himself, to see with his own eyes the
+wonder-workers, although he hated both the wonders and the men who were
+accomplishing them.
+
+What did the mountain-country want of railroads? What did it want of
+towns? The railroads would but bring more interlopers and in the towns
+they would foregather, arrogant in their firm determination to force
+upon the men who had first claimed the country their artificial rules
+and regulations. Timid in their fear of those they sought to furtively
+dislodge and of the rough love these men showed of a liberty including
+license, they would huddle in their storied buildings, crowd in their
+trammelled streets, work and worry in their little offices absurdly,
+harmfully to the rights of proper men. Like other mountaineers Joe had
+small realization of the advantages of easy interchange of thought and
+the quick commerce which come with aggregation. He thought the
+concentration of the townsfolk was a sign of an unmanly dread of those
+first settlers whom they wished to drive away unjustly, subjugate and
+ruin.
+
+Throughout the mountains blazed a fierce resentment of the railroad
+builders' presence and their work; in no heart did it burn more fiercely
+than in poor Joe Lorey's, for the fear obsessed him that a member of the
+army of invaders had succeeded in depriving him of the last chance of
+getting that which, among all things on earth, he longed for most--Madge
+Brierly's love. He did not stop to think that before the "foreigner" had
+come the girl had more than once refused to marry him, begging him to
+remain her good, kind friend. Such episodes, in those days, had not in
+the least disheartened him. He had always thought that in the end the
+girl _would_ "have him." But now he was convinced his chance was gone,
+his last hope vanished. The "foreigner" had fascinated Madge, made him
+look cheap and coarse, uncouth and undesirable.
+
+As he had walked along the roads which, later in the morning, Madge had
+followed, he had frowned blackly at the sunrise and the waking birds,
+kicked viciously at little sticks and stones which chanced along his
+way. Never a smile had he for chattering squirrel or scampering
+chipmunk; fierce, repellant was the brown brow of the mountaineer,
+despite the glory of the morning, and black the heart within him with
+sheer hatred of Frank Layson and the class he represented.
+
+His journey was much longer than the girl's, for it did not end till he
+had reached the rude construction camp of the advancing railroad
+builders in the valley far below the little mountain-store. There he
+gazed at what was going on with a child's wonder, which, at first,
+almost made him lose his memory of what he thought his wrongs, but,
+later, aggravated it by emphasizing in his mind his own great ignorance.
+
+Through a tiny temporary town of corrugated iron shanties, crude
+log-and-brush and rough-plank sheds, white canvas tents, ran the raw,
+heaped earth of the embankment. About it swarmed a thousand swarthy
+laborers, chattering in a tongue less easy to his ears than the harsh
+scoldings of the squirrels he had seen while on his way. Back behind
+them stretched two lines of shining rails, which, even as he watched,
+advanced, advanced on the embankment, being firmly spiked upon their
+cross-ties so as to form a highway for the cars which brought more dirt,
+more dirt, more dirt to send the raw embankment on ahead of them.
+
+At first the puffing, steam-spitting, fire-spouting locomotive with its
+deafening exhaust and strident whistle, clanging bell and glowing
+fire-box actually frightened him. As he stood close by the track and it
+came on threateningly, he backed away, his rifle held in his crooked
+arm, ready for some great emergency, he knew not what. A laborer laughed
+at him, and his hands instinctively took firmer grip upon the rifle. The
+laborer stopped laughing.
+
+Some lessons of the temper of the mountaineers already had been learned
+along the line of that new railroad, and, driven from his wrath by the
+appearance of new marvels, Joe, at greater distance, sat upon a stump
+and watched, wide-eyed, and undisturbed, unridiculed.
+
+For a long time his resentment wholly drowned itself in wonder at the
+puzzle of the engines, the mechanism of the dump-cars, the wondrous
+working of the small steam crane which lifted rails from flat-cars, and,
+as a strong man guided them, dropped them with precision at the time and
+place decided on beforehand. He noted how the men worked in great gangs,
+subject to the orders of one "boss," a phenomenon of organization he had
+never seen before, with unwilling admiration.
+
+But presently, from a point well in advance of that where rails already
+had been laid and upon which his attention had been concentrated because
+of the machinery there, there came a mighty boom of dynamite. It
+startled him so greatly that he sprang up, bewildered, ready for
+whatever might be coming, but wholly at a loss as to just what the
+threatening danger might be. His fright gave rise to jeering laughter
+from the men who had been watching with a covert eye the rough,
+determined looking mountaineer, squatting on the stump with rifle on
+his arm. He turned on them so fiercely that they shrank back, terrified
+by the look they saw in his grey eyes.
+
+Then, noting that the noise had not appalled them in the least and
+assuming that what was surely safe for them was safe enough for him, he
+sauntered down the line, attempting to seem careless in his walk, until
+he reached the gang which was busy at destruction of a high, obstructive
+cropping of grey granite.
+
+For hours he sat there watching them with curiosity. He saw them pierce
+the rocks with hammered drills; he saw them then put in a small, round,
+harmless looking paper cylinder which, of course, he knew held something
+like gunpowder; he saw them tamp it down with infinite care, leaving
+only a protruding fuse; he saw them light the fuse and scamper off to a
+safe distance while he watched the sputtering sparks run down the fuse,
+pause at the tamping, then, having pierced it, disappear. The great
+explosions which succeeded were, at first, a little hard upon his
+nerves, but he saw that those who compassed them did not flinch when
+they came, and, after he had dodged ridiculously at the first, received
+the second with a greater calm, keyed himself to almost motionless
+reception of the third, and managed to sit listening to the fourth with
+self-possession quite as great as theirs, his face impassive and his
+frame immovable.
+
+He noted with amazement the great force of the infernal power the
+burning fuses loosed, and knew, instinctively, that the explosive was a
+stronger one than that with which he had been thoroughly familiar since
+his earliest childhood--gunpowder. He wondered mightily what it could
+be, and, finally, summoned courage to inquire of one of the swart
+laborers.
+
+These were the first words he had spoken that day, and, although the man
+was courteous enough in answering, "Dynamite," he thought he saw a smile
+upon his face of veiled derision, and resented it so fiercely that
+instead of thanking him he gave him a black look and sauntered off. But
+he had learned what the explosive was; before he went away he had seen
+it used in half-a-dozen ways and had a visual demonstration of the
+necessity for caution in its handling. One of the young and cocky
+engineers, whom he so hated, dropped by dread mischance a heavy hammer
+on a stick of it, and the resulting turmoil left him lying torn and
+mangled on the rocks.
+
+Lorey felt small sympathy for the man's suffering, although he never had
+seen any human being mutilated thus before. Many a man he had seen lying
+with a clean hole through his forehead, the neat work of a definitely
+aimed bullet; assassination and the spectacles it carried with it could
+not worry him: his childhood and young manhood had been passed where
+"killings" were too frequent; the man, like all the others there at
+work, was his enemy, and he sorrowed for him not at all; but this
+tearing, mangling laceration of human flesh and bone was horrifying to
+him.
+
+Later, though, a certain comfort came to him from it. The whole scene
+had impressed him and depressed him. He remembered what Madge Brierly
+had said about the engineers with their blue paper plans and their
+ability to read from them and work by them. He saw them at their work,
+and the spectacle made him feel inferior, which had never happened in
+his free, untrammeled life of mountain independence before. There were a
+dozen men about the work of the same type as Layson's, and their calm
+cocksureness as they directed all these mysteries amazed him,
+overwhelmed him, made him feel a sense of littleness and unimportance
+which was maddening. Why should they know all these things when he, Joe
+Lorey, who had lived a decent life according to his lights, had labored
+with his muscles as theirs could not labor if they tried to force them
+to, had lived upon rough fare and in rough places while they had had
+such "fancinesses" as he saw spread before them at their mess-tent
+dinner (and crude fare enough it seemed to them, no doubt) knew none of
+them? He could see no justice in such matters and resented them with
+bitter heart. If their own infernal powder had killed one of them he
+would not mourn. He tried to look back at the accident with
+satisfaction.
+
+Had he gone down to that crude construction camp without the jealousy
+of Layson in his heart, he might, possibly, have merely gazed in wonder
+at the cleverness of all this work, despite his mountaineer's resentment
+of the coming of the interlopers; but, with that resentment in his heart
+to nag and worry him, he achieved, before the day was over, a real
+hatred of the class and of each individual in it. Layson had come up
+there to his country to rob him of the girl he loved; now these men were
+coming with their railroad to change the aspect of the land he had been
+born to and grown up in, making it a strange place, unfamiliar,
+unwelcoming and crowded. He hated every one of them, he hated the new
+railroad they were building, he hated their new-fangled and mysterious
+machinery which puzzled him with intricate devices and appalled him with
+its power of fire and steam.
+
+By the time the afternoon was two hours old he was in a state of sullen
+fury, silent, morose, miserable on the stump which he had chosen as his
+vantage point for observation. More than once an engineer looked at him
+with plain admiration of his mammoth stature in his eyes; many a
+town-girl, seeing him, like a statue of The Pioneer upon a fitting
+pedestal, made furtive eyes at him, for he was handsome and attractive
+in his rough ensemble; but he paid no heed to any of them. He was giving
+his mind over to consideration of his grievance against these men who
+came, with steam and pick and shovel, dynamite and railroad iron,
+invading his domain.
+
+He thought about his secret still, hidden in its mountain fastness, and
+realized that this new stage of settlement's inexorable march meant
+danger to it; he thought about the game which roamed the hills and
+realized that with the coming of the crowd it would soon scatter, never
+to return; he thought about the girl up there, his companion in
+adversity, his fellow sufferer from mutual wrong, the one thing which he
+had had to love, the shining prize which it had been his sole ambition
+to possess for life; he thought of her and then about the man, who
+(product of the same advantages which made these men before him clever
+with their blue-prints and their puffling monsters) had come there
+searching profit from the land which he had never loved or lived on,
+and, seeing Madge, had, Joe thoroughly believed, exerted every wile of a
+superior experience to win her from him by fair means or foul. He
+thought of them and hated all of them!
+
+He was a most unhappy mountaineer who sat there on the stump, impassive
+and morose as the sun progressed upon its journey toward the western
+horizon. All the organized activity in the scene about him filled him
+with resentment and despair. In the hills he ever felt his strength:
+they had presented in his whole lifetime few problems which he could not
+cope with, conquer; but here in that construction camp he felt weak,
+incompetent, saw full many a puzzling matter which he could not
+understand. He watched the scene with bitter but with almost hopeless
+eyes. These new forces working here at railroad building, working in the
+hills to rob him of the girl he loved, seemed pitilessly strong and
+terribly mysterious. He never had felt helpless in all his life, before.
+It made him grind his teeth with rage.
+
+But, though it angered him, the tense activity of the construction camp
+was fascinating, too. Especially was his attention held spellbound by
+the ruthless work of the advancing blasting gangs. What power lay hidden
+in those tiny sticks of dynamite! How lightly one of them had tossed
+that poor unfortunate in air and left him lying mangled, broken,
+helpless on the ground when it had spent its fury! _What a weapon one of
+them would make, upon occasion_!
+
+This thought grew rapidly in his depressed and agitated mind. What a
+weapon, what a weapon! Presently the blasting gangs and what they did
+absorbed his whole attention. He no longer paid the slightest heed to
+the puffing locomotives, busy with their dump-cars, to the mysterious
+steam-shovel, to the hand cars with their pumping, flying passengers.
+The dynamite was greater than the greatest of them. One stick of it, if
+properly applied, would blow a locomotive into junk, would tear a
+dump-car, with its massive iron-work and grinding wheels, apart and
+leave mere splinters!
+
+His thoughts roamed back to his home mountains and pondered on the
+probable effect of this incursion on his personal affairs. Not satisfied
+with tearing up the placid valley, these foreigners would, presently,
+invade the very mountains in their turn. He saw the doom of that small,
+hidden still which had been his father's secret, years ago, was now his
+secret from the prying eyes of law and progress. That the "revenuers,"
+soon or late, would get it, now that their allies were building steel
+highways to swarm on, was inevitable. His heart beat fast with a new
+anger, anticipatory of their coming to his fastness.
+
+Lying not six feet from him as he sat there thinking bitterly of all
+these things, the foreman of the blasting gang had gingerly deposited a
+dozen sticks of dynamite upon a soft cushion of grey blankets. Joe
+looked at them as they lay there, innocent and unimpressive. If he had
+some of them in the hills and the revenuers came to raid his still--
+
+The thought sprang into being in his mind with lightning quickness and
+grew there with mushroom growth. Never in his life had Lorey stolen
+anything, although the government would have classed him as a criminal
+because he owned that hidden still. His standards, in some things, were
+different from yours and mine, but he had never stolen anything and
+scorned as low beyond the power of words to tell a man who would. But
+now temptation came to him. He wanted some of that explosive. Should he
+buy it, its purchase by a mountaineer would certainly attract attention
+and might thus precipitate the very thing he wished to ward away--a
+watch of him, and, through that espionage, discovery of his secret place
+among the hills. And were not the railroad and the men who owned it
+robbing him by their progression into his own country? They were robbing
+him of peace and quiet, of the possibility of living on the life he had
+been born to and had learned to love! One of the class which fostered
+him was robbing him, he feared with a great fear, of the sweet girl whom
+he loved better than he loved his life. Surely it would be no sin, no
+act of real dishonesty for him to slip down from his stump when none was
+looking and secure a stick or two of the explosive!
+
+Speciously he argued this out in his mind and reached the wrong
+conclusion which he wished to reach.
+
+If he could but get one of those sticks of dynamite! When progress came,
+as, now, he felt convinced it would, to drive him from his mountains and
+the still which made life possible to him, he could meet it, at the
+start, with one of its own weapons. That, even though he had a hundred
+such, he could fight the fight successfully, could, in the end, find
+triumph, he did not for an instant think. The might of the encroaching
+army had impressed him, and he knew that, soon or late, he would be
+forced to yield to it; but he coveted those sticks of dynamite. One of
+them would give him some slight power, at least. He acknowledged to
+himself that he would steal one if he got the chance, despite his innate
+hatred of all pilferers. Such theft would merely be the taking of an
+unimportant tribute from the power which would, eventually, claim much,
+indeed, from him.
+
+From the distance came the screaming whistle of a locomotive pulling in
+along the newly built roadway to eastward. It was followed by a flurry
+of excitement among all the men at work around about him.
+
+"There comes the mail," he heard one handsome young chap shout.
+
+He wore a suit like that which Joe had learned to hate because Frank
+Layson wore it.
+
+This youth started running down the track, bright-eyed, expectant, and a
+dozen others ran to follow him, leaving blue-prints, their surveyors'
+instruments and other tokens of their mysterious might of education,
+lying unheeded on the ground behind them. There was much excitement.
+Even the rough laborers stopped delving at their tasks for a few
+minutes, to straighten from their work and stand, with curious eyes
+agaze down-track.
+
+In the distance Joe saw smoke arise above the tops of the invaded
+forest-trees. Then he heard the growing clangor of a locomotive's bell,
+then other whistling and the approaching rumble of steel wheels upon
+steel rails, the groan of brake shoes gripping, the rattle of contracted
+couplings, the impact of car-bumpers.
+
+The excitement grew among the working gangs. Even the laborers left
+their tasks and started down the rough surface of the new embankment
+toward the place, a quarter-of-a-mile away, where the train would stop
+at the end of the crude ballasting.
+
+Lorey sat there on his stump, apparently impassive, watching all this
+flurry with resentful, discontented eyes. He himself was infinitely
+curious about the coming train; but he could not bring himself to go to
+see it. He had never seen a railway train, but it somehow seemed to him
+that if he hurried with the rest to meet this one it would mean a
+certain sacrifice of dignity in the face of the invading conqueror. He
+sat there, grimly wondering what it might be like, what the people whom
+it brought were like, until, suddenly, he discovered that he was alone.
+The last workman yielding to temptation, free from supervision for the
+moment, had run down the bank to meet the train, get mail, see who had
+come. Lying not a dozen feet away from Joe on their grey blanket were
+the sticks of dynamite.
+
+Lithe, quick and silent as one of the mountain wild-cats he had so often
+trailed through his domain, he slipped down from his stump, caught up a
+stick of the explosive, tucked it carefully into his game-bag, took his
+place again upon the stump, impassive, calm, apparently quite unexcited.
+
+When the men came trooping back, opening letters, tearing wrappers from
+their newspapers, gossipping, he still sat on the stump as they had left
+him. Not one of them suspected that he once had left it.
+
+"Bright and lively as a cigar-store Indian," he heard one care-free
+youth exclaim as he went by him.
+
+He did not know what the man meant; he had never seen a cigar-store
+Indian; but he knew a jibe was meant. It did not anger him, as it would
+have done, a few moments earlier. Now he had exacted his small tribute.
+They could stare at him and jibe, if they were so inclined. Hidden
+carefully there in his game-bag was one of their own weapons for their
+fight against the wilderness, which, in course of time, might be a
+weapon of the wilderness in fighting against some of them.
+
+Presently he climbed down from the stump and strolled back along the raw
+embankment toward the little group still standing near the train which
+had arrived.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The young moonshiner stiffened instantly as he neared the group of newly
+arrived travellers, for the first word he heard from them was the name
+of him whom, among all foreigners, he hated with most bitterness. An old
+darky, plainly the servant of the party, and such a darky as the
+mountain country had never seen before, was inquiring of a bystander
+where he could find "Marse" Frank Layson.
+
+The man of whom he asked the question had not the least idea, nor had
+anyone about the railroad working. Most of the men had never heard of
+Layson, and the few who had become acquainted with him through chance
+meetings since he had been stopping in his cabin in the mountains, knew
+most indefinitely where the place was located. Lorey could have quickly
+given the information, but had no thought of doing so. He stood,
+instead, staring at the party with wondering but not good-natured eyes,
+and said no word. He certainly was not the one to do a favor to his
+rival or his rival's friends.
+
+The group of strangers were thrown into confusion by the difficulty of
+getting news of him they sought, and, while they discussed the matter,
+Lorey had a chance to study them. He stood upon the rough plank
+platform, leaning on his rifle, with the game-bag and its burden of
+purloined explosive hanging slouchily beneath one arm, his coon-skin cap
+down well upon his eyes, those eyes, half closed, gazing at the
+newcomers with all the curiosity which they would have shown at sight of
+savages from some far foreign shore.
+
+He was not the only one about the temporary railroad station who eyed
+the group with curiosity and interest. Two of the travellers were ladies
+from the bluegrass and scarcely one of all the natives lingering about
+the workings had ever seen a lady from the bluegrass, while, to the
+young surveyors and the group of civil engineers who had, for months,
+been exiled by their work among the mountains from all association with
+such lovely creatures, it was a joy to stand apart and covertly gaze at
+them. Many a young fellow, months away from home, who had grasped the
+newspapers and letters which had come in with the other mail with eager
+fingers, anxious to devour their contents, had, after the two ladies had
+descended from the train, almost forgotten his anxiety to get the news
+from home, and stood there, now, with opened letters in his hands,
+unread.
+
+The ladies were very worthy of attention, too. Miss Alathea Layson, the
+elder of the two, was slight, beautifully groomed despite the long and
+dirty trip on rough cars over the crude road-bed of a newly graded
+railway. A woman whose thirtieth birthday had been left behind some
+years before, she still had all the brightness and vivacity of the
+twenties in her carriage and her manner. Her voice, as it drifted to the
+young moonshiner, was a new experience to him--soft, well modulated,
+cultivated, it was of a sort which he had never heard before, and, while
+it seemed to him affected, nevertheless thrilled him with an
+unacknowledged admiration.
+
+It was she who showed the greatest disappointment about the general
+ignorance concerning Layson's whereabouts, and that voice made
+instantaneous and irresistible appeal to the older men among the party
+of engineers and surveyors, who, finding an excuse in her discomfiture,
+flocked about her, hats off, backs bent in humble bows, proffering
+assistance, three deep in the circle.
+
+The other lady traveller, whom Miss Alathea called Miss Barbara, more
+especially attracted the attention of the younger men, and, as they
+stood aloof to gaze at her, held such mountain dwellers as were near,
+paralyzed with wonder and admiration. Nothing so brilliantly beautiful
+as she in form, carriage, face, coloring or dress had ever been seen
+there in the little valley.
+
+She was a florid girl of twenty, or, perhaps, of twenty-one or two. Her
+eyes were the obtrusive feature of her face, and she used them with a
+freedom which held callow youth spellbound. Her gown was more
+pretentious than that of her more elderly companion. This, of course,
+was justified by the difference between their ages; but there seemed to
+be, beyond this, a flaunting gayety about it and her manner which were
+not, in the eyes of the older and wiser men among the group who watched,
+justified by anything. It would have been a hard thing for the most
+critical of them to have definitely mentioned just what forced this
+strong impression on their minds, but it was forced upon them very
+quickly. One of them, a cute and keen observer as he was, of many years
+experience, decided the moot point, though, and whispered his decision
+to a grizzled man (the engineer in charge of the whole enterprise upon
+that section of construction) who stood next him.
+
+"The elder one is of the old-time Southern aristocracy," he said. "The
+younger one is one of the newcomers--her father has made money and she
+is breaking in by means of it."
+
+His companion nodded, realizing that the guess was shrewd and justified,
+even if it might, conceivably, be inaccurate.
+
+"She certainly is very striking," he said, nodding, "but the elder one
+is the aristocrat."
+
+The other member of the party was a big man, nearing fifty, with a broad
+face on which geniality was written in its every line, wearing the
+wide-brimmed Southern hat, typical long frock-coat with flaring skirts,
+black trousers, somewhat pegged, and boots of an immaculate brilliance.
+
+His voice was loud, hearty and attractive, as he made inquiries, here
+and there, about the young man whom they had hoped to find in waiting
+for them at the station, although they had arrived, owing to the
+exigencies of travel by a new road, not yet officially opened to
+traffic, a day before they had expected to.
+
+"I suh," said this gentleman, "am Cunnel Doolittle--Cunnel Sandusky
+Doolittle, and am looking for this lady's nephew, Mr. Layson, suh. If
+you can tell me where the youngster is likely to be runnin', now, you
+will put me under obligations, suh."
+
+None, however, knew just how Layson could be reached. Most of them knew
+him or had heard of him, but they were not certain just where his camp
+in the mountains was located.
+
+"I regret, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel, turning to the disappointed
+lady at his side, after having completed his inquiries, "that there is
+no good hotel heah. If there were a good hotel heah, I would take you to
+it, ma'am, and make you comfortable. Then, ma'am, I would search this
+country and I'd find him in short order. He probably did not receive my
+letter saying that we would arrive to-day and not to-morrow."
+
+One of the engineers proffered to the ladies the use of his own canvas
+quarters till some course of action should have been decided on, an
+offer which was gratefully accepted.
+
+Soon afterward inquiries by the Colonel brought out definite information
+as to the exact location of Frank's camp. A railway teamster, also, it
+appeared, was starting in that direction after ties and offered to
+transport a messenger as far as he was going, directing him, then, so
+that he could not lose his way. Old Neb, the darky, thereupon, was
+started on the search.
+
+He was a different sort of negro from any which the mountain folk had
+ever seen, and wore more airs than his "white folks." Dressed in a black
+frock-coat as ornate as the Colonel's, although its bagging shoulders
+showed that it had been a gift and not made for him, his hat was a silk
+tile, a bit too large, and in one hand was a gold-headed cane on which
+he leaned as his old legs limped under him. Among the mountaineers about
+he was an object of the keenest curiosity, although down in the
+bluegrass, where old family negroes frequently were let to grow into a
+childish dignity of manner after years of faithful service and were not
+disturbed in their ideas of their own importance, he would have been
+regarded as merely an amusing infant of great age, reaping a reward for
+by-gone merits in the careful consideration and indulgence now extended
+to him. His inordinate vanity of his personal appearance and his dignity
+might have given rise to smiles, down there; here there were those upon
+the platform who laughed loudly as he walked away, boasting
+vaingloriously, although he evidently feared the trip with the rough
+teamster, that he would find "young Marse Frank" in a jiffy and have him
+there in no time.
+
+It was while the aged negro was climbing somewhat difficultly to the
+side of the good-natured railroad teamster who had promised to give him
+a lift upon his way and then supply directions for his further progress,
+that Joe Lorey, who had been an interested spectator of the affair,
+contemptuous, amused by the old darky, saw, coming through the crowd
+behind him and well beyond the range of the newly arrived strangers, the
+roughly dressed, mysterious old man whom he had seen, once or twice, up
+in the mountains, whom Madge had seen, tapping with his little hammer at
+the rocks. Lorey looked toward him with a face which scowled
+instinctively. He disliked the man, as he disliked all foreigners who
+dared invasion of his wilderness; he would have feared him, too, had he
+known that it had really been him and not young Layson and Madge Brierly
+who had made the noise there in the thicket which had disturbed him,
+that day, when, armed to meet a raid of revenuers, he had rushed out
+from his still to find the girl and the young bluegrass gentleman in a
+close company which worried him almost as much as the appearance of the
+officers, in fact, could have done.
+
+He was a "foreigner," this old man with the manner of the mountains,
+and, sometimes, their speech, for he wore bluegrass clothes; therefore
+he was one to be classed with the others in his bitter hatred. He was
+standing almost in his path, and, by stepping to one side, could have
+saved him a small detour round a pile of boxed supplies; but he did not
+move an inch, stiffening, instead, delighted at obstructing him.
+
+The old man, as he went around, looked sharply at him, and then smiled,
+almost as if he recognized him and could read his thoughts; almost as if
+he realized the man's instinctive hate; almost as if he felt a
+certainty, deep in his soul, that so great was the disaster hovering
+above the mountaineer that it would be scarcely worth his own while,
+now, even to think resentfully of this small insult.
+
+A moment later, though, and the expression of his face had changed
+completely. The first glimpse of the new come party standing, now, deep
+in discussion of the railway work, before the engineer's white,
+hospitable tent, made him start back in amazement.
+
+For an instant he stood wavering, as if he were considering the plan of
+trying to depart without approaching them or being seen by them, but
+then he shrugged his shoulders and advanced, trying to show upon his
+face surprised good-nature.
+
+"Wall, Colonel Doolittle!" he cried. "And you, Miss Layson, and--why,
+there's Barbara!"
+
+"_Father!"_ said the girl, in absolute amazement, hurrying toward him.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Holton!" said Miss 'Lethe, bowing to him as the Colonel,
+plainly not too greatly pleased by the necessity for doing so, advanced
+toward him with extended hand.
+
+"What brings you all up here?" asked Holton, after the greetings had
+been said.
+
+"We came up to see Frank and the beauties of his long-forgotten land,"
+Miss 'Lethe answered, in her softly charming voice. "He has property up
+here, you know, which has been for years a family possession, but which
+has been considered valueless, or almost so. When he learned that this
+new railway was to pass quite close to it, he decided to investigate it
+carefully and see just what it really amounted to."
+
+Holton smiled a little wryly as she completed her explanation. "He's
+stayed here, studyin' it, a long time, ain't he?"
+
+"Yes," Miss Alathea answered. "When he once reached here he seemed to
+find new beauties in the country every day. He wrote us the most glowing
+letters of it, and these letters and--and--other things, decided me to
+come and see him and the property he is so fond of. The Colonel was
+polite enough to volunteer as escort, your daughter to come as a
+companion."
+
+Holton winked mysteriously at Colonel Doolittle. "You come at the right
+time," said he. "I'll have some things to tell you of this country and
+just what the railroad's going to do for it if you should care to
+listen."
+
+The Colonel's eyes, plainly those of one who read the tale of character
+upon the faces of the people whom he met, looked at him with no great
+favor, but he smiled. "We've already learned some things which have
+astonished us," he said. Then, though, despite the fact that his remark
+had greatly aroused Holton's curiosity, evidently, he changed the
+subject somewhat abruptly, and turned grandiosely to Miss 'Lethe.
+
+"May I offuh you my ahm, ma'am, for a little stroll about heah?" he
+inquired. "The greatest disadvantage which I see about this country is
+the lack of level places big enough to put a race-track in, ma'am. So
+far as I can see from lookin' round me, casual like, you couldn't run a
+quahtuh, heah, without eitheh goin' up a hill or comin' down one."
+
+"_Isn't_ it rough!" said Barbara, with a gesture of aversion which
+seemed a bit affected.
+
+Holton looked at her with what was plainly admiration. It was clear
+enough that, in a way, he was fond of his showy daughter. He ran his eye
+with satisfaction over her costume, from head to foot, and nodded.
+
+"You ain't never seen much of rough life, now have you, Barbara?" He
+turned, then, to Miss Alathea. "These young folks, raised the way we
+raise 'em, nowadays, get thinkin' that the whole world has been
+smoothed out for their treadin'--an' they ain't far wrong. We _do_
+smooth out the world for 'em. Now, there's your nephew, Frank; he--"
+
+"Oh, he _likes_ it, here, as I have said," she answered.
+
+"But it is so--_uncouth_" said Barbara, plainly for the benefit of one
+or two admiring youths from the surveying party, who were standing near.
+"And some of the people look so absolutely vicious--some of the natives,
+I mean, of course, you know. Now look at that young fellow, over there!"
+
+The girl had nodded toward Joe Lorey, who was standing not far off,
+observing them with an unwavering and disapproving, almost definitely
+hostile stare.
+
+"He looks," the girl went on, "as if he hated us and would be glad to do
+us harm. So violent!"
+
+"He's from up the mountains," one of the young engineers said, glancing
+toward him. "It's funny how those mountain people _all_ hate us. You
+see, they say, the hills around about here are all full of moonshiners
+and they believe the coming of the railroad will bring with it law and
+order and that when that comes, of course, their living will be gone."
+
+"Moonshiners?" said Barbara. "Pray, what are moonshiners?"
+
+Her father grimly smiled again. He knew that she knew quite as well what
+moonshiners were as any person in the group, but her affected ignorance
+of rough things and rough men amused him.
+
+"Distillers of corn whisky who refuse to pay their taxes to the
+government," the youth replied. "The revenue officials have had dreadful
+times with them, here in the Cumberland, for years. Sometimes they have
+really bloody battles with them, when they try to make a raid."
+
+"How terrible!" said Barbara, and shuddered carefully. She looked again
+at Lorey, who, conscious that he was the subject of their conversation
+and resentful of it, stared back boldly and defiantly. "And do you think
+that he--that very young man there--can possibly have ever actually
+_killed_ a man?"
+
+The engineer laughed heartily. "That he may _possibly_ have killed a
+man," said he, "there is no doubt. I don't know that he has, however,
+and it is most improbable. I don't even know that he's a moonshiner."
+
+Among the others who had left the train, which, now, had been switched
+off to a crude side-track, the cars left there and the locomotive
+started at the handling of dirt-dump-cars, were two tall, sunburned
+strangers, whom Miss Alathea, who had noted them as she did everyone,
+had classed as engineers or surveyors, but who had not, when they had
+arrived, mingled with the other men employed on the construction of the
+railroad. While the young man and Barbara were talking about
+moonshiners, one of them had drifted near and he gave them a keen
+glance at the first mention of the word. Now he turned, but turned most
+casually, to follow with his own, their glances at Joe Lorey. Then he
+sauntered off, and, as he passed Holton, seemed to exchange meaning
+glances with him.
+
+Soon afterward Lorey turned away. The day was getting on toward noon.
+The long tramp back to his lonely cabin in the mountains would consume
+some hours. The sight of all these strangers, all this work on the new
+railroad worried him, made him unhappy, added to and multiplied the
+apprehension which for weeks had filled his heart about Madge Brierly
+and young Layson. He battled with a mixture of emotions. There was no
+ounce of cowardice, in Joe. Never had he met a situation in his life
+before which he had feared or which had proved too strong for him. All
+his battles, so far, and they had been many and been various, as was
+inevitable from the nature of his secret calling, had resulted in full
+victories for his mighty strength of body or his quick foot, certain
+hand, keen knowledge of the mountains and the woods resource and wit
+that went with these; but now things seemed to baffle him. His soul was
+struggling against acknowledgment of it, while his mind continually told
+him it was true. Everything seemed, now, to be against him.
+
+He knew, but would not admit, even to himself, that the march of
+progress must inevitably drive out of existence the still hidden in his
+cave and make the marketing of its illicit product doubly hazardous,
+nay, quite impossible. He knew that he must give it up; he realized that
+real good sense would send him home, that day, to bury the last trace of
+it in some spot where it never could be found again. But his stubborn
+soul revolted at the thought of being beaten, finally, by this
+civilization which he hated; he would not admit, even in his mind, that
+it had bested him, or could ever best him. He ground his teeth and
+pressed his elbow down against the stock of his long rifle with a force
+which ground the gun into his side until it hurt him. He would never
+give up, never! Let them try to get him if they could, these lowlanders!
+He would not be afraid of them. His father had not been--and he would
+never be.
+
+And there was a voice within him which kept whispering as did the one
+which counselled the abandonment of his illegal calling, the abandonment
+of that other effort, infinitely dearer to him, to win Madge Brierly's
+love and hand in marriage. His common-sense assured him that she was not
+made for such as he, that, while she had been born there in the
+mountains there were delicacies, refinements in her which would make her
+mating with his rude and uncouth strength impossible, would make it
+cruelly unhappy for her, even should it come about. But this voice he
+steadfastly declined to listen to, even more emphatically than he did to
+that which counselled caution in his calling. Again he ground his
+teeth. His heels, when they came down upon the rocky mountain trails up
+which he soon was climbing, fell on the slopes so heavily that,
+constantly, his progress was followed by the rattle of small stones down
+the inclined path behind him, constant little landslides. And, at
+ordinary times, Joe Lorey, awkward as he looked to be, could scale a
+sloping sand-bank without sending down a sliding spoonful to betray the
+fact that he was moving on it to the wild things it might startle.
+
+Heavily he resolved within his soul, against his own best judgment, to
+keep up both fights and win.
+
+The dynamite which he had stolen and which nestled in his game-sack
+comforted him, although he did not know how he would use it. Many times,
+as he worked through the narrow trails, jumped from stepping-stone to
+stepping-stone in crossing mountain-streams, pulled himself up steep and
+rocky slopes by clutching swaying branches, or rough-angled boulders, he
+let his left hand slip down to the side of the old game-sack, where,
+through the soft leather, he could plainly feel the smooth, terrific
+cylinder.
+
+He swore a mighty mountain oath that none of the advancing forces ever
+should win victory of him. If the revenuers ever tried to get him, let
+God help them, for they would need help; if Frank Layson stole his girl
+from him, then let God help him, also, for even more than would the
+revenuers the young bluegrass gentleman would need assistance from some
+mighty power.
+
+But a fate was closing on Joe Lorey which all his uncouth strength could
+not avert. As he had left the railway those two men whom simple-minded
+Miss Alathea had supposed were engineers, but who had not mingled with
+the throng of railway builders had looked at Horace Holton for
+confirmation of their guess. In a quick glance, so keen that they could
+not mistake its meaning so instantaneous that none else could suspect
+that the three men were even casual acquaintances, he had told them they
+had guessed aright.
+
+They sauntered off and disappeared in the direction whence the
+mountaineer had gone, and, though his feet were well accustomed to the
+trails and were as expert in their climbing as any mountaineer's for
+miles, these men proved more expert; though his ear was as acute as a
+wild animal's, so silently they moved that never once a hint that they
+were following, ever following behind him, reached it; their endurance
+was as great as his, their woods-craft was as sly as his.
+
+A fate was closing on Joe Lorey. The march of civilization was, indeed,
+advancing toward his mountain fastnesses at last. And nothing stays the
+march of civilization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The afternoon was waning as Joe climbed a sudden rise and saw before him
+Layson's camp.
+
+Through a cleft in the guardian range the sun's rays penetrated red and
+fiery. Already the quick chill of the coming evening had begun to
+permeate the air. A hawk, sailing from a day of foraging among the
+hen-yards of the distant valley, flew heavily across the sky, burdened
+with plunder for its little ones, nested at the top of a black stub on
+the mountain-side. Squirrels were home-going after a busy day among the
+trees. The mournful barking of young foxes, anxious for their dinners,
+thrilled the air with sounds of woe. Among the smaller birds the early
+nesters were already twittering in minor among the trees and thickets; a
+mountain-eagle cleft the air in the hawk's trail, so high that only a
+keen eye could have caught sight of him. Daylight insects were beginning
+to abate their clamor, while their fellows of the night were tuning for
+the evening concert. Mournfully, and very faintly, came a locomotive's
+wail from the far valley.
+
+Joe Lorey paused grimly in his progress to stare at the rough shack
+which housed the man he hated. He was no coward, and he would not take
+advantage of the loneliness and isolation of the spot to do him harm
+surreptitiously, but vividly the thought thrilled through him that
+someday he would assail him. Smoke was curling from the mud-and-stick
+chimney of the little structure, and he smiled contemptuously as he
+thought of how the bluegrass youth was doubtless pottering, within,
+getting ready to go down into the valley to greet his fine friends and
+be greeted. He had no doubt that long ere this the aged negro had
+reached him with the news of their arrival. He wondered, with a fierce
+leap of hope, if, possibly, their coming might not be the signal for the
+man's departure from the country where he was not wanted.
+
+This hope keenly thrilled him, for a moment, but, an instant later,
+when, through the small window, he saw the youth seat himself, alone,
+before a blazing fire of logs, stretch out his legs and lounge in the
+comfort of the blaze, it left him. He wondered if Layson did not intend
+to go down at all to meet his friends.
+
+Just then his quick ear caught the sound of stumbling, hurried
+footsteps, plainly not a mountaineer's, down in the rough woodland,
+below. Instantly his muscles tautened, instantly he brought his rifle to
+position; but he soon let it fall again and smiled, perhaps, for the
+first time that day.
+
+"Lawsy! Lawsy!" he could hear a scared voice muttering. "Lawsy, I is
+los', fo' suah!"
+
+His smile broadened to a wide, malicious grin of satisfaction. The black
+messenger who had been started with the news, evidently had not fared
+well upon the way, and was, but now, arriving. "It's that nigger
+wanderin' around up hyar," he mused. And then: "I'm goin' to have some
+fun with him."
+
+Silently he slipped down the path by which he had so recently ascended,
+and, at a good distance from the cabin, but still well in advance of the
+unhappy negro, hid behind a rock, awaiting his approach.
+
+Old Neb, advancing, scared tremendously, was talking to himself in a
+loud, excited voice.
+
+"Oh, golly!" he exclaimed. "Dis am a pretty fix for a bluegrass cullud
+gemman! Dis am a pretty fix--los', los' up heah, in de midst of wolves
+an' painters!"
+
+Joe, from behind his rock, wailed mournfully in startling imitation of a
+panther's call.
+
+The darkey almost fell prone in his fright. "Name o' goodness!" he
+exclaimed. "Wha' dat? Oh--oh--dere's a painter, now!"
+
+Joe called again, more mournfully, more ominously than before.
+
+Neb's fright became a trembling panic. "Hit's a-comin' closer!" he
+exclaimed. "I feel as if de debbil's gwine ter git me!" He stooped and
+started on a crouching run directly toward the rock behind which Joe was
+hiding.
+
+As the old man would have passed, Joe jumped out from his ambush, and,
+bringing his right hand down heavily upon the darky's shoulder, emitted
+a wild scream, absolutely terrifying in its savage ferocity. With a howl
+Neb dropped upon his knees, praying in an ecstasy of fear.
+
+"Oh, good Mister Painter, good Mister Debbil--" he began.
+
+Inasmuch as he was not devoured upon the instant, he finally ventured to
+look up and Joe laughed loudly.
+
+So great was the relief of the old negro that he did not think of anger.
+A sickly smile spread slowly on his face. "De Lawd be praised!" he said.
+"Why, hit's a man!"
+
+"Reckon I am," said Joe. "Generally pass for one." Then, although he
+knew quite well just why the man had come, from whom, for whom, he asked
+sternly to confuse him: "What _you_ doin' in these mountings?"
+
+"I's lookin' fo' my massa, young Marse Frank Layson, suh," Neb answered
+timidly.
+
+"You needn't to go fur to find him," Lorey answered bitterly. "You
+needn't to go fur to find him."
+
+The old negro looked at him, puzzled and frightened by his grim tone and
+manner.
+
+"Why--why--" he began. "Is it hereabouts he hunts fo' deer? He wrote
+home he was findin' good spo't in the mountains, huntin' deer."
+
+Joe's mouth twitched ominously, involuntarily. The mere presence of Old
+Neb, there, was another evidence of the great advantage, which, he began
+to feel with hopeless rage, the man who had stolen that thing from him
+which he prized most highly, had over him. The negro was his servant.
+Servants meant prosperity, prosperity meant power. Backwoodsman as he
+was, Joe Lorey knew that perfectly. His face gloomed in the twilight.
+
+"Yes," he answered bitterly, "it's here he has been huntin'--huntin'
+deer--the pootiest deer these mountings ever see." Of course the old
+negro did not understand the man's allusion. He was puzzled by the
+speech; but Joe went on without an explanation: "But thar is danger in
+sech huntin'. Your young master, maybe, better keep a lookout for
+his-self!"
+
+His voice trembled with intensity.
+
+In the meantime Layson was still seated thoughtfully before his fire of
+crackling "down-wood," busy with a thousand speculations. Just what
+Madge Brierly, the little mountain girl, meant to him, really, he could
+not quite determine. He knew that he had been most powerfully attracted
+to her, but he did not fail to recognize the incongruity of such a
+situation. He had never been a youth of many love-affairs. Perhaps his
+regard for horses and the "sport of kings" had kept him from much
+travelling along the sentimental paths of dalliance with the fair sex.
+Barbara Holton, back in the bluegrass country, had been almost the only
+girl whom he had ever thought, seriously, of marrying, and he had not,
+actually, spoken, yet, to her about it. When he had left the lowlands
+for the mountains he had meant to, though, when he returned. There were
+those, he thought, who believed them an affianced couple. Now he
+wondered if they ever would be, really, and if, without actually
+speaking, he had not led her to believe that he would speak. He was
+astonished at the thrill of actual fear he felt as he considered the
+mere possibility of this.
+
+The news which had been brought to him by mail that upon the morrow he
+would see the girl again, in company with his Aunt and Colonel
+Doolittle, had focussed matters in his mind. Did he really love the
+haughty, bluegrass beauty? He was far from sure of it, as he sat there
+in the little mountain-cabin, although he had been certain that he did
+when he had left the lowlands.
+
+It seemed almost absurd, even to his young and sentimental mind, that
+one in his position should have lost his heart to an uneducated girl
+like Madge, but he definitely decided that, at any rate, he had never
+loved the other girl. If it was not really love he felt for the small
+maiden of the forest-fire and spelling-book, it surely was not love he
+felt for the brilliant, showy, bluegrass girl.
+
+He was reflecting discontentedly that he did not know exactly what he
+felt or what he wanted, when he heard Joe Lorey's startling imitation of
+the panther's cry, outside, and, rising, presently, when careful
+listening revealed the fact that the less obtrusive sound of human
+voices followed what had seemed to be the weird, uncanny call of the
+wild-beast, he went to the door and opened it, so that he could better
+listen.
+
+Joe and the negro had not been in actual view of Layson's cabin, up to
+that time. A rocky corner, rising at the trail's side, had concealed it.
+Now they stepped around this and the lighted door and windows of the
+little structure stood out, despite increasing darkness, plainly in
+their view.
+
+Almost instantly old Neb recognized the silhouette of Layson's figure
+there against the fire-light from within.
+
+"Marse _Frank_!" he cried. "Marse _Frank!_"
+
+Layson, startled by the unexpected sound of the familiar voice there in
+the wilderness, rushed from the door, took Neb's trembling hand and led
+him to the cabin.
+
+"Neb, old Neb!" he cried. "By all that's wonderful! How did you get here
+alone? I thought you all were to come up to-morrow. Where is Aunt
+'Lethe, and the Colonel, and--and--"
+
+Neb, his troubles all forgotten as quickly as a child's, stood wringing
+his young master's hand with extravagant delight. Joe Lorey disappeared
+like a flitting shadow of the coming night.
+
+"Dey're all down at de railroad, suh," said Neb. "Dey're all down at de
+railroad. Got heah a day befo' dey t'ought dey would, suh, an' sent me
+on ahead to let you know. I been wanderin' aroun' fo' a long time
+a-tryin' fo' to fin' yo'. Dat teamster what gib me a lif', he tol' me
+dat de trail war cleah from whar he dropped me to yo' cabin, but I
+couldn't fin' it, suh, an' I got los'."
+
+"And the others all are waiting at the railroad for me? I was going down
+to meet them to-morrow."
+
+"Dey don't expect you till to-morrow, now, suh. Ev'rybody tol' 'em that
+you couldn't git dar till to-morrow. I reckon dey'll be com'fable. Fo'ty
+men was tryin' fo' to make 'em so when _I_ lef." The old darky laughed.
+"Looked like dat dem chaps wat's layin' out dat railroad, dar, ain't
+seen a woman's face fo' yeahs an' yeahs, de way dey flocked aroun'. Ev'y
+tent in de destruction camp war at deir suhvice in five minutes."
+
+Frank was busy at the fire with frying-pan and bacon. The old negro was
+worn out. The young man disregarded his uneasy protests and made him sit
+in comfort while he cooked a supper for him.
+
+"So you got lost! Who finally set you straight? I heard you talking,
+there, with someone."
+
+"A young pusson, suh," said Neb, with dignity. Lorey had befriended him,
+he knew, at last; but he had scared him into panic to begin with. "A
+young pusson, suh," he said, "what made me think he was a paintuh, suh,
+to staht with. Made me think he was a paintuh, suh, or else de debbil,
+wid his howlin'."
+
+Layson laughed long and heartily. "Must have been Joe Lorey," he
+surmised. "I heard that cry and thought, myself, it was a panther. He's
+the only one on earth, I guess, who can imitate the beasts so well.
+Where is he, now?'
+
+"Lawd knows! I see him dar, close by me, den I seed you in de doah, an'
+when I looked aroun' ag'in, he had plumb faded clean away!"
+
+"They're wonderful, these mountaineers, with their woods-craft."
+
+"Debbil craf, mo' like," said Neb, a bit resentful, still.
+
+Frank smiled at the thought of his dear Aunt, precise and elegant,
+compelled to spend the night in a construction camp beneath
+white-canvas.
+
+"What did Aunt 'Lethe think about a night in tents?" he asked.
+
+"Lawd," said Neb, plainly trying to gather bravery for something which
+he wished to say, "I didn't ax huh. Too busy with my worryin'."
+
+"Worrying at what, Neb?"
+
+"Oveh dat Miss Holton an' her father."
+
+"Mr. Holton didn't come, too, did he?"
+
+"No; he didn't come wid us, suh; but he met us dar down by de railroad.
+Wasn't lookin' for him, an' I guess he wasn't lookin', jus' exactly, to
+see us. But he was dar an' now he's jus' a membuh of ouah pahty, suh, as
+good as Cunnel Doolittle. Hit don't seem right to me, suh; no suh, hit
+don't seem right to me."
+
+"Why, Neb!"
+
+"An' dat Miss Barbara! She was dead sot to see you, an' Miss 'Lethe was
+compelled to ax her fo' to come along. She didn't mean to, fust off; no
+suh. But she had to, in de end. Den I war plumb beat when I saw Mister
+Holton stalkin' up dat platfohm like he owned it an' de railroad an' de
+hills, and de hull yearth. But he's bettuh heah dan down at home, Marse
+Frank. He don't _belong_ down in de bluegrass."
+
+"I'm afraid you are impertinent, Neb. Don't meddle. You always have been
+prejudiced against Barbara and her father."
+
+The old negro answered quickly, bitterly. "I ain't likely to fuhgit,"
+said he, "dat de only blow dat evuh fell upon my back was from his han'!
+I guess you rickollick as well as I do. He cotch me coon-huntin' on his
+place an' strung me up. He'd jes' skinned me dar alive if you-all hadn't
+heered my holler in' an' run in."
+
+Layson was uneasy at the turn the talk had taken. "That was years ago,
+Neb," he expostulated.
+
+"Don't seem yeahs ago to me, suh. Huh! De only blow dat evuh fell upon
+my back! But yo' snatched dat whip out of his ban' an' den yo' laid it,
+with ev'y ounce of stren'th war in yo', right acrost his face!"
+
+Layson, unwilling to be harsh with the old man and forbid him to say
+more, ostentatiously busied himself, now, about the table with the
+frying-pan and other dishes, hoping, thus, to discourage further talk of
+this sort.
+
+"No, suh," Neb went on with shaking head, "I jus' nachelly don' like
+him. Don't like _either_ of 'em. An' he, Marse Frank, he nevuh _will_
+fuhgit dat blow, an' don't you think he will!"
+
+"That's all over, long ago," said Frank, as he put the finishing touches
+on the old man's supper. "And what had Barbara to do with it? She can't
+help what her father does."
+
+Neb drew up to the table with a continuously shaking head. For months he
+had desired to speak his mind to his young master, but had never dared
+to take so great a liberty. Now the unusual circumstances they were
+placed in, the fact that he had been lost in the mountains in his
+service and half scared to death, imbued him with new boldness.
+
+"She kain't he'p what he does, suh, no," said he. "But listen, now,
+Marse Frank, to po' ol' Neb. De pizen vine hit don't b'ar peaches, an'
+nightshade berries--dey ain't hulsome, eben ef dey're pooty."
+
+"Neb, stop that!" Layson commanded sharply.
+
+The old negro half slipped from the chair in which he had been sitting
+wearily. Once he had started on the speech which he had made his mind
+up, months ago, that, some day, he would screw his courage up to, he
+would not be stopped.
+
+"Oh, honey," he exclaimed, holding out his tremulous old hands in a
+gesture of appeal, while the fire-light flickered on a face on which
+affection and real sincerity were plain, "I's watched ovuh you evuh
+sence yo' wuh a baby, an' when I see dat han'some face o' hers was
+drawin' of yo' on, it jus' nigh broke my ol' brack heaht, it did. It
+did, Marse Frank, fo' suah."
+
+The young man could not reprimand the aged negro. He knew that all he
+said came from the heart, a heart as utterly unselfish and devoted in
+its love as human heart could be.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, Neb!" he said soothingly. "Don't worry. Perhaps I did go
+just a bit too far with Barbara--young folks, you know!--but that's all
+over, now." Again he wondered most uncomfortably if this were really
+true, again his mind made its comparisons between the bluegrass girl and
+sweet Madge Brierly. "There's no danger that Woodlawn will have any
+other mistress than my dear Aunt 'Lethe for many a long year," he
+concluded rather lamely.
+
+The emotion of the ancient darky worried him. It was proof that evidence
+of a love affair with Barbara Holton had been plain to every eye, he
+thought.
+
+Neb now slid wholly from the chair and dropped upon his knees close by
+the youth he loved, grasping his hand and pressing it against his
+faithful heart.
+
+"Oh, praise de Lawd, Marse Frank; oh, praise de Lawd!" he cried.
+
+Old Neb slept with an easier heart, that night, than had throbbed in his
+old black bosom since the probability that Barbara Holton would be a
+member of the party which was to visit his young master in the
+mountains, had first begun to worry him. But long after he had found
+unconsciousness on the boughs-and-blanket bed which he had fashioned for
+himself under Frank's direction, Layson, himself, was wandering beneath
+the stars, thinking of the problem that beset him.
+
+He was sorry Barbara was coming to the mountains. Why had his Aunt
+'Lethe brought her? What would that dear lady think about Madge Brierly,
+wood-nymph, rustic phenomenon? What had Horace Holton been doing in the
+mountains, secretly, to have been surprised, discomfited as Neb had said
+he was, at sight of the Colonel, Miss 'Lethe and his daughter?
+
+But before he had finished the pipe which he had carried into the crisp
+air of the sharp mountain night for company, his thought had left the
+Holtons and were seeking (as they almost always were, these days and
+nights), his little pupil of the spelling-book, his little burden of the
+brush-fire flight. He looked across the mountain-side toward where her
+lonely cabin hid in its secluded fastness. There was a late light
+to-night ashine from its small window.
+
+"She'll like her," he murmured softly in the night. "She'll _love_ her.
+Aunt 'Lethe'll understand!"
+
+And then he wondered just exactly what it was that he felt so very
+certain his Aunt 'Lethe would be sure to understand. He did not
+understand, himself, precisely what had happened to him, his life-plans,
+heart-longings.
+
+Strolling there beneath the stars he gave no thought to poor Joe Lorey,
+until, like a night-shadow, the moonshiner stalked along the trail and
+passed him. Layson called to him good-naturedly, but the mountaineer
+gave him no heed. Frank stood, gazing after him in the soft darkness, in
+amazement. Then a quick, suspicious thrill shot through him. The man was
+bound up the steep trail toward Madge's cabin. Presently he heard him
+calling. He went slowly up the trail, himself.
+
+The girl came quickly from her cabin in answer to the shouting of the
+mountaineer.
+
+"What is it, Joe?" she asked.
+
+"I want a word with you. I've come a purpose," Lorey answered sullenly.
+
+The girl was almost frightened by his manner. She had never seen him in
+this mood; he had never come to her, alone, at night, before. "Well,
+Joe, you'll have to wait," said she. "I've got some things to do,
+to-night." Her sewing was not yet half finished.
+
+Standing on her little bridge, she held with one hand to the worn old
+rope by means of which she presently would pull it up. She did not take
+Joe very seriously; in the darkness she could not see the grim
+expression of his brow, the firm set of his jaw, the clenched hands, one
+of which was pressed against the game sack with his powerful plunder
+hidden in it. She laughed and tried to joke, for, even though she did
+not guess how serious he was, her heart had told her that some day, ere
+long, there must of stern necessity be a full understanding between her
+and the mountaineer, and that he would go from her, after it, with a
+sore heart. In the past she had not wished to marry him, but she had
+never definitely said, even to herself, that such a thing was quite
+impossible for all time to come. Now she knew that this was so, although
+she would not acknowledge, even to herself, the actual reason for this
+certainty. No; she could never marry Joe. She hoped that, he would never
+again beg her to.
+
+"Come back some other time, when I ain't quite so busy," she said trying
+to speak jokingly. "Tomorrow, or nex' week, or Crismuss."
+
+He stood gazing at her sourly. "I'll come sooner," he said slowly.
+"Sooner. An' hark ye, Madge, if that thar foreigner comes in atween us,
+I'm goin' to spile his han'some face forever!"
+
+"What nonsense you do talk!" the girl exclaimed, but her heart sank
+with apprehension as the man stalked down the path. She did not pull the
+draw-bridge up, at once, but stood there, gazing after him, disturbed.
+
+Again he met Layson, still strolling slowly on the trail, busy with
+confusing thoughts, puffing at his pipe. The mountaineer did not call
+out a greeting, but stepped out of the trail, for Frank to pass, without
+a word.
+
+"Why, Joe," said Layson, "I didn't see you. How are you?" He held out
+his hand.
+
+The mountaineer said nothing for an instant, then he straightened to his
+lank full height and held his own hand close against his side. "No," he
+said, "I can't, I can't."
+
+Layson was astonished. He peered at him. "Why, Joe!" said he; and then:
+"See here--what have I ever done to you?"
+
+Joe turned on him quickly. "Done?" he cried. "Maybe nothin', maybe
+everythin'." He paused dramatically, unconscious of the fierce
+intentness of his gaze, the lithe aggressiveness of his posture. "But I
+warns you, now--you ain't our kind! Th' mountings ain't no place for
+you. The sooner you gits out of 'em, the better it'll be fer you."
+
+Layson stood dumbfounded for a moment. Then he would have said some
+further word, but the mountaineer, his arm pressed tight against that
+old game-sack, stalked down the trail. Suddenly Layson understood.
+
+"Jealous, by Jove!" he said. "Jealous of little Madge!" Slowly he turned
+about, puffing fiercely at his pipe, his thoughts a compound of hot
+anger and compassion.
+
+Madge, filled with dread of what her disgruntled mountain suitor might
+be led to do by his black mood, had not yet re-crossed her draw-bridge,
+but was standing by it, listening intently, when she heard Layson's
+footsteps nearing. Her heart gave a great throb of real relief. She had
+not exactly feared that trouble really would come between the men,
+but--Lorey came of violent stock and his face had been dark and
+threatening.
+
+She saw Layson long before he knew that she was there.
+
+"Oh," she cried, relieved, "that you?"
+
+He hurried to her. "I thought you mountain people all went early to your
+beds," said he, and laughed, "but I met Joe Lorey on the trail and here
+you are, standing by your bridge, star-gazing."
+
+Of course she would not tell him of her worries. She took the loophole
+offered by his words and looked gravely up at the far, spangled sky.
+"Yes," said she, "they're mighty pretty, ain't they?"
+
+Layson was in abnormal mood. The prospect of his Aunt's arrival, the
+certainty that something more than he had thought had come out of his
+mountain sojourn, the fact that he was sure that he regretted Barbara
+Holton's coming, old Neb's arrival, and his raking up of ancient scores
+against the lowland maiden's father, his meeting with Joe Lorey and the
+latter's treatment of him, had wrought him to a pitch of mild
+excitement. The girl looked most alluring as she stood there in the
+moonlight.
+
+"My friends are in the valley and are coming up to-morrow," he said to
+her. "Do you know that this may be the last time I shall ever see you
+all alone?"
+
+She gasped. He had not hinted at a thing like that before. "You ain't
+going back with them, are you?" she asked, her voice a little tremulous
+from the shock of the surprise. "You ain't going back with them--never
+to come hyar no more, are you?"
+
+He stepped nearer to her. "Why, little one," he asked, "would you care?"
+
+"Care?" she said with thrilling voice, and then, gaining better
+self-control, tried to appear indifferent. "Why should I?" she said
+lightly. "I ain't nothin' to you and you ain't nothin' to me."
+
+His heart denied her words. "Don't say that!" he cried. "You don't know
+how dear you've grown to me." He stepped toward her with his arms
+outstretched. He almost reached her and he knew, and she knew,
+instinctively, that if he had he would have kissed her.
+
+[Illustration: "NO MAN CAN CROSS THIS BRIDGE, UNLESS--UNLESS,--"]
+
+She shrank back like a startled fawn, when his foot was almost on the
+bridge that spanned the chasm between them and her cabin.
+
+"Don't you dare to touch me!" she said fiercely.
+
+She sped back upon the little bridge, and, when he would have followed,
+held her hand up with a gesture of such native dignity, offended
+womanhood, that he stopped where he was, abashed.
+
+"No--no, sir; you can't cross this bridge," said she. "No man ever can,
+unless--unless--"
+
+Almost sobbing, now, she left the sentence incomplete; and then: "Oh,
+you wouldn't dared act so to a bluegrass girl! But I know what's right
+as well as them. It don't take no book-learnin' to tell me as how a kiss
+like that you planned for me would be a sign that really you care for me
+no more than for the critters that you hunt an' kill for pastime up hyar
+among the mountings."
+
+He would have given much if he had never done the foolish thing. He
+stood there with lowered eyes, bent head, abashed, discomfited.
+
+"An' I 'lowed you were my friend!" said she.
+
+Now he looked up at her and spoke out impulsively: "And so I am, Madge,
+really! I was ... wrong. Forgive me!"
+
+She dropped her hands with a weary change of manner. "Well, I reckon I
+will," said she. "You've been too kind and good for me to bear a grudge
+ag'in you; but ... but ... Well, maybe I had better say good-night."
+
+She walked slowly back across the bridge without another word, pulled
+on its rope and raised it, made the rope fast and slowly disappeared
+within her little cabin.
+
+"Poor child!" said he, and turned away. "I was a brute to wound her."
+
+As he went down the trail, darkening, now, as the moon slid behind the
+towering mountain back of him, his heart was in a tumult. "After all,"
+he reflected, "education isn't everything. All the culture in the world
+wouldn't make her more sincere and true. She has taught _me_ a lesson I
+shan't soon forget."
+
+His thoughts turned, then, to the girl who would come up with the party
+on the following day.
+
+"I--wonder! Was there ever, really, a time when I loved Barbara?... If
+so, that time has gone, now, never to return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+His visitors took Layson by surprise, next morning. They had started
+from the valley long before he had supposed they would.
+
+Holton saw him first and nudged his daughter, who was with him. They
+were well ahead of Miss Alathea and the Colonel, who had been unable to
+keep up with them upon the final sharp ascent of the foot-journey from
+the wagon-road. The old man grinned unpleasantly. He had rather vulgar
+manners, often annoying to his daughter, who had had all the advantages
+which, in his rough, mysterious youth, he had been denied.
+
+"Thar he is, Barb; thar he is," he said, not loudly. Miss Alathea and
+the Colonel, following close behind, were a restraint on him.
+
+The girl's face was full of eagerness as she saw the man they sought. He
+was busy polishing a gun, but that his thoughts were occupied with
+something less mechanical and not wholly pleasant the slight frown upon
+his face made evident. "Mr. Layson! Frank!" she cried.
+
+The young man turned, on hearing her, and hurried toward her and her
+father with his hands outstretched in welcome. He was not overjoyed to
+have the old man visit him, just then; he was even doubtful of the
+welcome which his heart had for the daughter; but he was a southerner
+and in the gentle-born southerner real hospitality is quite instinctive.
+
+"Mr. Holton--Barbara," said he. "I am delighted. Welcome to the
+mountains." He grasped their hands in hearty greeting. "But where are
+Aunt Alathea and the Colonel?"
+
+Holton tried to be as cordial as his host. That he was very anxious to
+appear agreeable was evident. "Oh, them slow-pokes?" he said, laughing.
+"We didn't wait for them. We pushed on ahead. We reckoned as you would
+be glad to see us."
+
+"And so I am."
+
+"One in particular, maybe," Holton answered, with a crude attempt at
+badinage. He glanced archly from the young man to his daughter.
+
+"Father!" she exclaimed, a bit annoyed, and yet not too unwilling that
+the fact that she and Layson were acknowledged sweethearts should be at
+once established.
+
+"Oh, I ain't been blind," said Holton, gaily, going much farther than
+she wished him to. "I've cut _my_ eye-teeth!"
+
+Then he turned to Layson with an awkward lightness. "Barbara told me
+what passed between you two young folks afore you come up to the
+mountings," he explained. And then, with further elephantine airyness:
+"I say, jest excuse me--reckon I'm in the way." He made a move as if to
+hurry off.
+
+Layson was not pleased. The old man was annoying, always, and now, after
+the long revery of the night before about Madge Brierly, this attitude
+was doubly disconcerting. "Not at all, Mr. Holton," he said, somewhat
+hastily. "I'm sure we'd rather you'd remain. Are you sure the others are
+all right?"
+
+"Close behind us."
+
+"I'll go and make sure that they do not lose their way."
+
+Holton looked at his daughter in a blank dismay after the youth had
+started down the hill. "I say, gal," said he, "there's somethin' wrong
+here!"
+
+She was inclined to blame him for the deep discomforture she felt. "Why
+couldn't you let us alone?" she answered angrily. "You've spoiled
+everything!"
+
+The old man looked at her, with worry on his face. "Didn't you tell me
+'t was as good as settled? You said you were dead sure he meant to make
+you his wife."
+
+She was still petulant, blaming him for Layson's unexpected lack of
+warmth. "Yes, but you needn't have interfered!"
+
+Holton was intensely puzzled, worried, almost frightened. He was as
+anxious to have this young man for a son-in-law as his daughter was to
+have him for a husband. Her marriage into such a celebrated bluegrass
+family as the Laysons were, would firmly fix her social status, no
+matter how precarious it might be now, and the match would be of great
+advantage to him in a business way, as well. He stood there, thinking
+deeply, very much displeased.
+
+"There's somethin' more nor me has come between you," he said finally,
+his face flushing with a deep resentment. "I tell you, gal, what I
+believed at first, deep in my heart, air true. He was only triflin' with
+you. Them aristocrats down in the bluegrass don't hold us no better than
+the dust beneath their feet, even if we have got money. It's _family_
+that counts with them. Didn't he lay his whip acrost my face, once, as
+if I was a nigger?" His wrath was rising. "And now he shows that he was
+only triflin' with you with no real intentions of doin' as we thought he
+would!" The man was tremulous with wrath. "Oh, I'll be even with him!"
+
+Barbara was greatly worried by the situation. All her life, despite the
+fact that she was beautiful, despite the fact that her father was a rich
+man--richer, by a dozen times, than many of the people for whose
+friendship she longed vainly--she had vaguely felt that there was an
+invisible gulf between her and the girls with whom she came in contact
+at the exclusive schools to which she had been sent, between her and
+the gentlefolk with whom, in some measure, she had mixed since she had
+left school-walls. "Father," she asked anxiously, "why do people look
+down on us so?"
+
+He faced her with a worried look, as if he feared that she might guess
+at something which he wished should remain hidden. "They say I made my
+money tradin' in niggers," he replied, at length. "Well, what of it?
+Didn't I have the right?"
+
+"Are you sure there's nothing else?"
+
+He seemed definitely startled. "Girl, what makes you ask?"
+
+"Because sometimes memories come to me."
+
+"Memories of what?"
+
+"Of--my childhood," she said slowly, "of passes among
+mountains--mountains much like these."
+
+He regarded her uneasily. "Oh, sho, gal!" he exclaimed, trying to make
+light of it. "Reckon you've been dreamin'. You were never hyar before."
+
+But she looked about her, unconvinced, and, when she spoke, spoke
+slowly, evidently trying to recall with definite clarity certain things
+which flitted through her mind as vague impressions only. "Why does
+everything seem so familiar, here, then, as if I had just wakened in my
+true surroundings after a long sleep in which I had had dreams?" There
+was, suddenly, a definite accusation in her eyes. "Father, you are
+trying to deceive me! I was once a child, here in these very
+mountains!" She stared about intently.
+
+The speech had an amazing effect on the old man. He stepped close to
+her. "Hush!" said he, imperatively. "Don't you dare speak such a word
+ag'in!"
+
+She peered into his eyes. "There _is_ a secret, then! We lived here,
+long ago!"
+
+"Stop, I tell you!" he commanded. "Don't hint at such things, for your
+life." He dropped his voice to hoarse whisper. "Suppose I did live hyar,
+once. I was a smooth-faced youngster, then; my own mother wouldn't know
+me, now."
+
+The sound of voices coming up the mountain-trail interrupted the
+dramatic scene.
+
+"Sh!" said he. "They're comin'!"
+
+Frank was piloting his Aunt and Colonel Doolittle. "This way, Aunt
+'Lethe," they could hear him say.
+
+An instant later he appeared, leading the way up the steep trail. His
+Aunt, Neb and the Colonel followed him.
+
+"Now, Aunt 'Lethe," he said gaily, "you can rest at last. Colonel, I can
+welcome you in earnest. This is, indeed, a pleasure."
+
+The Colonel was puffing fiercely from the hard work of the climb, but
+his broad face glowed with pleasure. He took a long, full breath of the
+exhilerating mountain air. "Pleasure? It's a derby-day, sir,
+metaphorically speaking." As he rested he eyed the youngster with
+approval. "Frank," said he, "you've grown to be the very image of my old
+friend, Judge Layson. Ah, five years have made their changes in us
+all--except Miss 'Lethe." He bowed gallantly in her direction, and she
+gaily answered the salute.
+
+Barbara advanced, enthusiastically, looking at the Colonel with arch
+envy in her eyes. "Five years you've been in Europe, surrounded by the
+nobility. Oh, Colonel, what happiness!"
+
+He shook his head. "Happiness away from old Kentucky, surrounded by a
+lot of numb-skulls who couldn't mix a fancy drink to save their lives,
+who know nothing of that prismatic, rainbow-hued fountain of youth, a
+mint-julep? Ah!"
+
+"But, Colonel," said the girl, "the masterpieces of art!"
+
+"Give me," said he, "the masterpieces of Mother Nature--the bright-eyed,
+rose-cheeked, cherry-lipped girls of old Kentucky!"
+
+There was a general laugh. The Colonel's gallantry was ever-blooming.
+Frank applauded and the ladies bowed.
+
+"By the way, Frank," said the Colonel, after they had been made
+comfortable in a merry group before the cabin-door, "where is that
+particular masterpiece of Nature which you've written us so much about?
+Where is the--Diana?"
+
+Miss Alathea smiled at her somewhat worried nephew. "The 'phenomenon,'"
+said she.
+
+"According to Neb, who told us of her as we worked up that steep
+trail," said Barbara, "the 'deer.'" She laughed, not too good naturedly
+Neb, who was standing waiting orders near, grinned broadly.
+
+"Neb, you rascal!" exclaimed Frank.
+
+"Come, where is she, Frank; where is she?" asked the Colonel.
+
+The youth was not too much embarrassed, but he gave a quick, side-glance
+at Barbara. "She is probably getting ready to receive you," he replied.
+"I told her I expected you and she's been very much excited over it."
+
+"Adding to nature's charms the mysteries of art," the Colonel said,
+approvingly. "We shall expect to be overwhelmed. And, meantime, while
+we're waiting, we might as well explain to you the business which has
+brought us up here."
+
+His face showed him to be the bearer of good news. He rose, excitedly,
+and went to Frank, to put his hand upon his shoulder. "Now, my boy, keep
+cool, keep cool! I tell you, Frank, it's the biggest thing out. It'll
+make a millionaire of you as sure as Fate before the next five years
+have passed!"
+
+Layson was taken wholly by surprise. No one had in the least prepared
+him for anything of this sort. He had supposed the party had come up to
+see him merely for the pleasure of the trip. "I don't understand," said
+he.
+
+"Keep cool, keep cool!" the Colonel urged. "It is colossal,
+metaphorically. You see, I was over there in Europe, promoting a South
+American mine, when I happened to see in a Kentucky paper that the
+Georgetown Midland was to be put through these mountains near the land
+your father bought. That land, my boy, is rich in coal and iron!"
+
+The young man's face shone with delight. "He always said so!" he
+exclaimed. "I meant, sometime, to investigate."
+
+"I've saved you the trouble. I came back on the next steamer, organized
+a syndicate in New York City, sent an expert out to carefully look into
+things, and, on his report, a company is willing to put in a $200,000
+plant to develop your land. All you've got to do is to take $25,000
+worth of stock and let your coal-land stand for as much more."
+
+The youth's face fell. "Twenty-five thousand dollars!" he exclaimed.
+"Why, Colonel, I have not one fifth of it!"
+
+"Ah," said the Colonel, smiling, "but here, like a good angel, comes in
+your dear Aunt 'Lethe!" He smiled at her. "Isn't it so, Miss 'Lethe?"
+
+Frank spoke up quickly. "Surely," he exclaimed to her as she advanced
+toward him, with smiles, "you know I'd never take your money!"
+
+"You must, Frank," she insisted. "The Colonel says it is the chance of a
+lifetime."
+
+"Why, Auntie, it's your whole fortune. I wouldn't risk it."
+
+"But you could pay it all back in a month."
+
+"How?" he asked, not understanding in the least.
+
+"By selling Queen Bess."
+
+He flinched. The thought had not occurred to him. "Sell Queen Bess!"
+said he. "The prettiest, the fastest mare in all Kentucky! Never!"
+
+"My boy," said the Colonel, "the odds are far too heavy--a million
+against the mare. You can't stand 'em."
+
+"Oh, Frank," said his Aunt, impulsively, "if you'll only take the money
+and give up racing!"
+
+He laughed. Miss Alathea's strong prejudice against the race-tracks was
+proverbial. "So that's what you're after!" he exclaimed. "You dear old
+schemer!"
+
+"With your impulsive, generous nature, racing is sure to ruin you."
+
+The Colonel looked first at Frank with ardent sympathy aglow in his
+eyes; then, after a hasty glance at Miss Alathea, he quickly changed the
+meaning of his look and spoke admonishingly. "The voice of wisdom!" he
+exclaimed. "Ah, Frank, from what I hear I judge you're too much of a
+plunger--like a young fellow I once knew who thought he could win a
+fortune on the race-track." He began, now, to speak very seriously. "He
+was in love with the prettiest and sweetest girl in old Kentucky, but
+he wished to wait till he could get that fortune, and he chased it here
+and there, looking for it mostly on the race-tracks, until he had more
+grey hairs than he had ever hoped to have dollars; he chased it till his
+dream of happiness had slipped by, perhaps forever. My boy, the
+race-track is a delusion and a snare."
+
+Miss Alathea looked at him with pleased surprise. "Colonel, your
+sentiments astonish and delight me."
+
+"How can you refuse," the Colonel said, "when such a woman asks? For one
+who loves you, you should give those pleasures up without a pang."
+
+In the pause that followed he reflected on the history of the youth to
+whom he had referred, for that young man was himself. He had loved Miss
+Alathea twenty years, but the Goddess Chance had kept him, all that
+time, too poor to ask her hand in marriage. His heart beat with elation
+as he realized that, possibly, the scheme which he had come there to the
+mountains to propose to Frank, might remedy the evils of the situation.
+
+Frank had been thinking deeply. "But what certainty is there," he
+inquired, "that I can sell Queen Bess at such a price?"
+
+Now the Colonel spoke with animation. "Absolute. I've a written offer
+from the Dyer brothers to take her for twenty-five thousand dollars, if
+she is delivered, safe and sound, on the morning she's to run in the
+Ashland Oaks. It's a dead sure thing, my boy. You can't refuse."
+
+The young man hesitated, still. "I'll investigate, and--well, I'll see."
+He walked away, deep in thought.
+
+The Colonel turned from him to Miss Alathea. "Miss 'Lethe, congratulate
+yourself. The victory is won."
+
+Frank turned upon his heel and spoke to Holton. "What do you think of
+this investment?" he inquired.
+
+"Wal," said Holton, "I think it's a blamed good thing. I'd only like the
+chance to go into it, myself." He went closer to the youth and spoke in
+an instinctively low tone. "By the way, this gal, hyar, Madge Brierly,
+owns fifty acres o' land down there in the valley, that's bound to be
+wuth money. Like enough, with your help, I could buy it for a song. I'll
+make it all right with you. What do you say? Is it a bargain, Layson?"
+He held out his hand, evidently with no thought but that the
+questionable offer would be snapped up at once.
+
+Layson drew back angrily. "No," he replied.
+
+Holton, seeing that he had made a serious mistake, tried to correct it.
+"Oh, shucks, now! I didn't mean no harm. That's only business."
+
+Layson was intensely angered. "I won't waste words on you," he said,
+"but think twice before you make me such a proposition again."
+
+Holton's wrath rose vividly. "Damn him!" he muttered as he walked away.
+"I'll pay him back for that! I'll get that gal's land in spite of him,
+and I won't stop at that. I'll pay him back for ... everythin'! I'll
+teach him what it air to stir the hate o' hell in a man's heart!"
+
+Barbara, distressed anew by this unpleasant episode, had started to go
+after him, when the weird cry of an owl, a long drawn, tremulous:
+"Hoo-oo-oo!" came from somewhere in the forest, close at hand. It
+startled her. "Heavens!" said she. "What's that?"
+
+Neb, who also had been startled at the first penetrating, weird call,
+bethought himself, now, and answered her: "It's de deah."
+
+"The phenomenon!" exclaimed Miss Alathea.
+
+"The Diana!" said the Colonel, looking at Frank slyly.
+
+"Yes; she's coming," Frank said gaily, and then, looking down the path,
+started violently. "Heavens, she's coming!"
+
+The Colonel, who also had looked down the path, hurriedly approached
+him, feigning worry. "Frank, I haven't got 'em again, have I?"
+
+Madge approached them slowly in the quaint, old-fashioned costume she
+had resurrected from the chests of her dead mother's finery and re-made,
+very crudely, in accordance with the fashion-plates which she had found
+down at the cross-roads store. The result of her contriving was a
+startling mixture of fashions widely separated as to periods. Her
+untutored taste had mixed colors clashingly. Her unskilled fingers had
+sewed very bunchy seams.
+
+The girl was much embarrassed: it required the last ounce of her bravery
+to advance. Before she actually reached the little group, she half hid,
+indeed, behind a tree. It was from this shelter that she called her
+greeting: "Howdy, folks, howdy!"
+
+Frank went toward her with an outstretched hand. "Come, Madge," said he,
+encouragingly.
+
+"Reckon I'll have to," she assented, with a bashful smile and took a
+step or two reluctantly. But she had never seen folk dressed at all as
+were these visitors from the famed bluegrass, and her courage again
+faltered. Instantly she realized how wholly her own efforts to be
+elegant had failed. She hung back awkwardly, pathetically.
+
+"Don't be nervous, Madge; just be yourself," Frank urged her.
+
+"Free and easy? Well, I'll try; but I'm skeered enough to make me wild
+and reckless."
+
+Frank led her forward, while she made a mighty effort to accept the
+situation coolly. "These are my friends, Madge. Let me introduce you."
+
+She got some grip upon herself and smiled. "Ain't no need. Know 'em all
+by your prescription." With a mighty effort she approached the Colonel.
+"Colonel Sandusky Doolittle, howdy!"
+
+The Colonel was delighted. Her knowledge of his name was flattering. He
+had forgotten her strange costume the moment his glance had caught her
+wonderful, deep eyes. "Howdy, howdy!" he said heartily, shaking her hand
+vigorously. "Why, this is real Kentucky style!" It won't take _us_ long
+to get acquainted."
+
+"Know all about you now," she said. "Great hossman. Colonel, I'll have a
+race with you, sometime."
+
+"What, you ride?" said the delighted Colonel.
+
+"Ride! Dellaw!" said she, with, now, unembarrassed animation. The
+subject was that one, of all, which made her most quickly forget
+everything beside. "Why, me and my pony takes to racin' like a pig to
+carrots. Before he lamed himself, whenever th' boys heard us clatterin'
+down th' mounting, they laid to race us back. Away we went, then,
+clickity-clip, up th' hills and around th' curves--an' I allus won."
+
+The Colonel realized with a great joy that he had found a kindred
+spirit. "Shake again!" he said to her, after further most congenial
+talk, and then turned to Frank. "My boy, you're right. She _is_ a
+phenomenon--a thoroughbred, even if she hasn't any pedigree."
+
+Up to this time the ladies had remained somewhat in the background,
+watching the young mountain girl as the Colonel drew her out.
+
+Madge now turned to Frank, but looked at Barbara. "Is that the young
+lady from the bluegrass?" The girl was hurt and really offended by the
+stranger's aloof manner. "Looks like she can't see common folks."
+
+"That is Miss Barbara." He led the mountain girl toward her. "Barbara,
+this is my friend--er--Madge." He was, himself, a little disconcerted.
+
+The maiden from the lowlands bowed, but said no word. For an instant
+Madge shrank back, but then she advanced with an unusual boldness. Her
+spirit was aroused.
+
+"Howdy, Miss Barbarous, howdy!" she exclaimed and held her hand out to
+the handsomely dressed girl.
+
+But Miss Barbara was annoyed by the whole happening. She felt that this
+uncultivated country girl was getting far too much attention. The
+child's unconscious pun upon her name infuriated her. She did not answer
+her, but raised a lorgnette and stared at her.
+
+Madge was ready with an instant sympathy. "Oh, that's why you couldn't
+see, poor thing! Spectacles at your age!" Whether she really thought
+this was the case, not even Frank could tell by looking at her.
+
+Miss Holton was incensed. The haughty treatment she had planned to, give
+the mountain girl had not had the results she had expected. "There's
+nothing whatever the matter with my eyes!" she exclaimed hastily.
+
+"Wouldn't think you'd need a machine to help you star-gaze at folks,
+then," said the mountain girl. "But maybe it's the fashion in the
+bluegrass."
+
+Frank hurried up with Holton, planning a diversion. "This is Mr. Holton,
+Madge."
+
+"Howdy, sir," said she, and then started in astonishment. "Ain't I seen
+your face before, sir?"
+
+"Wal, I reckon not," said Holton most uneasily. "I was never hyar in
+these hyar mountings afore."
+
+She stepped closer to him, gazing straight at his grey eyes. They seemed
+strangely to recall the very distant past, she knew not how. There were
+other things about him which seemed much more immediately familiar,
+although his more elaborate garb prevented her, for the moment, from
+recognizing him as the stranger with the hammer, who had, that day of
+the forest-fire, been tap-tapping on the rocks upon her pasture-land.
+"Your eyes seem to bring something back." She plainly paled. She knew
+that their suggestion was a dreadful one, but could not make it
+definite.
+
+Miss Alathea noted her agitation instantly, and hurried to her side.
+"Poor child, what is the matter?"
+
+Madge had regained control of her features, which, for an instant, had
+shown plain horror. "Tain't nothin', ma'am. It couldn't be. It's all
+over now." She smiled gratefully at Miss Alathea. "An' you're his aunt,
+ain't you? I'd know you for his kin, anywhere. Why, somehow, you remind
+me of my lost mother."
+
+"Thank you, my dear. You must be very lonely, up here all alone."
+
+"I am, sometimes," said the girl, "but I have lots of fun, too. The
+woods are full of friends. Th' birds an' squirrels ain't afraid o' me.
+They seem to think I'm a wild thing, like 'em."
+
+"It's true," said Frank, with an admiring, cheering look at the little
+country girl. "Their confidence in her is wonderful."
+
+The bluegrass girl's annoyance was increasing. She had come up to the
+mountains thinking that, among such crude surroundings, her gowns and
+the undoubted beauty they adorned, would hold the center of the stage,
+and by contrast, hold Layson quite enthralled; but here, instead, was a
+brown-faced country maid in grotesque, homemade costume, attracting most
+of his attention. She was conscious that by showing her discomfiture she
+was not strengthening her own position, but she could not hide it, could
+not curb her tongue.
+
+"A rider of races," said she; "a tamer of animals! What accomplishments!
+Do you actually live here, all alone?"
+
+"Come," said Madge, determined to be pleasant, "and I'll show you." She
+led the bluegrass girl to a convenient point from which her cabin was in
+sight.
+
+"In that little hut!" said Barbara, not impressed as Madge had
+innocently thought she would be. "Shocking!"
+
+The girl was angered, now. "So sorry I didn't have your opinion afore!
+But, maybe, you wouldn't think it were so awful, if you knowed how
+'twere I come to live there."
+
+Frank had written something of the poor girl's tragic story to his aunt.
+She was all interest. "Won't you tell us, please?" she asked.
+
+Holton seemed to show a strange disinclination to listen to the
+narrative. "Ain't got no time for stories," he objected. "Gettin' late."
+
+"We'll take time, then," said Frank.
+
+"Go on, little one," urged Colonel Doolittle. "We're listening."
+
+Impressed and touched by the sympathy in the horseman's tone and the
+interest in Miss Alathea's eyes, Madge told with even greater force and
+more effect than when she had related it to Layson the story of the
+tragedy which had robbed her at a blow of father and of mother, the
+black, dreadful tale of merciless assassination which had left her
+orphaned in the mountains. Her audience attended, spellbound, even the
+disgruntled and unsympathetic Barbara listening with unwilling
+fascination. Only Holton turned away, with a gesture of impatience. He
+plainly did not wish to waste time on the girl. Or was it that? He
+seemed to be uneasy as he walked to and fro upon the rock-ledge near
+them, whence, had he cared for it, he could have had a gorgeous view of
+mountain scenery. But, although he said, as plainly as he could without
+actual rudeness, that the girl and her sad tale of tragedy were not
+worth attention, he was not successful in his efforts wholly to refuse
+to listen to her.
+
+"Infamous!" said Miss Alathea, when the child had finished.
+
+"And that scoundrel has gone free!" exclaimed the Colonel, in disgust.
+
+"_That's_ how I come to live alone, here," Madge went on, addressing
+Barbara, particularly. The girl had made her feel it necessary to offer
+some defense. "After my mammy died I didn't have no place to go, an' so
+I just stayed on here, an' th' bridge my daddy built for his protection
+I have kept for mine. Maybe he has told you of it." She indicated Frank.
+They nodded.
+
+"And nothing has been heard of the infernal traitor, all these years?"
+the Colonel asked.
+
+"He left the mountings when he found how folks was feelin'--they'd have
+shot him, like a dog, on sight. But it don't make no differ where he
+goes; it don't make a bit of differ where he goes."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" the Colonel asked, and as he spoke, Holton,
+suddenly intent, paused in his pacing of the ledge to listen.
+
+"I mean, no matter where he goes he'll have to pay for it, come soon,
+come late. Th' day air sure to come when Joe, Ben Lorey's son, 'll meet
+him face to face an' make him answer for his crime!"
+
+"God-speed to him!" exclaimed the Colonel, fervently.
+
+Madge, in a gesture full of drama, although quite unconscious, raised
+her head, looking off into the vastness of the mountains, her hands
+thrust straight down at her sides and clenched, her shoulders squared,
+her chest heaving with a mighty intake. The little mountain-girl, as she
+stood there, thrilling with her longing for revenge, with prayers that
+some day the sinner might be punished for his dreadful crime, made an
+impressive figure.
+
+"Come soon or late!" she sighed. "Come soon or late!"
+
+The party watched her, fascinated, till Holton took his daughter's arm
+and urged her, uneasily, out of the little group.
+
+Later Madge asked the Colonel to go with her to the pasture lot and take
+a look at Little Hawss. Gladly he went with her, tenderly this expert in
+Kentucky racers, the finest horses in the world, examined the shaggy
+little pony's hoof. He told Madge what to do for him and promised to
+send up a lotion with which to bathe the injured foot, although he
+gently warned her that she must not hope that Little Hawss would ever do
+much racing up and down the mountain trails again. She choked, when he
+said this, and the horseman's heart went out to her.
+
+"Little one," said the Colonel, as the party was preparing to go down
+the mountain, "you're a thoroughbred, and Colonel Sandusky Doolittle is
+your friend from the word 'go.'" He took her hand in his and smiled down
+into her eyes.
+
+Then, turning to Miss 'Lethe: "Do you know, Miss 'Lethe, there's
+something about this little girl that puts me in mind of you, when I
+first met you? You remember?"
+
+"Ah, Colonel, that was twenty years ago--the day I was eighteen."
+
+"And I was twenty-five. Now I'm forty-five and you--"
+
+"Colonel!"
+
+"Are still eighteen.' He bowed, impressively, with that charming,
+gallant smile which was peculiar to him.
+
+"Aren't you going down with us, Frank?" asked Barbara, looking at the
+youth with plain surprise when she noted that he lingered when she and
+her father were ready for the start.
+
+"I wish to speak to Madge, a moment. I'll overtake you."
+
+The bluegrass beauty looked at him, wrath blazing in her eyes, then
+turned away with tossing head.
+
+"Good-bye," said Madge, and held her hand out to her.
+
+Barbara paid no attention to the small, brown hand, but, instead, opened
+her parasol almost in the face of the astonished mountain-girl, who
+jumped back, startled. "Oh, very well," said Barbara to Frank.
+
+Madge turned to him, the softness of the mood engendered by her talk
+with the Colonel and Miss 'Lethe all gone, now. Her face was flushed
+with anger. "Dellaw!" said she. "Thought she was goin' to shoot!"
+
+Now Barbara spoke haughtily. "Good afternoon, Miss Madge. You have
+entertained us wonderfully, wonderfully."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was late on an afternoon several days after the party from the
+bluegrass had gone down from the mountains when Layson, with a letter of
+great import in his pocket sought Madge Brierly.
+
+He was very happy, as, a short time before he reached her isolated
+cabin, he stepped out to the edge of that same ledge where Horace Holton
+had found the view too full of memories for comfort, to look off across
+the lovely valley spread before, below him. There were no memories of
+struggle and bloodshed to arise between him and that view and for a time
+he gloried in it with that bounding, pulsating appreciation which can
+come to us in youth alone, as his eyes swept the fair prospect of wooded
+slope and rugged headland, stream-ribbon, mountain-meadow, billowy
+forest. Then, with a deep breath of the wondrous air of the old
+Cumberlands, which added a physical exhileration almost intoxicating to
+the pleasure of the thoughts which filled his mind, he went slowly up
+the rugged twisting path to Madge's cabin. There, standing by the
+bridge he called, and, presently, the girl appeared.
+
+He smiled at her. He did not wish to tell her, too quickly, of the news
+the letter held.
+
+The girl was still full of the visit and the visitors. They had seemed
+to her, reared as she had been in the rough seclusion of the mountains,
+like denizens of another, wondrously fine world, come to glimpse her in
+her crude one, for a few hours, and then gone back to their own glorious
+abiding place.
+
+She did not admit it to herself, but they had left behind them
+discontent with the life she knew, her lack of education, almost
+everything with which, in days gone by, she had been so satisfied.
+
+Layson, watching her as she approached, was tempted to enjoy her as she
+was, for a few minutes, before telling her the news which, young and
+inexperienced as he was, he yet knew, instinctively, would change her
+for all time.
+
+"Well," he said, "how did you like them, Madge?"
+
+The girl sat upon a stump and looked off across the valley. Her hands
+were clasped upon one knee, as she reflected, the fading sunlight
+touched her hair with sheening brilliance, her eyes, at first, were
+dreamy, happy.
+
+"Oh, I loved your aunt!" said she. "She made me think of my own
+mammy.... She made me think of my own mammy."
+
+"And she was quite as much in love with you."
+
+"Was she?... And Cunnel Doolittle! Ain't he _splendid_? And how he do
+know hosses! Wouldn't I _love_ to see some of them races that he told
+about? Wouldn't I love to have a chance to learn how to become a lady
+like your aunt? She's just the sweetest thing that ever lived."
+
+"And ... and ... Miss Barbara?" said Layson, with a little mischief in
+his wrinkling eyelids.
+
+The girl shrugged herself together haughtily upon her stump. He had seen
+lowlands girls use almost the same gesture when, in drawing-rooms, some
+topic had come up which they did not wish to talk about.
+
+"Huh! Her!" said Madge and would have changed the subject had he let
+her.
+
+"Really?" he asked, wickedly. "Didn't you like her?"
+
+"I ain't sayin' much," said Madge, "because she's different from me, has
+had more chance, is better dressed, knows more from books an' so on, an'
+it might seem like I was plumb jealous of her. Maybe I am, too. But,
+dellaw! Her with her pollysol! When she opened it that way at me I
+thought it war a gun an' she war goin' to fire! Maybe I ain't had no
+learnin' in politeness, but it seems to me I would a been a little more
+so, just the same, if I'd been in her place. She don't like me, she
+don't, an' I--why, I just _hates_ her! Her with her ombril up, an' not a
+cloud in sight!"
+
+Layson looked at her and laughed. The letter in his pocket made it seem
+probable that she would not need, in future, to submit to such
+humiliations as the bluegrass girl had put upon her, so his merriment
+could not be counted cruel.
+
+"Jealous of her?" he inquired, quizzically.
+
+She sat in deep thought for a moment and then frankly said: "I reckon
+so; a leetle, teeny mite. Maybe it has made me mean in thinkin' of her,
+ever since."
+
+"You're honest, anyway," said he, "and I shall tell you something that
+will comfort you. She was as jealous of you as you were of her."
+
+"_She_ was!" the girl exclaimed, incredulous, surprised. "Of _me_?"
+You're crazy, ain't you?"
+
+"Not a bit."
+
+"What have _I_ got to make _her_ jealous?"
+
+"A lot of things. You've beauty such as hers will never be--"
+
+"Dellaw!" said Madge, incredulously. She had no knowledge of her own
+attractiveness. "Don't you start in makin' fun o' me."
+
+"I'm not making fun of you. You're very beautiful--my aunt said so, the
+Colonel said so, and _I've_ known it, all along."
+
+No one had ever said a thing like this to her, before. She looked keenly
+at him, weighing his sincerity. When she finally decided that he really
+meant what he had said, she breathed a long sigh of delight.
+
+"They said that I--was _beautiful_!"
+
+"They did, and, little girl, you are; and you have more than beauty. You
+have health and strength such as a bluegrass girl has never had in all
+the history of women."
+
+"Oh, yes," said she, "I'm strong an' well--but--but--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"But what?" she quoted bitterly. "But I ain't got no eddication. What
+does strength and what does what you tell me is my beauty count, when I
+ain't got no eddication? Why--why--I looked plumb _foolish_ by the side
+of her! You think I don't know that my talk sounds rough as rocks
+alongside hers, ripplin' from her lips as smooth as water? You think I
+don't know that I looked like a scare-crow in all them clo'es I had
+fixed up so careful, when she come on with her gowns made up for her by
+_dressmakers_? Why--why--I never _see_ a dressmaker in all my life! I
+never even see one!"
+
+"Well," said he, and looked at her with a slow smile, "there probably
+will be no reason why you may not see as many as you like, in years to
+come,"
+
+She was amazed. "This some sort o' joke?"
+
+"No, Madge. How would you like to be rich?"
+
+"Me?... Rich? Oh ... oh, I'd like it. _Then_ I could go down in th'
+bluegrass, study, l'arn, an'--I could do a heap o' good aroun' hyar,
+too" She sighed. "But thar never was nobody rich in these hyar mountings
+an' I reckon thar never will be."
+
+"Perhaps you may be," said the youth, and there was a serious quality in
+his voice which made her start and then lean forward on her stump to
+gaze at him with searching, eager eyes.
+
+"Your land down in the valley," he went on, "may contain coal and iron
+enough to give you a fortune. Now there are bad men in this world, and I
+want you to promise me to sell it to nobody without first coming to me
+for advice."
+
+"Promise?" said the girl, the wonder all ashine in her big eyes. "In
+course I'll promise that. But is there r'ally a chance of it?"
+
+"There really is."
+
+"Oh, if I only knowed, for shore! Seems like I couldn't wait!"
+
+"You shall know, to-night, or, maybe, sooner. I have the engineers
+report, but I must study it out carefully and make sure what boundaries
+he means. I'm almost certain they include your land. As soon as I find
+out I'll come back here and call to you and let you know."
+
+"I reckon you won't have to call! I'll be watchin' for you every
+minute."
+
+"Well, I'm off. But remember what I said about letting anyone buy any of
+your land from you. Don't sell an inch, don't give an option at
+whatever price, to anyone without consulting me."
+
+When he had left, the girl still sat there, dreaming on her stump after
+she had watched him out of sight.
+
+The news that she might become rich had stirred her deeply for a moment,
+but, soon she wondered if riches, really, would mean everything, and
+decided that they would not.
+
+"Somehow," she mused, "somehow I don't care much about it, not
+unless--unless--oh, I can't think of nothin' in th' world but him! An'
+he says he's goin' to go away, never to return no more!... Other folks
+has gone away, afore, but it didn't seem to hurt my heart like this. I
+wonder what is ailin' me."
+
+Her thought turned back to that half-bitter, half-delightful moment when
+he had tried to kiss her at the bridge. "Why, even then," she mused,
+"thar were somethin' seemed to draw me to him in spite o' myself. Never
+felt anythin' like it afore. It war--just as if I war asleep, all over,
+an' never wanted to wake up! I wonder if I wish he warn't comin' back,
+to-night--not half so much, I reckon, as I wish he warn't never goin'
+away!"
+
+She left her resting place upon the stump, and, torn by varying
+emotions, found a place upon the trail where she could look off to his
+camp. She was standing there, leaning listlessly against a tree, when
+the sound of someone coming made her turn her head. She saw Joe Lorey.
+
+"Madge," said he, approaching, "I wants a word with you,"
+
+She did not wish to talk with him. Her mind was far too busy with its
+thoughts of Layson, its dismay at the prospect of his departure. "No
+time, Joe; it's too late," said she. She started to go by him toward her
+little bridge.
+
+But he was not inclined to be put off. The mountaineer's slow mind had
+been at work with his great problem and he had quite determined that he
+would take some action, definite and unmistakable, without delay. He had
+leaned his ever-present rifle up against a stump, had laid the old
+game-sack, still burdened with the stolen dynamite, upon the ground,
+close to it, and was prepared to talk the matter out, to one end or the
+other. He loved her with the fierce love of the primitive man; his
+rising wrath against the circumstances amidst which he seemed to be so
+powerless had made him sullen and suspicious; mountain life, continual
+defiance of the law, unceasing watchfulness for "revenuers," does not
+teach a man to be smooth-mannered, half-way in his methods. He made a
+move as if to catch her arm; she darted by him, running straight toward
+the old game-sack.
+
+That burden in the game-sack had been a constant horror to him ever
+since he had first stolen it down at the railroad workings. The mighty
+evidence of the power of the explosive which had been shown to him when
+it had torn and mangled its poor victim there, had filled him with a
+terror of it, although it had also filled him with determination to make
+use of that great power if necessary. But now, as he saw her running,
+light-footed, lovely, toward the bag which held it, running in exactly
+the right way to stumble on it if a mis-step chanced, his heart sprang
+to his throat. What if the dire explosive he had planned to use upon his
+enemies should prove to be the death of the one being whom he loved? He
+sprang toward her with the mighty impulse of desperate muscles spurred
+by a panic-stricken mind and caught her, roughly, just before her foot
+would have touched and spurned the game-sack.
+
+"Stop!" he cried, in desperation.
+
+She was amazed that he should take so great a liberty. She stopped,
+perforce, but, after she had stopped, she stood there trembling with hot
+anger. "Joe Lorey," she exclaimed, "you dare!"
+
+Now he was all humility as he let his hand fall from her arm. "It was
+for your sake, Madge," said he. "A stumble on that sack--it mout have
+sent us both to Kingdom Come!"
+
+She looked at him incredulously, then down at the sack. "That old
+game-sack? Why, Joe, you're plumb distracted!"
+
+"I'm in my senses, yet, I tell you," he persisted. "T'other day I went
+down where they're blastin' for th' railroad. I see 'em usin'
+dynamighty, down thar, an' I watched my chance an', when it come, I
+slipped one o' th' bombs into that game-sack. Ef you'd chanced to kick
+it--"
+
+She was impressed. "Dynamighty bombs? Dellaw! What's dynamighty bombs?"
+
+"It's a giant powder, a million times stronger nor mine." He reached
+into the sack and, with cautious fingers, took out the cartridge and the
+fuse, exhibiting them to her. "See here. I seed 'em take a bomb no
+bigger nor this one, an' light a fuse like this, an' when it caught it
+ennymost shook down a mounting! I seed a poor chap what war careless
+with one, an' when they picked him up, why--"
+
+"Don't, Joe!" said the girl, looking at the cartridge with the light of
+horror shining in her eyes. "What you doin' with such devil's stuff?"
+
+"I got it for th' revenuers," he said frankly. The mountaineers of the
+old Cumberland, to this day, make no secret of their deadly hatred for
+the agents of the government excise. "They're snoopin' 'round th'
+mountings, an' if they find my still I plan to blow it into nothin', an'
+them with it."
+
+She recoiled from him. "No, no, Joe; you'd better gin th' still up, nor
+do such work as that!"
+
+"I'll never gin it up!" said he, with a set face. "It's mine; it war my
+father's long before me. There's only one thing could ever make me gin
+it up."
+
+"What's that?" The girl was still spellbound by the fascination of the
+dynamite which she had come so near to treading on. Her eyes were fixed
+upon the cartridge in his hand with horror, wonder.
+
+He stepped closer to her. "I mout gin it up for you!"
+
+"For me?"
+
+"You know I've loved ye sence ye were that high," said he, and measured
+with his hand a very little way up the side of the old stump. "Many a
+time I've listened hyar to your evenin' hymn, an' thought I'd rather
+hear you singin' in my home than hear th' angels singin' in th' courts
+o' Heaven. Say th' word, Madge--say you'll be my little wife!"
+
+The girl was woe fully affected. Her eyes filled and her bosom heaved
+with feeling. It cut her to the soul to have to hurt this playmate of
+her babyhood, defender of her youth, companion of her budding womanhood;
+their lives had been linked, too, by the great tragedy which, years ago,
+had orphaned both of them. But, of late, she had felt sure that she
+could never marry him. She would not admit, even to herself, just why
+this was; but it was so. "No, no, Joe; it can never be," she said.
+
+He knew! "And why?" said he, his face blackening with bitter feeling,
+his brows contracting fiercely. "Because that furriner from the blue
+grass has come atween us!"
+
+Madge, surprised that he should guess the secret which she had scarcely
+admitted, even to herself, was, for a second, frightened by his
+keenness. Had she shown her feelings with such freedom? But she quickly
+regained self-control and answered with a clever counterfeit of
+lightness. "Him? Oh, sho! He'd never think o' me that way!"
+
+"Mebbe so," said Joe, "but I know you think more o' th' books he teaches
+you from than o' my company. From th' thickets borderin' th' clearin'
+where you've studied, I've watched you settin' thar with him, wen I'd
+give th' world to be thar in his place. Why, I'd ennymost gin up my life
+for one kiss, Madge!" He looked at her with pitiful love and longing in
+his eyes; but this soon changed to a sort of mad determination. "I'll
+have it, too!" he cried, advancing toward her.
+
+She was amazed, not in the least dismayed. Indeed the episode took from
+the moment some of its emotional strain. That he should try to do this
+utterly unwarrantable thing took a portion of the weight of guilty
+feeling from her heart. It had been pressing heavily there. "You
+shan't!" she cried. "Careful, Joe Lorey!"
+
+She eluded him with ease and ran across her little bridge. He paused, a
+second, in astonishment, and, as he paused, she grasped the rope and
+pulled the little draw up after her.
+
+"Look out, Joe; it air a hundred feet, straight down!" she cried, as
+she saw that the baffled mountaineer was trembling on the chasm's edge,
+as if preparing for a spring. "Good night, Joe. Take my advice--gin up
+th' still, an' all thought of makin' a wife of a girl as ain't willin'."
+
+Half laughing and half crying she ran up the path which wound about
+among the thickets on the rocky little island where her rough cabin
+stood, secure, secluded.
+
+The mountaineer stood, baffled, on the brink of the ravine. Much
+loneliness among the mountains, where there was no voice but his own to
+listen to, had given him the habit of talking to himself in moments of
+excitement.
+
+"Gone! Gone!" he said. "Gone laughin' at me!" He clenched his fists.
+"And it is him as has come atween us!" He turned slowly from the place,
+picked up his rifle, slung the game-sack, saggin with the weight of the
+dynamite, across his shoulder by its strap, and started from the place.
+
+He had gone but a short distance, though, before he stopped,
+considering. Murder was in Joe Lorey's heart.
+
+"She said he war comin' back," he sullenly reflected. "I'll ... lay for
+him, right hyar."
+
+He looked cautiously about. His quick ear caught the sound of footsteps
+coming up the trail.
+
+"Somebody's stirrin', now," he said. "Oh, if it's only him!"
+
+He slipped behind a rock to wait in ambush.
+
+But it was not his enemy who came, now, along the trail. Horace Holton,
+held to the mountains by his mysterious business, had left the others of
+the party to go home alone, as they had come, and returned to the
+neighborhood which housed the girl who owned the land he coveted.
+
+Joe, suspicious of him, as the mountaineer who makes his living as a
+moonshiner, is, of course, of every stranger who appears within his
+mountains, stepped forward, suddenly, his rifle in his hand and ready to
+be used. He had no idea that the man had been a member of the party from
+the bluegrass.
+
+"Halt, you!" he cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Holton, full of scheming, was returning up the trail after having said
+good-bye to Barbara, Miss Alathea and the Colonel at the railway in the
+valley, climbing steadily and skillfully, without much thought of his
+surroundings. The locality, familiar to him years before (although he
+had at great pains indicated to everyone but Barbara that it was wholly
+strange to him) showed but superficial change to his searching,
+reminiscent eyes. His feet had quickly fallen into the almost automatic
+climbing-stride of the born mountaineer, and his thoughts had gradually
+absorbed themselves in memories of the past. Joe Lorey's sudden command
+to halt was somewhat startling, therefore, even to his iron nerves.
+Instinctively and instantly he heeded the gruff order.
+
+Dusk was falling and he could not very clearly see the moonshiner, at
+first, as he stepped from behind the shelter of his rock. He moved
+slowly on, a step or two, hands half raised to show that they did not
+hold weapons, recovering quickly from the little shock of the surprise,
+planning an explanation to whatever mountaineer had thought his coming
+up the trail at that hour a suspicious circumstance. That he was one of
+Layson's friends from the low-country would, he thought, be proof enough
+that he was not an enemy of mountain-folk. Layson, he knew, was
+generally regarded with good will by the shy dwellers in this
+wilderness.
+
+But when he clearly saw Joe Lorey's face a thrill shot through him far
+more lasting than the little tremor born, at first, of the command to
+halt.
+
+He had not seen the youth before. Joe, half jealous, half contemptuous,
+of Layson's fine friends from the bluegrass, had kept out of their
+sight, although he had watched them furtively from covert almost
+constantly; and, it chanced, had not been so much as mentioned by either
+Frank or Madge while the party from the bluegrass lingered at the camp,
+save when Madge told the tragic story of her childhood while Holton
+stood aloof, for reasons of his own, hearing but imperfectly.
+
+Now the unexpected sight of the young man, for some reasons, made the
+old one gasp in horror. There was that about the face, the attitude, the
+very way the lithe moonshiner held his gun, which made him seem, to the
+astonished man whom he had halted, like a grim vision from the past. "My
+God!" he thought. "Can the dead have come to life?"
+
+For an instant he went weak. His blood chilled and the quick beating of
+his heart changed the deep breathing of his recent swinging stride into
+short, sharp gasps.
+
+It was only for an instant, though. His life had not been one to teach
+him to falter long in the face of an emergency. Quickly he regained
+poise and reasoned calmly.
+
+"No," he thought, "it's Joe, Ben Lorey's son. Th' father's layin' where
+he has been, all these years. I'm skeery as a girl."
+
+Joe advanced upon him truculently. "Say," he demanded, "what's yer name
+an' what ye want here?" His ever ready rifle nested in the crook of his
+left arm, his brow was threatening, his mouth was firmly set an instant
+after he had spoken.
+
+Holton, recovering himself quickly, spoke calmly, propitiatingly. "My
+name's Holton. I want to see th' gal as lives up yander. Want to buy her
+land of her."
+
+Lorey, satisfied by this explanation that the stranger was not a
+government agent, as he had, at first suspected, relaxed his tense
+rigidity of muscles. From fear of revenuers his disturbed mind returned
+quickly to the bitterness of his resentment of what he thought Madge
+Brierly's infatuation for the young lowlander.
+
+"It's too late," he said. "Thar's only one man as she'd let down that
+bridge for, now--th' man I thought ye might be--Frank Layson."
+
+Holton, quick to see the possibility of gaining an advantage, realizing
+from the young man's tone that he was certainly no friend of Layson's,
+guessing, with quick cunning, at what the situation was, decided that
+the thing for him to do was to reveal the fact that, in his heart, he,
+also, hated Layson.
+
+"So ye took me for a revenuer or Frank Layson, eh?" said he. "I know
+what th' mountings think o' revenuers, an' I reckon, from yer handlin'
+o' that rifle, that you're no friend o' Layson's."
+
+Joe, full of the fierce bitterness of his resentment, was ready to
+confide in anyone his hatred of the "furriner" who had come up and won
+the girl he loved. He let the barrel of his rifle slip between his
+fingers till its stock was resting on the ground.
+
+"I hates him as I hates but one man in th' world!" he said, with bitter
+emphasis.
+
+"Who's that?" said Holton, thoughtlessly, although, an instant
+afterward, he was sorry that he had pursued the subject.
+
+"Lem Lindsay," Lorey answered; "him as killed my father. Frank Layson's
+come between me an' Madge Brierly, an' he's got to cl'ar my tracks!" His
+voice thrilled with the intensity of his emotion, and, suddenly, he
+caught his rifle up, again, into his crooked elbow, where it rested
+ready for quick usage. "If you plans to warn him--" he began.
+
+"Warn him!" said the older man, with a bitterness, real or
+counterfeited, whichever it might be, as fierce as that which rang in
+the young moonshiner's own voice, "I hate him as much as you. I'd rather
+warn you."
+
+"Warn me o' what?" Lorey had begun to lose suspicion of the stranger.
+If, really, he hated Layson, he might make of him a useful ally.
+
+"Your name's Lorey," Holton answered, with his keen eyes fixed intently
+on those of the man who stood there, tensely listening to him, "an' yo'
+keep a still."
+
+Now Lorey again caught his rifle quickly in both hands; his face showed
+new apprehension, and a terrible determination, desperate and dreadful.
+If this stranger knew about the still, was it not certain that he was a
+government spy and therefore worthy of quick death?
+
+"Keerful!" he said menacingly. "Hyar in th' mountings that word's worth
+your life!" The youth, with frowning brow and glittering, wolfish eyes,
+stood facing Holton like an animal at bay, with what amounted to a
+threat of murder on his lips.
+
+"I'm speakin' it for your own good," the old man answered, throwing into
+his voice as much of frankness as he could command. "I tell you that th'
+revemooers have got word about your still."
+
+"Then somebody's spied an' told 'em."
+
+Here was Holton's chance. The vicious scheme came to him in a flash.
+Layson he hated fiercely; this youth he hated fiercely. What plan could
+be better than to set the one to hunt the other? If Lorey should kill
+Layson it would remove Layson from his path and make his way clear to
+the purchase of Madge Brierly's coal-lands at a small fraction of their
+value. And, having killed him, Lorey would, of course, be forced to flee
+the country, for the hue and cry would be far-reaching. Such a killing
+never would be passed over as an ordinary mountain murder generally is
+by the authorities. Thus, at once, he might be rid of the young
+bluegrass gentleman he hated and the young mountaineer he feared.
+
+"You're right," said he. "Somebody's spied an' told 'em. Somebody as
+stumbled on yore still while he was huntin'."
+
+Lorey looked at him, wide-eyed, infuriated. Instantly he quite believed
+what Holton said. It dove-tailed with his own grim hate of Layson that
+Layson should hate him and try to work his ruin by giving information to
+the revenuers. "Somebody huntin'!" he exclaimed. "Frank Layson! Say it,
+say it!"
+
+"Promise you'll never speak my name?" said Holton. He had no wish to be
+mixed up in the tragic matter, and he knew, instinctively, that if Joe
+Lorey gave his word, moonshiner and lawbreaker as he was, it would be
+kept to the grim end.
+
+"I promise it, if it air th' truth you're tellin' me," said Lorey.
+
+"It's true, then," Holton answered. "You can see for your own self that
+I'm a stranger hyar. I couldn't a' knowed o' th' still exceptin' through
+Frank Layson."
+
+The simple, specious argument to Lorey was convincing. "It air true," he
+admitted slowly. "Nobody else would a' gin ye th' word." The angry youth
+paused in black, murderous thought. "He air a-comin' hyar, to-night," he
+went on presently. "I heered him tell Madge Brierly that he war comin'
+back, this evenin'. You better--maybe you had better git along." He had
+no wish for witnesses to what he planned, now, to accomplish, when
+Layson should come back to Madge, as he had promised, with the
+engineer's report upon her coal lands.
+
+Holton nodded, grimly satisfied that he had planted a suspicion which
+might flower into his own revenge. That blow which Layson had delivered
+on his face, in the old days, had left a scar upon his soul, and now
+that the young man seemed likely to add to this unforgotten injury the
+new one of retiring from the field as suitor for his daughter, and,
+further, interfering with his plans to rob Madge Brierly of her coal
+lands, his hatred of him had become intense, insatiable. What better
+fortune could he wish than to pit this mountain youth, whom, also, for a
+reason carried over from dark days in his past life, he hated, against
+the young man from the bluegrass whom he hated no less bitterly?
+
+"Go by _that_ path, thar," said Lorey, suddenly, and pointing, as Holton
+started to return by the direct route he had followed as he came. "It
+air round-about, but it'll lead you to th' valley. I'll run no risk o'
+your warnin' him."
+
+"Don't you be skeered," said Holton. "I'll keep mum, no matter what
+happens."
+
+With a grim smile he started down the path which the mountaineer had
+pointed out.
+
+"Laid his whip acrost my face!" he muttered as he went. "Trifled with my
+gal! Him an' Ben Lorey's son--let 'em fight it out! I'm so much th'
+better off."
+
+And Lorey, slipping back into the shadow of a rock, after he had made
+quite certain that the stranger was following his directions, was
+reflecting, bitterly: "He's come atween me an' th' gal I love! He's put
+th' revenoo hounds upon my track! Oh, if he had a dozen lives, I'd have
+'em all!"
+
+For ten alert and watchful minutes, which seemed to stretch to hours, he
+crouched there, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the coming of the man he
+hated. During five of these he listened to the sounds of Holton's
+downward progress, brought to his keen ear on the soft breezes of the
+young night. There came the crackling of a twig, the thud, thud, thud
+of a dislodged stone bounding down the slope, the rustle of leaves as
+the old man shuffled through a pocket of them gathered in the lea of
+some protruding rock by vagrant winds. Then all was still. He did not
+guess that Holton had been anxious that these sounds should reach him;
+that he had stumbled down the trail with awkward feet with no thought in
+his mind but to be certain that the sounds should reach him. Such was
+the case, however, and, after he felt sure that the crouching
+mountaineer above must be convinced that he had gone on to the valley,
+the old man turned, catlike, re-ascended with a skill as great as
+Lorey's own, and, with not a sound to warn the mountaineer that he had
+retraced any of his steps, took cautious place behind a rock upon the
+very edge of the open space where, when Layson came, he felt quite sure
+a tragedy would be enacted.
+
+Then Layson came blithely up the trail. He had gone through the
+engineer's report with care. The coal prospects included the girl's
+land. He was full of rare elation at thought of the good luck which had
+descended on the little mountain-maid, full of pleasant plans for a
+bright future from none of which she was omitted.
+
+His dreams were rudely interrupted as Joe Lorey stepped ominously from
+behind the rock where he had waited for him.
+
+"Hold up your hands!" the mountaineer commanded, with his rifle
+levelled at the advancing youth.
+
+"Joe Lorey!" exclaimed Layson.
+
+"You know what air between us. Your time air come. If you want to pray,
+do it quick, for my finger air itchin' to pull th' trigger."
+
+Layson's blood and breeding told, in this emergency. He did not flinch a
+whit. "I'm ready," he said calmly. "I'm not afraid to die, though it's
+hard to meet death at the hands of a coward."
+
+"Coward!" said the mountaineer, amazed. "You call me that?"
+
+"The man who shoots another in cold blood, giving him no chance for his
+life, deserves no better name."
+
+This appealed to Lorey. So had his father died--at the hands of one who
+killed him in cold blood, giving him no chance for his life. "You shan't
+die callin' me that!" he cried. He leaned his rifle against a nearby
+rock, threw his knife upon the ground beside it, pulled off his coat,
+and thus, unarmed, advanced upon his enemy. "We're ekal now," he said
+with grim intensity, and pointed to the chasm through which ran the
+stream which made Madge Brierly's refuge an island. "That gully air a
+hundred feet straight down," he said, "an' its bottom air kivered with
+rocks. When we're through, your body or mine'll lay there. Air you
+ready?"
+
+Holton, tense with excitement, was watching every move of the two men
+from his hidden vantage point. Upon his face was the expression of an
+animal of prey.
+
+"Ready!" said Frank, quietly.
+
+It was a terrific struggle which ensued. The trained muscles of the
+lowland athlete were matched against the lithe thews of the mountaineer
+so evenly that, for a time, there was doubt of what the outcome might
+be. Holton, watching, watching, thrilled with every second of it. Little
+he cared which man won; the best thing which possibly could happen, for
+his own good, he reflected, would be that both should crash down to the
+bottom of the gully locked in one of their bear-hugs, to fall together
+on the jagged rocks below. The fierce breathing of the contestants, the
+shuffle of their struggling feet upon the ground, the occasional
+involuntary groan from one man or the other as his adversary crushed him
+in embrace so painful that an exclamation could not be suppressed, were
+all music to the ears of the old man behind the rock. Both youths were
+perils to him. Let them kill each other. He would be the gainer,
+whatever the outcome of the battle.
+
+Suddenly Frank's foot slipped on a rolling pebble. Instantly Lorey had
+taken advantage of the mishap, and, with a quick wrench, thrown him
+crashing to the earth. He lay there, scarcely breathing, utterly
+unconscious.
+
+The mountaineer bent over him, ready to meet the first sign of revival
+with renewed attack, his bloodshot eyes strained on the face of the
+young man upon the ground. Then, anxious to be satisfied that his
+prostrate enemy was not feigning, he knelt by him and peered into his
+face, placed his hand upon his chest above his heart, felt his pulse
+with awkward fingers. He wondered, now, if he had not killed him,
+outright, for Frank's head had struck the ground with a terrific impact.
+But Layson's nostrils soon began to dilate and contract with a spasmodic
+breathing. He still lived.
+
+Rendered careless by the excitement of the moment, Joe again yielded to
+the habit engendered by much solitude and spoke his thoughts aloud.
+
+"It'll be long afore he'll stir," he muttered. "I'll throw him down into
+th' gully."
+
+He rose, and, going to the side of the ravine, peered over with a
+fearful curiosity at the brawling torrent, cut into foam-ribbons by a
+horde of knife-edged rocks. Then he went to Layson and stretched out his
+hand to grasp his shoulder.
+
+Occurred a psychological phenomenon. He found his courage fail at
+thought of laying hands upon the man as he was stretched there helpless.
+
+"I--I can't touch him!" he exclaimed. "It'd be--why, it'd be like
+handlin' th' dead!"
+
+He drew back, nonplussed, ashamed of his own timidity, yet unable to
+overcome it. He had felled the man and meant to kill him, yet, now, he
+could not bring himself to lay a hand upon him.
+
+The thought then flashed into his mind of the dreadful contents of his
+old game-sack.
+
+"Th' bomb," he said. "Th' dynamighty bomb that I was savin' for th'
+revenuers! Let that finish out th' man as set 'em onto me!"
+
+He took the bomb from the old sack with trembling fingers, laid it by
+Frank's side and, with a match which flickered because the hands which
+held it were unsteady as a palsied man's, set fire to the fuse. Then he
+drew off to one side.
+
+"Now, burn!" he said, with set teeth and lowering brow. "Burn! Burn!"
+
+For a second he stood there, watching the sparking sputter of the powder
+as it slowly ate its way along the little paper tube. Then, suddenly, a
+dreadful thought occurred to him. The girl! What if Madge Brierly should
+come to meet the lowlander before the bomb exploded, should see him
+lying there, should hurry to him, frightened, and get there just in time
+to--
+
+He shuddered. He must protect the girl he loved! She could reach the
+side of the endangered man only by means of the small bridge. But one
+rope held it in position above the deep, precipitous-sided gully.
+
+He raised his rifle to his shoulder. It was a hard shot, one which most
+men would have deemed impossible, but there was a star in line. He
+fired. The bridge crashed down, a ruin, the severed rope now dangling
+limply, freed of the burden it had held for many years.
+
+"She's safe!" said he.
+
+For another instant he stood studying the spluttering fuse. From what he
+had seen at the railroad workings he knew it was destined to burn long
+enough so that many workmen could get out of danger before the spark
+reached the strong explosive in the cartridge. He need not hurry.
+
+"In three minutes it'll all be ended," he reflected. "He's as helpless
+as a baby; he can't strike back, now; it's no more nor he deserves. I'm
+goin'."
+
+He straightened up and would have hurried off, had not, at just that
+moment, the sweet voice of the girl he loved rung through the brooding,
+fragrant evening air, in song.
+
+It brought him to himself, it filled him with a horrified realization of
+the foulness of the deed which he was contemplating.
+
+"No--no!" said he. "Why, I'd be the coward that he called me!"
+
+He hurried to the fuse and, with trembling eagerness, stamped out the
+spark which, now, was creeping close indeed to that point where it would
+have blossomed into the terrifying flower of death.
+
+"I'll fight him ag'in," he said; and then, addressing the now
+extinguished fuse, the harmless cartridge of explosive: "You lie thar
+and prove ter him I ain't no coward!"
+
+He hurried down the trail.
+
+Holton, vastly disappointed, crept out from his hiding place. "The
+fool!" he muttered. "Oh, the fool! That thar little spark would a' put
+me even an' made me safe fer life! An' it war lighted--it war lighted!"
+
+His regret was keen. He raged there like a madman robbed of his intended
+prey. Then, suddenly:
+
+"But--who'll believe him when he says he put it out? I'll--do it!"
+
+He hastily took out a match, struck it, relighted the dead fuse.
+
+"It'll be his work, not mine!" he thought, exultantly, as he paused to
+see that the fuse would surely burn.
+
+As he turned to hasten from the spot he caught a glimpse of something
+white across the gully at the thresh-hold of the girl's cabin. For a
+second this was terrifying, but he quickly regained poise. The bridge
+was gone. She could not reach the side of the endangered man to save
+him, she could not reach the mainland to pursue him and discover his
+identity. He fled.
+
+The girl was worried by the long delay in Layson's coming. For fully
+half an hour she had been listening for his cheery hail--that hail which
+had, of late, come to mean so much to her--as she worked about her
+household tasks. The last words he had said to her had hinted at such
+unimagined possibilities of riches, of education, of delirious delights
+to come, that her impatience was but natural; and, besides this, Joe's
+words had worried her. She did not think the mountaineer would ever
+really let his jealousy lead him to a foul attack upon his rival, but
+his words had worried her. She stood upon her doorstep, hand above her
+eyes, and peered across the gorge toward where the trail debouched into
+the little clearing.
+
+Nothing was in sight there, and her gaze wandered along the little rocky
+field, in aimless scrutiny. Finally it chanced upon the prostrate form
+of the young man.
+
+"What's that lyin' thar?" she thought, intensely startled. And then,
+after another moment's peering: "Why, it's Mr. Frank!"
+
+She was amazed and frightened. Then her eye caught the little sputtering
+of sparks along the fuse. It further startled her.
+
+"It's Mr. Frank and somethin's burnin' close beside him!"
+
+Suspicion flashed into her mind like lightning, followed, almost
+instantly, by firm conviction.
+
+"It's a fuse," she cried, "an' thar by him is th' bomb! It's Joe Lorey's
+work! Oh, oh--"
+
+She sprang down the rough path toward the place where, ever since she
+could remember, the little bridge had swung. Now, though, it was gone.
+
+"The bridge!" she cried. "The bridge! It's gone! I can't cross! I've got
+to see him die!"
+
+Her frantic eyes caught sight of the frayed rope, dangling from the
+firm supports which had so long held up the bridge by means of it.
+Instantly her quick mind saw the only chance there was to save the man
+whom, now, she knew she loved. She sprang for the rope and caught it,
+gave herself a mighty push with both her agile feet, and, hanging above
+certain death if hold should fail or rope break, swung across the chasm
+and found foothold on the mainland.
+
+In another second she was at the side of the unconscious man. Another
+and she had the cartridge, sputtering fuse and all, in her right hand,
+another and the deadly thing was hurtling to the bottom of the deep
+ravine, whence an almost immediately ensuing crashing boom told her that
+she had not arrived a moment sooner than had been essential to the
+salvation of the man she loved.
+
+She knelt by Frank, pulled his head up to her knee, chafed at his
+insensate hands, and called to him wildly, fearing that he was dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Joe Lorey was unhappy in his mountains. After the visiting party had
+gone down from Layson's camp, and, in course of time, Layson himself had
+followed them because of the approach of the great race which was to
+make or mar his fortunes, the man breathed easier, although their coming
+and the subsequent events had made, he knew, impressions on his life
+which never could be wiped away. He hated Layson none the less because
+he had departed. He argued that he had not gone until he viciously had
+stolen that thing which he, Lorey, valued most: the love of beautiful
+Madge Brierly. He brooded constantly upon this, neglecting his small
+mountain farm, spending almost all his time at his illegal trade of
+brewing untaxed whisky in his hidden still, despite the girl's continual
+urgings to give up the perilous occupation before it was too late. He
+had told her that he would, if she would marry him; now that she would
+not, he told her surlily that he would continue to defy the law even if
+he knew that every "revenuer" in the state was on his trail. He was
+conscious that there was real danger; he believed that Layson knew about
+the still and that the bitter enmity resulting from the fight which had
+so nearly proved his death might prompt him to betrayal of the secret;
+but with the stubbornness of the mountaineer he clung doggedly to his
+illegal apparatus in the mountain-cave, kept doggedly at the illegal
+work he did with it. It was characteristic of the man, his forbears and
+his breed in general, that, now, when he knew that deadly danger well
+might threaten, he sent more moonshine whisky from the still than ever
+had gone from it in like length of time, either in his father's day or
+his.
+
+That his actual and only dangerous enemy was Holton, he did not, for an
+instant, guess. He knew of not the slightest reason why this stranger
+should include him in the hatred he had sworn he felt for Layson--that
+hatred which, he had assured him, was as bitter as his own. He would
+have been as much astonished as dismayed had he known that Holton's
+almost instant action, upon arriving at the county-seat, had been to
+make a visit to the local chief of the Revenue-Service--cautiously, at
+night, for to be known as an informer might have cost his life at other
+hands than Lorey's, would have made the mountain for far miles blaze
+vividly with wrath against him.
+
+So, defiant of the man he thought to be his foe, unconscious of the
+hatred of the man who really was, Lorey was working in his still when a
+small boy, sent up from a cabin far below, dashed, breathless, to him
+with the news that revenue-men were actually upon their way in his
+direction. He had scarcely time to put his fire out, hide the lighter
+portions of his apparatus and flee to a safe hiding-place, nearby,
+before, clambering with lithe skill and caution almost equal to his own
+along the rocky pathways of the mountain-side, armed like soldiers
+scouting in a hostile country, cool-eyed as Indians, hard-faced as
+executioners, they actually appeared.
+
+For a time, as Lorey watched their progress from his covert, he held his
+rifle levelled, held his finger on its trigger, determined to kill them
+in their tracks; and it was no thrill of mercy for the men or fear of
+consequences to himself which saved their lives. It was rather that he
+did not wish further to risk his liberty until he had had opportunity to
+glance along the gleaming barrel of his rifle as it was pointed at Frank
+Layson's heart.
+
+After the men had gone he went back to his still to view the ruins they
+had left behind them. His wrath was terrible. Madge, who had, of course,
+learned what had happened almost instantly, for the still was scarcely
+out of hearing of her cabin, tried vainly to console, to calm him. He
+turned on her with a rage of which, in all her life among hot-tempered
+mountaineers, she had never seen the equal, and chokingly swore
+vengeance on the man who had given the information which had resulted
+in the raid.
+
+"They come straight to th' still," he told her, "never falterin', never
+wonderin' if, maybe, they was on th' right path. Ev'ry inch o' th' hull
+way had been mapped out for 'em, an' they didn't make a mis-step from
+th' valley to th' very entrance o' th' cave. I'll git th' chap that
+planned their course out for 'em thataway! I'll git 'im, Madge! I'll git
+'im, sure!"
+
+Her heart sank in her breast like lead. She knew perfectly whom Lorey
+meant. She knew as perfectly that Layson never had informed upon the
+moonshiner, but she also knew that Heaven itself could not, then,
+convince the man of that.
+
+"Who do you mean you'll git, Joe?" she faltered, hoping against hope
+that she was wrong in her suspicions.
+
+"You know well enough," he answered. "Who would I mean but that damn'
+furriner, Frank Layson? He warn't satisfied with comin' here an'
+stealin' you away from me! He had to put th' revenuers on th' track o'
+th' old still that was my dad's afore me, an' has been th' one thing,
+siden you, I've ever keered fer in my life."
+
+"You're wrong, Joe," she insisted. "You're shore wrong. Frank Layson'd
+never do a coward's trick like that!"
+
+"He done it!" Lorey answered doggedly. "He done it, an' as there is a
+God in Heaven he air goin' to pay th' price fer doin' it!"
+
+With that he stalked off down the trail, his rifle held as ever in the
+crook of his elbow, his brows as black as human brows could be.
+
+For a time she sat there on a rock, gazing after him, half-stupefied,
+with eyes wide, terror-stricken. What could a mere girl do to avert the
+dreadful tragedy impending? Tireless as he was, she knew that he could
+keep upon the trail for twenty-four hours without a pause, and that such
+travelling, with the lifts which he would get from mountain teamsters,
+would take him to the home of the man whose life he had determined to
+snuff out at any hazard. Beside herself with fright for Frank, she sped
+back to her cabin, took what food was ready-cooked and could be bundled
+up to carry on the journey, put on her heaviest shoes and started for
+the door. But, suddenly, the thought flashed through her mind that, even
+as Joe Lorey was bound down the trails to meet his rival, so would she
+be bound down them to meet her own. She could not bear the thought of
+facing Barbara Holton, clad, as she was now, in rough, half-shapeless,
+mountain-homespun. She made another bundle, larger than the one which
+held her food, by many times, and, when she finally set off, this bundle
+held the finery which she had so laboriously prepared in the mad hope of
+rivaling the work of the bluegrass belle's accomplished city
+dressmakers.
+
+Down in the bluegrass home of the ancient Layson family all was
+excitement in anticipation of the race which was to mean so much to the
+fortunes of the young master of the fine old mansion which, with
+pillared porticos and mighty chimneys, dominated the whole section.
+Layson's heart was filled with confidence whenever he went to the
+stables to view the really startling beauty of the lovely animal on
+which his hope was pinned; it sunk into despair, when, seated in his
+study in the house, away from her, he counted up the cost of all which
+he would lose if she did not run first in the great race.
+
+None but the Colonel, Miss Alathea and himself had an idea of the real
+magnitude of the stakes dependant on Queen Bess. Upon the glossy
+shoulders of the lovely mare rested, indeed, a great burden of
+responsibility. If she won she would not only secure the large purse for
+the owner, but be salable for a price which would enable him to take
+advantage, fully, of the offer which the syndicate had made to develop
+his coal lands. If she failed--well, the fortunes of the house of Layson
+would be seriously shattered.
+
+No wonder, then, that Uncle Neb, in whom his master's confidence was
+absolute, had strict injunctions closely to guard the mare. The faithful
+negro watched her with a vigilance which was scarcely less unremitting
+in the daytime than it was at night when he slept upon the very straw
+which bedded her.
+
+Miss Alathea, intensely prejudiced against horse-racing and the gambling
+which invariably goes with it, by the Colonel's wasted life and her own
+ensuing loneliness, nevertheless prayed night and day that Queen Bess
+would be victorious, for Frank had finally refused, point-blank, to let
+her risk her fortune in the scheme for the development of his
+coal-lands, and so, if the mare lost and the eastern firm refused to
+purchase her at the large price which would enable him to join the
+syndicate, his great chance would be gone. Perhaps not once in the
+world's history had any maiden-lady, constitutionally opposed to betting
+and the race-track, given as much thought to an impending contest
+between horses on which great sums were certain to be won and lost, as
+Miss Alathea did, these days.
+
+And if Miss Alathea was excited, what should be said about the gallant
+Colonel? Every day he visited the Layson place; every day he scrutinized
+the mare with wise and anxious eyes; every day he from his soul assured
+her owner and her owner's aunt that it was quite impossible that she
+should lose; every day he cautioned Neb, her guardian, to let no human
+being, whom he did not know and whom he and his master had not every
+cause to trust implicitly, approach the splendid beast. Wise in the ways
+of race-tracks and the unscrupulous men who have, unfortunately, thrown
+the sport of kings into sad disrepute, he feared some treachery
+continually.
+
+Neb scarcely left the stable-yard, by day, unless the mare went with
+him, by night he slept so that he could, by reaching out a wrinkled,
+ebon hand, actually touch her glossy hide. He fed her himself with oats
+and hay which he examined with the utmost care before they found her
+manger or her rack; he watered her himself with water from a well within
+the stable and guarded by locked doors, drawn in a pail which,
+invariably, he rinsed with boiling water before he filled it up for her.
+No drugs should reach that mare if _he_ could help it! None but himself
+or his "Marse Frank" was under any circumstances permitted to get on her
+back. If watchfulness could possibly preserve the mare unharmed and in
+fine shape until the day of the great race, Neb plainly meant to see
+that this was done. Even the amateur brass-band and glee-club into which
+he had organized the stable-boys and other negro lads about the place,
+and of which he acted as drum-major--the proudest moment of his life
+were when he donned the moth-eaten old shako which was his towering
+badge of leadership--must practice nowhere save within the stable-yard,
+where he could train them and, at the same time, keep watchful eyes upon
+Queen Bess' quarters.
+
+The negroes, young and old, about the place, indeed, were wild with
+their enthusiasm for the mare. The day before the race a delegation of
+them, full of eagerness, met Neb as he came out of the stable.
+
+"Say, Unc Neb," said one of them, "we-all's made a pool."
+
+"Pool on de races?"
+
+"Uh-huh! An' we-all wants to know jes' what we ought to put ouah money
+on."
+
+They well knew what he would say.
+
+"Queen Bess, fo' suah," he answered, to their vast delight. "Queen Bess
+ebery time. She's fit to run fo' huh life."
+
+The boys accepted the suggestion with a shout, and he was about to enter
+into one of the long dissertations on the strong points of his equine
+darling, when he was informed that some stranger was approaching. He
+peered down the road with his old eyes, but could not recognize the
+visitor.
+
+"Who is it?" he asked one of the black lads.
+
+"Marse Holton."
+
+"Marse Holton!" he repeated dryly. "Run along, now, honiest. Unc' Neb
+gwine be busy. I won't hab dat ar Marse Holton pryin' round dat mare.
+Hoodoo her fo' suah." He sidled to the stable door, and, careful to see
+that his bent body hid the operation from the coming visitor, turned the
+key in the big lock. The key he then slipped into his capacious trousers
+pocket.
+
+"Hello, Neb," said Holton, affably, as he came up.
+
+"Ebenin', suh." Neb added nothing to this greeting and went
+nonchalantly to a distant bench to sit down on it carelessly.
+
+"I say, Neb," said Holton, "I expect to do a little betting, so I
+thought I'd jest drop over and take a look at Layson's mare."
+
+Neb sat immovable upon his bench. At first, indeed, he did not even
+speak, but, finally, he looked at Holton calmly, took the key out of his
+pocket, tossed it in the air, caught it as it came down, put it back
+into his pocket and dryly said: "T'ink not, suh."
+
+Holton, paying no attention to him, had gone on to the stable-door and
+tried it. Finding it to be fast locked, he turned back toward the
+darkey. "The door's locked, Neb," he said.
+
+"Knowed dat afore, suh," Neb replied.
+
+Holton was nettled by his nonchalance. "Open that door!" he ordered.
+
+"Not widout Marse Holton's ohduhs, suh," Neb answered calmly.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Holton, angrily.
+
+"Jus' what I say, suh."
+
+Holton made a slightly threatening movement toward him, but Neb did not
+even wink.
+
+"Don't git riled, suh--bad fo' de livuh, suh."
+
+Holton, now, was very angry. "Look here," he said, advancing on the aged
+negro angrily. "Do you dare insult a friend and neighbor of Mr. Layson?"
+
+Neb slowly rose and answered with some dignity: "I dares obey Marse
+Frank's plain ohduhs, suh. Dat mare represents full twenty-fi' thousan'
+dolluhs to him" (Neb rolled the handsome figures lovingly upon his
+tongue), "an' dere's thousan's more'll be bet on huh to-morruh." He
+looked at Holton with but thinly veiled contempt. "Plenty men 'u'd risk
+deir wuthless lives to drug huh."
+
+"Oh, shucks!" said Holton, trying to control his temper because of his
+great eagerness to get in to the mare. "She would be safe with me; you
+know it."
+
+"I knows Marse Frank hab barred ebery window an' sealed ebery doah but
+dis one, an' gib me ohduhs to let no one in 'cept he is by. I stan's by
+dem ohduhs while dere's bref in my ol' body."
+
+Holton was infuriated. "It's lucky for you I'm not your master!"
+
+"Dat's what I t'ink, suh."
+
+"If you _was_ my nigger, I'd teach you perliteness with a black-snake
+whip! I'll see what Layson'll say to such sass as you've gin me. Jest
+you wait till you hear from him."
+
+Neb was not impressed by the man's wrath. "Huhd from him afoah, suh. Oh,
+I'll wait, I'll wait."
+
+He went up to the stable-door, unlocked it and stood in the open portal.
+Holton would have followed him, but Neb began to close the door.
+
+"You'll wait, too, suh," said the negro, grinning, "on de outside,
+suh."
+
+He closed and locked the door on the inside.
+
+Holton was beside himself with wrath. "Damn him! Damn him!" he
+exclaimed. "Damn him and damn his proud young puppy of a master! I'll
+ruin him! I'll set my foot on him and smash him, yet!"
+
+Baffled, he walked down the drive.
+
+"There's a way," he told himself. "It's bold and risky, but nobody'll
+suspicion me. I've kept straight here in the bluegrass. The mountains
+and all as ever knowed me thar are far away!"
+
+But all who had known him in the mountains were not as far away as he
+supposed. Even as he spoke a dusty, weary figure in worn homespun,
+carrying a mammoth bundle, limping sadly upon bruised and blistered
+feet, came through the shrubbery, approaching the great stables from the
+far side of the big house-lot. Holton looked at this wayfarer with
+amazement.
+
+"Madge Brierly!" he cried. "Gal, what are you a-doin' here?"
+
+"Don't know's I've got any call to tell you," Madge replied, almost as
+much astonished at the sight of him as he had been at sight of her. Then
+she smiled roguishly at him. "Maybe you'll find out, though."
+
+"I tell you this ain't no place for you," he admonished her. "Lordy!
+They takes up folks that looks like you, for vagrants. Take my advice,
+turn back to the mountings."
+
+She looked at him with that same smile, still unimpressed.
+
+For no reason which he could have well explained the man was almost
+panic-stricken in his keen anxiety to get the girl away from the old
+Layson homestead and the possibility of meeting those who dwelt therein.
+
+"Here, if you'll go," he added, and thrust his hand into his pocket,
+"I'll give you money--money to help you on your way."
+
+Still she smiled at him with that aggravating, meaning smile; that smile
+which he could by no means fathom and of which she scarcely knew the
+meaning. "No," she said, "I don't want your money. You couldn't hire me
+to leave the bluegrass till I've seen Frank Layson."
+
+Seeing that she was determined, unable to conjecture what she had come
+down for, realizing, upon second thought, that it was most improbable
+that she had any tale to tell of him, he reluctantly gave way. "As you
+will, then," he said slowly. "But let me warn you that you won't be
+welcome hyar. You'll learn the difference between the mounting and the
+bluegrass folks. You'd better think it over and turn back."
+
+"I'll not," said she.
+
+As he walked disgustedly away she watched him curiously. "I wonder why
+he is so sot on makin' me go back?" she mused. "Maybe he air right in
+sayin' that I won't be welcome; but I'll do my duty, just th' same!"
+
+Neb came out from the stable. The girl saw him with delight. "Dellaw!"
+she said. "How tired I be! Howdy, Uncle Neb; howdy!"
+
+"Sakes alive!" he cried. "It's de frenomenom, come down frum de
+mountains! Howdy, honey, howdy!" He hurried toward her and saw that she
+was near to tears from weariness and the strain of what she had gone
+through and what she had to tell. "Why, chil', what's de mattuh?"
+
+"Pebble in my shoe," she answered, and busied herself as if removing
+one. "All right in a minute. This air a long way from th' mountings."
+
+"Honey, you don't mean you _walked_!"
+
+"Had to. Wings ain't growed, yet. Say; I've come to bring a word to Mr.
+Frank. Is he to home?" She motioned toward the stable, which was the
+finest building she had ever seen.
+
+"Yes; but he don't lib dar, honey."
+
+"Don't he? Who does, then?"
+
+"Queen Bess."
+
+"Queen Bess!" The girl was thunderstruck; her worry choked her. She knew
+Frank owned a blooded mare, but did not know her name, and she had but
+vaguely heard of queens. "Well--air she to home?"
+
+"Yes; an' Marse Frank, an' Miss 'Lethe, an' Miss Barbara's comin', purty
+soon, to see huh."
+
+"Miss Barbarous!" said Madge, aroused by the mere mention of the girl
+who, from the start, she had recognized, instinctively, as her real
+enemy. It had been thought of her, alone, which had made her bear the
+weary burden of the bundle on the long journey from the mountains. "I'd
+like to fix a little, 'fore she comes. I got some idees o' fashion from
+her, when she was up thar, an' I been workin' ev'ry minute I could
+spare, since then, on a new dress. Ain't thar some place I can go to
+fashion up before they come?"
+
+The old negro was acutely sympathetic. He disliked Miss Barbara and
+liked the mountain girl. His old black head, thick as it was, sometimes,
+had quickly recognized the fact that Barbara regarded Madge as one to be
+despised, humiliated, while his master treated her with much
+consideration and thought highly of her. He did not like the daughter of
+Horace Holton any better than he liked the man himself. If he could help
+the mountain girl he would. The only place where she could possibly find
+privacy, without going to the house, was in the stable with the
+race-horse. He would have trusted no one else on earth with her; to
+distrust Madge, however, did not once occur to him.
+
+"Missy," he said slowly, "I reckon you can go right in dar wid Queen
+Bess."
+
+She was a bit appalled. "Maybe she wouldn't like it," she objected.
+
+"She won't keer if you don't go too close."
+
+"I'm kinder 'feared."
+
+"Don't gib her no chance to kick. You's all right, den."
+
+"Kick!" said the girl, amazed. Kicking did not seem to her to fit the
+character of queens.
+
+Neb unlocked the stable door. "Or bite," he added.
+
+"Bite! Dellaw!" the girl exclaimed, still more amazed. How little she
+had learned of royalty up in the mountains!
+
+The aged negro threw the door wide open. "Go in, honey, now; go in," he
+said.
+
+"I'm skeered!" she said, and tiptoed to the stable door. She peered in
+cautiously. Then she turned and faced him with much-puzzled eyes. "I
+don't see nothin' but a hoss," she said.
+
+"Uh-huh; dat's Queen Bess." Old Neb stood chuckling, looking at her.
+
+"Queen Bess is Mister Frank's race-hoss!" she cried, delighted by the
+revelation. "Well, now, I feel to home." She went into the stable with
+her bundle, half-closed the door and then peeped out at Neb. "You won't
+let any one come in?"
+
+He held the key up reassuringly. "Don't you see I's got de key, honey?"
+
+"I'd feel safer if I had that key myself," said she, and snatched it
+from him. An instant later and the door was closed and locked on the
+inside.
+
+Neb was alarmed. He had disobeyed plain orders in letting her go in at
+all. For him to let that key out of his possession was a further
+violation which he feared to be responsible for. He pounded on the door.
+"Open de doah, honey," he implored. "I mus' hab dat key!"
+
+"All right," said she, "soon's I am dressed."
+
+He fell back from the door dismayed. "De Lawd help me!" he groaned.
+"What's I gwine ter do? An' I war so mighty firm 'bout dat key wid Marse
+Holton!" He paced the space before the stable door in agitation. "But I
+reckon she'll be t'rough befo' Marse Frank comes," he comforted himself.
+
+She was not, though. While Neb still paced the stable yard in acute
+worry, Frank, Miss Alathea, Barbara and Holton came toward him in a
+laughing group. He almost fainted.
+
+"Here we are, Neb," his master cried, "ready for a look at Queen Bess."
+
+"Yessah, yessah, pwesently!" Neb stammered, and would have paled had
+nature made provision for such exhibition of his feelings. "I jus'
+nachelly hab got to speak to dem ar stable boys a minute, fust. Jus'
+'scuse me fo' a minute, suh." He vanished hurriedly, hoping that by this
+diversion he could gain a little time for Madge and for himself.
+
+Layson gazed after him with some astonishment, then went and tried the
+stable door. "Of course the door's locked," he explained, annoyed, "but
+he'll be back here in a minute."
+
+Miss Alathea smiled. The attitude of the young master toward the aged
+negro often was amusing to her. She liked to watch the constant evidence
+of that rare affection which formed an inseparable bond between them.
+
+Suddenly she heard the crunching of a man's heavy footsteps on the
+gravel, back of them. Turning, she saw that the newcomer was the
+Colonel, and the Colonel in great haste. This was most impressive, for
+the Colonel did not often hurry.
+
+"Here comes the Colonel, Frank," she said, "and see how he is hurrying!"
+
+"Something's up," her nephew answered, "when the Colonel hurries." Then,
+as the horseman came up to them: "Why, Colonel, what's the matter?"
+
+"A shock! A regular shock! As I came from Lexington, just now, I saw you
+standing here, so I sent the boy on with the buggy and cut across to
+meet you. Just as I passed the thicket by the spring I caught a glimpse
+of a man, who then vanished like a ghost, but I swear that man was that
+lank mountaineer, Joe Lorey, and that he tried to keep out of my sight."
+
+"Joe Lorey!" Frank exclaimed. "What can he want down here?"
+
+"Who knows? Maybe to finish the work he began in the mountains."
+
+"More than likely," Holton ventured. "A rifleshot in the back, or a
+match touched to a building."
+
+"_I_ don't believe it," Frank said stoutly. "The man who laid down his
+weapons to give me a fair, square fight, wouldn't stoop to things like
+that."
+
+"'Pears to me the man who fired that bomb 'u'd do most anythin'," said
+Holton.
+
+"That was in a fit of anger. Lorey swore to Madge that he thought better
+of his impulse to do murder, stamped upon the burning fuse, and believed
+that he had put it out, and I believe him."
+
+He saw, now, that his aunt was badly frightened, and cautioned the other
+men. "Not another word about him, now, at any rate, or Aunt 'Lethe won't
+once close her eyes to-night."
+
+"Well," said the Colonel, quite agreeing with him and hastening to
+change the subject, "here's something much more interesting, anyway. A
+letter from the Company. Looks official and important."
+
+Frank took the letter, opened it and gazed at it in some dismay. "I
+should think so," he exclaimed. "An assessment of $15,000 on my stock."
+
+"Fifteen thousand devils!"
+
+"No; fifteen thousand dollars."
+
+The Colonel took the letter from his hand and looked at it with worried
+eyes. "And you've got to meet it, Frank, or lose what you've put in."
+
+Miss Alathea went to her nephew anxiously. "You'll sell Queen Bess, now,
+won't you?" she implored. "You could pay it then. Best sell her."
+
+The young man stood there, deep in worried thought. "If I were quite
+convinced of the Company's good faith in everything, I'd risk it all,
+even the loss of Woodlawn, my old home," he answered.
+
+Neb now appeared from around a corner of the stable, evidently having
+decided that the girl had had enough time for her toilet, or afraid to
+wait another minute. His appearance created a diversion.
+
+"Here, Neb," said Frank, "we've had enough nonsense. Let's see Queen
+Bess, now."
+
+Neb looked anxiously for signs that Madge was ready to see visitors, he
+listened at the door. He saw no sign, he heard no signal. He was scared,
+but he was faithful to his promise to the girl. He planted his old back
+against the door. "Now de trouble am commencin'!" he assured himself.
+
+Holton looked at him with a sour smile. "I hope," he said to Frank,
+"that you'll have better luck nor me. Neb wouldn't open that door for
+me."
+
+"Dem was yo' ohduhs, suh," said Neb, appealing to his master.
+
+"An' he was powerful sassy in the bargain," Holton went on, full of
+malice, hoping to make Neb suffer for defying him.
+
+Layson, however, much as he was now annoyed by the old darky's
+hesitation about opening the stable door for him, himself, did not
+propose to chide him for having kept his trust and held it closed to
+others. "You mustn't mind Neb," he said to Holton. "He's a privileged
+character around here. I had told him to admit no one, and, as usual, he
+obeyed my orders blindly."
+
+"Yes, suh," Neb declared, delighted, "went it blind, suh."
+
+"His obedience," his master went on boastingly, "is really phenomenal.
+He wouldn't open that door for anybody. He'd guard the key with his own
+life." He turned to Neb. "Wouldn't you, now, Neb?"
+
+Neb was disconcerted. It was true enough that from most people he
+certainly would have guarded that key with his life. But at that moment
+there was one within the stable from whom he had _not_ guarded it.
+"Yes--yessah!" he said hesitantly. And as he said it he would have given
+anything he had if he could have laid his hands upon that self-same key.
+
+Frank smiled at him. "But I suppose you'll let _me_ have a look at her."
+
+"Yes--yessuh--in a--in a minute, suh."
+
+Layson was annoyed. "Why not at once?" He was beginning to be
+frightened. Could something Neb was trying to hide have happened to the
+mare?
+
+"Bekase--bekase--" Ned stammered, "well, to tell de trufe, suh, bekase I
+is afeared she ain't quite dressed."
+
+"Not dressed! The mare not dressed! Have you lost your senses? Open that
+door--quick!"
+
+"Marse Frank, I cain't. I nachully jus' cain't."
+
+Holton was enjoying this. "You see," he said, "he won't open it for
+nobody. Not even for th' man as owns it an' th' mare behind it."
+
+"Give me the key!" said Frank.
+
+"De key--de key--" Neb stammered.
+
+"I said the key!"
+
+The old negro advanced pitifully. "Fo' de lawd, Marse Frank, I hasn't
+got it!"
+
+"He'd guard it with his life!" said Holton, with deep sarcasm.
+
+"Where is it?" Frank demanded.
+
+"In dar," said Neb, and pointed to the stable.
+
+Layson, astonished and annoyed beyond the power of words by the old
+negro's strange performance, fearful of the safety of his mare, entirely
+puzzled, sprang toward the stable window and was about to pull himself
+up by the ledge so that he might look in.
+
+Neb seized him and pulled him from the aperture with a desperate agility
+which strained his aged limbs. "Fo' de Lawd's sake, now, Marse Frank,"
+he cried, "don't yo' dare look t'rough dat stable winder!"
+
+Frank, now, was badly frightened. "Is there some one in there with Queen
+Bess?" he asked.
+
+"A young pusson to see you, suh," Neb admitted.
+
+"And you let that person have the key?"
+
+"No, suh; it were taken from me."
+
+Layson was in panic. "Heaven knows," he exclaimed, "what can have
+happened here!" He rushed to the stable door and pounded on it with his
+fists. "Open at once, or I'll break in the door," he cried.
+
+Neb, now, had gone up to the window and looked through it with desperate
+glance. What he saw was reassuring. He turned back toward his master
+smiling. "Hol' on, Marse Frank, de young pusson am a-comin' out," he
+said.
+
+"Well," said Layson, threateningly, "I'm ready for him." He braced
+himself to spring upon some malefactor.
+
+The door opened and Madge appeared before their astonished eyes, garbed
+in a gown which she had fashioned after that which Barbara had worn up
+in the hills.
+
+"Madge!" cried Frank, amazed.
+
+The Colonel, laughing, approached the girl with outstretched hand; Neb,
+relieved, dived through the stable door; Miss Alathea, who had been
+under a great strain while the dramatic little scene had been in
+progress, dropped limply on Neb's bench.
+
+Madge, with a retentive memory of the way Miss "Barbarous" had greeted
+her back in the mountains, stepped toward that much-astonished maiden,
+opened her red parasol straight in her face, and courtesied to the rest.
+
+"Howdy, folks; howdy!" she said, happily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The party stood, nonplussed. Frank was first to show signs of recovery,
+and, after a moment of completely dazed astonishment, advanced to Madge
+with hand outstretched. Her appearance, astonishing as it had been, had
+been as great a relief as he had ever known in all his life. Neb's worry
+and insubordination had filled him with the keenest apprehension. But he
+had no doubts of Madge. If she had been there with the mare, the mare
+was certainly all right, no matter how puzzling the affair might seem to
+be upon its surface.
+
+"Why, little one, this is, indeed, a great surprise and pleasure!" he
+exclaimed, with sincere gallantry.
+
+Madge looked at him with doubtful eyes, from which the doubt, however,
+was fast clearing. "Oh, say; are you-uns r'ally glad to see me?"
+
+"No one could be more welcome," he assured her, and the honest pleasure
+in his eyes convinced her that he did not speak for mere politeness'
+sake.
+
+And now Miss Alathea, recovering from the shock of all that had preceded
+the girl's unexpected appearance, went to her cordially. "We are more
+than glad, my child," she told her.
+
+"Glad's no name for it," the gallant Colonel said, advancing in his
+turn.
+
+There could be no doubt of the sincerity of any one who, thus far, had
+expressed a welcome for her; but the voice which now came coldly from
+Miss Barbara was less convincing. She did not approach the mountain
+girl, but sat somewhat superciliously upon a bench and spoke frigidly.
+"It is an unexpected pleasure."
+
+Madge, not trained to hide her feelings under softened words, turned on
+her angrily. "Humph! I wasn't askin' you," she said. Then, to the
+others: "I didn't know but what my droppin' in, permiskus like--"
+
+"A Kentuckian's friends," said Frank, "are always welcome."
+
+"Friends from the word go, remember," said the Colonel.
+
+"Thankee, Colonel," said the girl. "We'll have that race, some day; but
+I won't ride agin you if you ride Queen Bess. Oh, wouldn't I like to see
+her go!"
+
+"So you shall," said Frank. "Neb, is she ready?"
+
+"Yessuh; all saddled, sur, an' bridled."
+
+"Oh, let me bring her out," cried Madge. "I'd love to."
+
+"Lawsy, honey," said the negro, "you couldn't bring her out. She's dat
+fretful an' dat nervous dat she'd kill yo', suah."
+
+"Get out, Neb!" Madge cried, scornfully. "I ain't afeard of her. Wild
+things allays has made friends with me. I've never seen a horse so
+skeery that I couldn't manage him--couldn't make him foller me."
+
+She pushed the hesitating Neb out of her path and went into the stable.
+
+Layson, who was for the moment, at a distance, had not heard all her
+talk with Neb, but saw her as she went into the stall where none but he,
+himself, and Neb, dared go, and it was stable talk that, soon or late,
+Queen Bess would prove to be a man killer!
+
+"Neb, stop her! She'll be killed!" he cried.
+
+Neb ran, as fast as his old legs would carry him, into the stable; Frank
+hurried to the stable door.
+
+"Madge! Madge!" he cried, and then: "Why--look! The mare is following
+her as might a kitten!"
+
+He stepped aside and Madge came from the stable with Queen Bess behind
+her, ears pricked forward eagerly as she kept her eyes on Madge's pursed
+up, cooing lips, head dropped, neck stretched in graceful fashion,
+lifting her dainty feet as proudly as ever did the queen whom she was
+named for.
+
+"Come on, you beauty!" the girl cried. "Oh, it would be like heaven to
+ride you; and I could do it, too!"
+
+"Take her to the track, Neb," Layson ordered. "I'll follow and give her
+her exercise."
+
+Madge, unable to resist the impulse which was thrilling her with
+longing, motioned Neb away as he approached to take the mare. "Go 'way!
+Go 'way!" she said. Then, to the mare: "Come on, you dear, come on." She
+went on slowly, while the mare, in calm docility, trailed after her. The
+spectators, who knew the beast, gazed spellbound.
+
+Constantly the girl's pleased eyes were on the beautiful creature
+following. Never had she seen so perfect an animal; never had she known
+one giving such plain signs of high intelligence. The mare's big eyes,
+broad forehead, delicate muzzle, arching neck, strong withers, mighty
+flanks, and slender ankles marked her, to the veriest novice, a
+thoroughbred of thoroughbreds; her docile and obedient march showed what
+seemed like an almost magic power in the delighted mountain maid. Every
+drop of blood in the girl's body tingled with excitement, all her
+muscles thrilled with mad desire to mount the wondrous beast and be away
+as on the wind's wings. She could imagine what the mare's long strides
+would be, she could imagine how exhilerating she would find the steady,
+perfect motion of the mighty back.
+
+"Oh, I can't stand it!" she exclaimed, at length. "I've got to do it!"
+
+She paused, and eagerly the mare stepped up to her, nuzzleing her
+caressing hand. Then, with a bound, the girl was on the graceful
+creature's back, landing in her place as lightly as a wind-blown
+thistle-down, as gracefully as a fairy horsewoman.
+
+"Heavens!" cried Barbara. "She's on Queen Bess!"
+
+"She'll be killed!" Miss Alathea screamed, in terror.
+
+The Colonel, only, recognized her instantly as a born horsewoman. His
+expert eye observed with rare delight the ease with which she mounted,
+the perfect poise with which she found her seat, the absolute adjustment
+of her lithe young motions to the movements of the mare beneath her from
+the very moment she had reached her back.
+
+"No danger; she rides like a centaur."
+
+With the others he had stopped, with eyes for nothing but the girl
+before them and the splendid animal she rode. "Ah, what a jockey she
+would make!"
+
+Barbara liked this exhibition of the mountain girl's abilities no better
+than she had liked anything which Madge had done. Her lip curled
+somewhat scornfully. "What a pity that her sex should bar her from that
+vocation!" she said coldly.
+
+She turned to Frank, who was watching Madge with startled eyes, worried
+as to the result of this mad prank on both the girl and mare.
+
+"Frank," said Barbara, "what a figure she will make to-night at your
+lawn-party! How your friends will laugh at her!"
+
+Layson cast a quick, sharp glance at her. She was not advancing her own
+cause by trying, thus, to ridicule the mountain maiden. "I'll run the
+risk," he said. "She is my guest, you know, and, as such, will surely be
+given every consideration and courtesy by all."
+
+"Oh, certainly," said Barbara, seeing that she had gone, perhaps, too
+far. "If you wish it. I should be glad to please you, once again."
+
+"Nothing could please me more than to have you show her what kindnesses
+you can. I know she will feel strange and worried."
+
+Madge, sitting Queen Bess with an ease and grace which that intelligent
+mare had never found in any other rider, and, now, far from them at the
+other end of the great training-field, absorbed the youth's delighted
+glances.
+
+"Can't you forget her for an instant?" exclaimed Barbara. "You haven't
+been at all the same since you came back from the mountains! Once we
+were always together. Now I never see you unless I come over here; and
+no matter what I do, you don't seem to care."
+
+Layson was uneasy. He had been aware, for a long time, that, sooner or
+later, a complete understanding of his changed feelings toward this
+girl, must, in some way, be accomplished. Now seemed a good time for
+it, yet he hesitated at the thought of it. But the thing had to be gone
+through with. "I know I used to play the tyrant, Barbara; but it wasn't
+a pleasant role, and I was always half-ashamed of it."
+
+The girl flared into a passion. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Barbara, I have had no right to go so far, no right to ask so much of
+you. From the bottom of my heart I beg forgiveness. Let us forget it all
+and just be friends again." And, even as he spoke, his eyes were
+wandering toward the girl whom Queen Bess had so utterly surrendered to.
+The mare, known since she had first been saddled, as a terror to all
+riders, was carrying her as gently as the veriest country hack had ever
+borne an old lady from the farm to market.
+
+Barbara saw where his attention was, and resentment thrilled her.
+"Friends? Never! Frank Layson, I believe I hate you!"
+
+"Oh, very well," said he, plainly not too much impressed, "if you want
+to be unreasonable, why, of course--"
+
+The girl was frightened at the length to which she had permitted her
+ill-temper to carry her. "Oh, no, Frank," she hastily corrected, "I
+didn't mean that. Of course I am your friend."
+
+"Thank you, Barbara," said he, with a calmness which was maddening to
+her. "I am sure we understand each other, now." And then, still further
+maddening her: "I must go now, and look after Madge and dear Queen
+Bess. I never should forgive myself if anything should happen to the
+girl. But nothing will. See how splendidly she rides!"
+
+The girl upon the horse, as if conscious of his anxiety about her, now
+turned her mount back toward the field-end where the onlookers were
+loosely grouped and came toward them at a slow and gentle canter--a gait
+which none had ever seen Queen Bess take before, when a stranger was
+upon her back. She leaped from the mare by Layson's side, and Neb, ever
+anxious for the welfare of his equine darling, began work without delay
+at rubbing Queen Bess down.
+
+"Reckon you'll never forgive me," Madge apologized to Layson, "but I
+just couldn't help it. Never even saw a mare like her, afore. My pony's
+no-whar alongside of her. I felt like an angel sittin' on a cloud an'
+sailin' straight to heaven!" She turned and petted the black beauty.
+"Oh, you darling!"
+
+"Got to take her in, now," Neb said, preparing to lead the mare away. He
+spoke apologetically as if the girl had rights which, now, should be
+consulted. He had never made a like concession in the past to anyone
+except his master.
+
+"Go 'way, go 'way," said Madge, taking the reins from his black hand.
+"Ain't no use o' leadin' her--you jest watch her foller me!"
+
+She looped the reins about the mare's arched neck, started off, and,
+without so much as flicking her long tail, Queen Bess fell in behind,
+obedient to her cooing, murmurous calls.
+
+Frank laughed. "If," he said to the whole party, "you wish to have a
+look at the mare's quarters, I think Neb will now admit us."
+
+All but the Colonel started toward the stable, but he hesitated, looking
+toward Miss Alathea. While the others had been spellbound by the girl
+and horse, he, the most enthusiastic horseman of them all, had been
+divided in attention between them and the lady whose notice he
+attracted, now, by means of sundry hems and haws.
+
+"Miss 'Lethe, just a moment," he said softly. She paused and then went
+up to him. He held out a newspaper, suddenly at a loss for words, now
+that there was a prospect of a moment with her wholly uninterrupted.
+"Here," said he, a little panicky, "is a full account of the revival,
+sermon and all. Make your hair stand on end to read it."
+
+She took the paper, undeceived by his small subterfuge to gain
+attention, but interested, as she always was in such things, in the
+account of the revival. "This really is interesting." She sat down on
+the bench, as they reached the stable-yard again, and pored above the
+newspaper.
+
+In the meantime the Colonel tried to screw his courage to the sticking
+point. "Colonel Sandusky Doolittle," he adjured himself, "if you don't
+say it now, then you forever hold your peace, that's all!" He went to
+his buggy, which had been brought to the stable yard, and from
+underneath its seat took a box containing a bouquet of sweet,
+old-fashioned flowers. Miss Alathea, absorbed in the account of the
+revival, did not notice him at all. "This will do the business," he
+reflected. "Now, Sandusky Doolittle, keep cool, keep cool!" Nervously,
+as he gazed at her, his fingers worked among the flowers, dismembering
+them unconsciously. "A Kentucky Colonel," he was saying to himself in
+scorn, "afraid of a woman!" His fingers tore the flowers with new
+activity as his nervousness increased, making sad work with the
+magnificent bouquet. "Of course she is an angel," he reflected, and
+then, with a grim humor, "or will be before I ask her, if I wait another
+twenty years! But I shall ask her, I shall ask her!" He stepped toward
+her boldly, but paused before her in a wordless panic when he had
+approached within a yard. "Heavens!" he thought. "My heart is going at a
+one-forty gait and the jockey's lost the reins. I'll be over the fence
+in another minute if I don't hold tight! But I have got to do it, this
+time." He dropped the stems of the flowers, still bound together by
+their lengths of wide white ribbon, into the elaborate box from which,
+so lately, he had taken them in their uninjured beauty, not noting the
+sad wreck which his too nervous fingers had produced, put on the cover
+and approached still nearer. With the box held toward her bashfully, he
+managed, then, another step or two. "Miss 'Lethe," he said stammering,
+"lawn party to-night--bouquet for you--brought it from Lexington--for
+you--for you, you know."
+
+The Colonel never was embarrassed save when he was endeavoring to
+propose marriage to Miss Alathea and he always was embarrassed then. She
+recognized the situation from the mere tone of his voice and looked up
+hopefully.
+
+"Oh, Colonel, how kind!" said she, as she held delighted hands out for
+the box. "I know it is beautiful."
+
+"It was quite the best I could do, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel.
+
+"You have such splendid taste! I'm sure it's lovely." She opened the box
+and looked, expectantly, within. "Why, Colonel," she cried,
+disappointed, "where are--where are the flowers?"
+
+"Why--why--why," he stammered, and then saw the mutilated blossoms on
+the ground around him. "Why, I don't know--don't know," said he. "'Don't
+ask me."
+
+She was rummaging among the stems, nonplussed. "Why, here's a note!" she
+said.
+
+"Thank heaven!" the Colonel thought, "the note's there yet!" Then,
+growing bold: "Miss 'Lethe, if you've a kindly feeling for me in your
+heart, read that note; but don't you get excited; keep cool, keep cool!"
+
+"Why, certainly," said she. "I see no cause for excitement." She
+unfolded the note and read, aloud, and very slowly, for the Colonel's
+hand was not too easy to decipher. "'My dear, dear Miss 'Lethe: Woman
+without her man is a savage.'" She looked up, naturally astonished by
+this unusual statement. "Why, Colonel," she exclaimed, "what can you
+mean by saying woman is a savage without her man?"
+
+He stood appalled for just a second and then realized the error into
+which his ardor had misled him. "Great Scott!" he cried. "I forgot to
+put in the commas! It ought to read this way: 'Woman, without her, man
+is a savage.' Go on, Miss 'Lethe, please go on."
+
+She read again: "'I feel that it is time for me to become civilized--in
+other words, to come in out of the wet. To me you have been, for twenty
+years, the embodiment of woman's truth, purity and goodness. But
+constitutional timidity and chronic financial depression, due to the
+race-track, have hitherto kept me silent.'" Miss 'Lethe looked up at him
+with a strange expression on her face. "Colonel," she exclaimed, "what
+does this mean?"
+
+"Go on, Miss 'Lethe," was the answer, "please go on, go on." He made a
+mighty effort to secure control of his unruly nerves, and, almost
+unconsciously, while her head was bent above the note, took a small
+flask from his pocket and imbibed from it. It steadied him.
+
+She read again: "'I am convinced that my interest in the company will
+yield me a competence; accordingly, behold me at your feet!'"
+
+Miss 'Lethe looked down somewhat mischievously. She did not see the
+Colonel where his note declared he would be. She glanced again at the
+paper in her hands and saw a word which, at first, had quite escaped
+attention. "'Metaphorically,'" she read, and then the signature:
+"'Colonel Sandusky Doolittle.'"
+
+"Colonel!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Miss 'Lethe," he replied, and, discovering that the flask was still in
+plain view in his hand, slipped it into his sidepocket upside down.
+
+"Colonel, put that bottle right side up and listen to me," she said
+calmly. "Do you really love me?"
+
+"Do I love you? With a fervor--er--a--passion--er--will you excuse me if
+I smoke?" He took a black cigar from his vest pocket, in another effort
+to control his nerves, and lighted it as might an automatic smoker.
+
+"I am going to put you to the proof," said she. "Could you, for my sake,
+come down from ten cigars a day to five?"
+
+The Colonel was dismayed. "To five cigars a day! Impossible!" He caught
+himself. That scarcely was the way to answer the request of the woman he
+adored so fervently. "I mean," he hastily corrected, "is--is that all?"
+He made a motion as if to throw away the weed he had just lighted, but
+thought better of it. "I will make the descent to-morrow," he said
+earnestly.
+
+"Could you restrict yourself to three mint-julips, daily?"
+
+"Three! A man couldn't live on three! He'd have to--have to take such
+poisons as--as cold water into his system."
+
+"Remember, Colonel, I would mix them."
+
+"That settles it! Three goes!" He fervently reached toward her, plainly
+planning to embrace her.
+
+"Wait, Colonel," she exclaimed, "there is one more condition. Could you,
+for my sake, promise never to enter another race-track?"
+
+He started back from her in horror. "Never enter another race-tack! I,
+Colonel Sandusky Doolittle, known everywhere, from Maine to California,
+as a plunger, give up the absorbing passion of my life!"
+
+"Remember what you said to Frank," said she. "'It's a delusion and a
+snare.' But, of course, if you think more of a delusion than you do of
+me--"
+
+"No; hang it!" cried the Colonel, "I think more of you. Twenty
+years--the longest race on record and a win in sight! I'll not lose by a
+balk at the finish! I promise you, Miss 'Lethe, on the honor of a
+Kentuckian."
+
+"Then, Colonel, I must confess, I have loved you, also, for every one
+of those long twenty years."
+
+"Twenty years!" He turned his head aside and muttered: "What a damned
+fool I have been!" Then, to her, he said, exultantly: "Aha! A neck
+ahead!"
+
+It is difficult to say what would have happened, then, if Madge, Holton,
+Barbara and Frank had not come from the stable, chattering about Queen
+Bess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Joe Lorey, mad with wrath, his heart filled with the lust of killing for
+revenge, infuriated to the point where he felt need of neither food nor
+sleep, yet made less rapid time down the rough mountain paths than had
+the girl. Love-lent wings are swifter than an impulse born of hatred and
+resentment can be. She had flown upon such wings to save the man who
+filled her innocent thoughts with longing; Joe had gone clumsily,
+despite his cunning as a mountaineer, for leaden, murderous thoughts had
+weighed him down, hampering the quickness of his wit, delaying his fleet
+feet, confusing the alertness of his watchfulness for faint-limned
+trails, loose areas perilous of slides upon steep slopes. Indeed, though
+hate had driven him, Joe Lorey never in his life had made so very slow a
+journey to the bluegrass as that which he had started on from his
+wrecked still, with hatred of Frank Layson, who he thought had viciously
+betrayed him, blazing in his heart.
+
+Hours after the light-footed girl, spurred by her fear for one whom she
+but dimly guessed that she had learned to love, had arrived at the
+bluegrass mansion and been welcomed by the owner of Queen Bess, the
+mountaineer reached the confines of the splendid farm, and lurked there,
+waiting for night-fall to make his entrance into the house grounds safe.
+
+The rough youth's mental state was pitiable. Tragedy had pursued him,
+almost from his life's beginning, he reflected, as he furtively awaited
+opportunity for the revenge which he had planned. The fierce feud of the
+mountains had robbed him of his parents, and, with them, of the best
+years of his youth; the rough life of the mountains had robbed his
+strong young manhood of those opportunities which, he dimly realized,
+might have made him different and better; when love for sweet Madge
+Brierly had come to him, Fate had brought up from the bluegrass the
+young stranger, who, with his superior learning, polished manner and
+smooth speech, had found the conquest of the girl (Joe bitterly
+reflected) all too easy; and finally had come the crowning, black
+disaster--the betrayal of his still to the agents of the government, its
+destruction and his transformation from a free man of the mountains into
+a furtive outlaw.
+
+He could not see that life held anything but gloom for him--black,
+impenetrable, ever thickening. He had but one thing left to live for--a
+revenge as dark as were the wrongs which he had suffered.
+
+He knew that government agents have shrewd wits, keen eyes, strong arms,
+and never let a moonshiner escape if, through any strategy, they may
+bring about his capture; he knew that since the discovery and
+destruction of his still he was a marked man; so it was nearing dusk
+when, after intensely cautious and immensely skilful manoeuvering
+against discovery, he actually entered the Layson grounds.
+
+The long, exciting afternoon, full of Queen Bess, a certain sense of
+triumph over Barbara Holton, the extent of which she could not guess,
+countless thrills of gratitude and exultation born of the kindness and
+consideration shown her by Miss Alathea and the Colonel, had sped away
+before Madge realized that it had been half-spent. Now, though, the
+deepening twilight warned her of the flight of time and told her that
+she must, perforce, perform the task for which she had descended from
+the mountains.
+
+All the others except Frank had drifted toward the house, and she had
+hung behind for the express purpose of getting private speech with him,
+when she had the day's first opportunity.
+
+"Mr. Frank," said she, "afore we go into th' house I got a word to say
+to you as I don't want nobody but you to hear."
+
+A quick glance at her face showed him that what she had to say was,
+really, of great importance, for her lovely mouth was serious, her deep
+eyes were full of worry, her smooth brow was nearer to real frowning
+than he had ever seen it.
+
+"Why, Madge, what is the matter?"
+
+She put her hand upon his arm, turning her sweet face up to him with a
+revelation of solicitude which, had she known how plain it was, she
+would have hidden at all hazard. "It may mean life or death to you," she
+told him solemnly.
+
+"Life or death to me, little girl? What are you talking of?" said he,
+almost incredulous.
+
+"Joe Lorey's still were raided by the revenuers after you come down!"
+
+"It can't be possible!"
+
+"It is. It lies in ruins and in ashes an' he is hidin' out among th'
+mountings, somewhars, in danger, ev'ry minute, of arrest an', then, of
+prison. 'Twas all he had in th' wide world."
+
+"Poor fellow! I am sorry," said Layson, with quick sympathy. "I'll see
+what can be done. And you say he's hiding out up in the mountains?"
+
+She hesitated. "I said so, but I reckon it ain't true, exactly. It was
+that that made me hurry down to speak to you. Some say as how he has
+come down into th' bluegrass to find th' man as gin th' word. It is a
+crime as never is forgiven in th' mountings."
+
+As she spoke, unseen, behind them, a dark, slouching, furtive figure
+slipped across an open space and took a crouching stand behind a tree
+near by. Had they listened without speech they might have heard the
+heavy breathing of the very man of whom they spoke, might have heard the
+sharp click of the lock of his long rifle as he brought its hammer to
+full cock. Had they turned about they might have seen the blue glint of
+the day's last light upon that rifle's barrel, which was levelled
+straight at Layson's heart. But they saw none of these things nor heard
+a sound.
+
+"Who does he think betrayed him?" Layson asked, with deep interest, but
+no trace of guilty knowledge, thrilling in his voice.
+
+Madge hesitated. Then she blurted out the truth. "Who?" she repeated,
+"Why--why you! _YOU_--YOU!"
+
+The rifle barrel steadied to its mark, the finger curled to press upon
+the trigger.
+
+"Why, Madge," said Layson, earnestly, "I didn't even know he had a
+still! I swear it!"
+
+There was an honest ring in the youth's voice which could not be
+mistaken.
+
+"I knowed it warn't your doin'," the girl said with a great sigh of
+relief.
+
+And as she spoke the rifle barrel slowly fell.
+
+"I knowed it warn't your doin', but Joe'll never believe it. Night an'
+day you'll have to be close on your guard. There's no tellin' what
+minute your life may be in danger."
+
+"I don't believe it of Joe Lorey," Layson answered earnestly. "We
+fought, and he fought fair."
+
+After they had gone, Joe crept out from his hiding place among the
+shrubbery and looked after them with puzzled, pain-filled eyes, like a
+great animal's.
+
+"If they'd only knowed that I war standin' in th' shadder there!" he
+mused. "If he hadn't spoke them words I'd pulled th' trigger, but he
+spoke up like as ef 't war true an' I jest couldn't do it."
+
+A cautious footstep on the close-knit sward, which would have been
+inaudible to any ear less keen than his, attracted his attention,
+suddenly, and he slipped back to his leafy hiding-place. Peering from
+the covert he saw Holton coming. The man was furtive, apprehensive in
+his every movement, suspicion breeding. When Joe stepped out from his
+thicket boldly, to confront him, the ex-slave-dealer fell back,
+frightened.
+
+"Hello, sir," was Joe's laconic greeting.
+
+"Joe Lorey!" exclaimed Holton.
+
+"That's me," Joe boldly granted. He peered at him so closely that Holton
+shrank away from him, involuntarily. "And you--why you're the man as gin
+th' word that Frank Layson had warned th' revenooers of my still."
+
+"I told ye for yer good," said Holton, clearly recognizing that his
+position was unfortunate. "An' recollect you promised not to tell anyone
+my name."
+
+Joe nodded gravely. "While I believe ye told th' truth I'll keep my
+word," he answered. "But I wants to tell you that I heered Frank Layson
+deny it, hyar, to-night, an' it sounded like he war speakin' th' plain
+truth. See hyar, sir, you nearly egged me on to doin' murder." He
+reached forward and seized Holton by the shoulder roughly, with a grasp
+so powerful that the old man, though he was of sturdy frame and mighty
+muscle, knew that he was helpless in the grip. "Now look me in th' face.
+Tell me as you vally your own life--war it truth or lies, you told me?"
+
+"It war th' truth," said Holton, doggedly; "th' truth an' nothin' else."
+
+Joe shook his head incredulously. "I'd like better proof nor your word,
+stranger, for, some way, your voice it don't ring true, nor yer eye look
+honest."
+
+"I'll gin ye th' proof," said Holton desperately. "Ye know that I war
+never near yer still. Layson told me it war in th' wall of a
+ravine--Hangin' Rock Ravine--an' a big oak stood in front of it an' hid
+the mouth o' th' cave. Thar, do ye believe me, now?"
+
+Joe nodded, slowly, thoughtfully. "No man as lived up in th' mountings
+would have told ye." He considered ponderously for a moment. "Yes, I
+reckon that I'll have to take yer word. 'T was him as done it."
+
+"Of course it war," said Holton, and then, perhaps, a bit too eagerly:
+"an' you'll make him pay for it?"
+
+"Yes," said Joe, "but I've another score to settle, first, another man
+to find--Lem Lindsay."
+
+Holton was plainly startled, although Joe could not guess just why he
+should be. "Lem Lindsay!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Yes; the man as murdered my father. I've had word of him, at last. I've
+heard as how he war seen, years ago, in New Orleans--he war a
+nigger-trader, then--an' that he's come up in th' bluegrass country,
+since, like enough under another name." He looked at Holton eagerly. "I
+say, sir, you don't know a man like that, do you?"
+
+Holton spoke a little hurriedly. "No, no; there ain't no man like that
+in these parts."
+
+"It don't make no differ whar he bides," said Joe. "Soon or late our
+paths'll cross an' bring us face to face. When he struck down my father
+it war sealed and signed above that he war to fall by my hand; an'
+there's a feelin' in my heart that that hour air drawin' nigh." He
+nodded and then turned away. "Good-night, stranger."
+
+Holton was thoroughly alarmed. Many things distressed him. He could
+plainly see that his daughter's love-affair with Layson had gone wrong,
+he realized that there was little chance that he could buy Madge
+Brierly's coal lands at anything but a fair value, and now--to fall by
+his hand!
+
+"I'll make that false," he muttered, "Why, I've got to do it!"
+
+He moved away among the trees, but stopped in frequent thought as he
+progressed.
+
+"They'll lay the crime on Lorey," he reflected, after he had laid his
+plan. "They'll hunt him down and lynch him and I shall be safe.
+Layson'll be ruined, he'll have to sell Woodlawn, and my gal'll be th'
+missus there, in spite of him. I've got to do it."
+
+Like a shadow of the night he hurried through the grounds until he
+reached the stable where Queen Bess was thought to be secure.
+
+"Every window barred, every door is sealed but this!" he cunningly
+reflected as he paused at the front entrance.
+
+With frantic haste, lest he should be discovered at the work, he piled
+brush from a near refuse pile against the door and stuffed wisps of
+grass and hay into the bottom of the heap. Into this tinder pile he
+thrust a lighted match and disappeared, just as Madge came to the bench
+where she had paused when she first came to Woodlawn, early in the
+afternoon.
+
+It was plain enough, from her dejected looks and listless attitude, that
+the dance had given her no pleasure, but, on the contrary, had filled
+her with distress.
+
+"I couldn't stand it thar, no longer," she was thinking, bitterly. "I
+war jest a curiosity, like a wild woman. Miss Barbarous poked fun at me
+till I war plumb afraid I'd fly at her like a wild-cat, so I jest
+slipped away. Oh, I see, now, as I never seed afore; the differ that
+there is 'twixt Mr. Frank an' me! An' I know, now, what 't is air ailin'
+me. I loves him. Oh, I loves him better nor my life! But it can't never
+be." She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed. "Good-bye, good,
+kind, Mr. Frank, good-bye!" She stretched her arms out toward the
+mansion she had lately left, where lights were twinkling gaily, whence
+sounds of music now came faintly to her ears. "You'll soon forget the
+little mounting girl. You'll never know she loved you. I'm goin'
+back--back to the old mountings."
+
+As she rose an ominous crackling caught her ear and held her at
+attention, then, in a horrid flash, the fire blazed out among the hay
+and brush which Holton had piled up against the stable door.
+
+"Oh, oh!" she cried. "Th' stable is burnin'! Fire! Fire! Fire! Neb, are
+you in there? Don't you hear me, Neb? Th' stable air on fire!"
+
+Neb's voice came from the dim interior, muffled and skeptical. "What
+dat?" he said. "Don't want no foolishness 'round heah. I's ahmed."
+
+"It's me, Neb, me," she cried. "Th' stable 's burnin', Neb!"
+
+"Gorramighty!" she heard Neb exclaim, now in a voice expressive of great
+fright. "Dat's so, dat's so! Quick, honey, open up de doah!"
+
+Madge was working at the biggest log which Holton had thrust against
+the door to feed the blaze. The flames and smoke surged 'round her as
+she struggled with the unwieldy thing, her hands grasped, more than
+once, live coals, without making her release her hold. Once or twice the
+bursting flames, swung hither and swung yon by the light, vagrant
+breezes of the night and the drafts born of the fire, itself, flared
+straight toward her face, and, to save her hair, which, once igniting,
+would, she knew, make further work impossible, she had to draw back for
+a second; but each time, as she saw another chance, she sprang again to
+the desperate task. At last, after a dozen efforts, she had thrust the
+blazing log so far from the already burning door that Neb could push it
+open. He stumbled out, his old hands held before him, gropingly,
+half-suffocated.
+
+"Neb, you ain't hurt," said she.
+
+"You go ring dat bell," said he, pointing to a standard bearing at its
+top an ornamental iron crotch in which a big plantation bell was swung.
+"Soon's I get my bref from all dat smoke I'll go back an' git Queen
+Bess."
+
+The girl sprang to the rope and soon the bell was ringing out a wild
+alarm.
+
+"Hurry, Neb!" she cried. "Oh, hurry! Th' fire's a-gainin', ev'ry second!
+Hurry!"
+
+Neb dashed back into the stable upon trembling limbs, while, without a
+pause, the girl kept up the clangor of alarm. Her eyes were ever on the
+door through which the faithful black had disappeared, watching
+anxiously to see him come out with the mare.
+
+But second after second--seconds which seemed to her like hours--went by
+and he did not appear again. Her heart began to beat with frantic fears
+that Neb, himself, as well as the superb animal which she had already
+learned to love, had fallen victim to the fire, when, at last, he
+stumbled from the door.
+
+"'Tain't no use," he said, as he weakly staggered up to her. "It kain't
+be done. Queen Bess am crazy wid de fiah. She jes' won't come out! I
+cain't _git_ huh to come out." He sobbed. "An' she am all dat Marse
+Frank hab on earth!" Beside himself he ran off toward the house,
+shouting for his master wildly.
+
+"All he has on earth!" the girl exclaimed, the bell-rope falling from
+relaxing hands. An instant she stood there in thought, horrified at the
+idea of the catastrophe which threatened Layson. Then: "I'll save her!
+She will follow me!"
+
+Without a second's hesitation, with no thought for her own safety, she
+drew her skirts about her tightly, wrapped her shawl around her head to
+save her hair and dashed through the growing flames about the
+stable-door, into the inferno which now raged within the structure, just
+as Neb, running with a lurching step, but with a speed remarkable in
+one so old and stiffened by rheumatic pains, dashed back to the scene of
+the disaster, in advance of Frank, the Colonel, Holton, Miss Alathea and
+the other inmates of the house, guests, servants, all.
+
+[Illustration: "BACK! BACK! I'M A-COMIN' WITH QUEEN BESS!"]
+
+Without a word, as he approached, Frank pulled off his coat, evidently
+preparing for a desperate dash through the now roaring flames to rescue
+his beloved mare. Then, bracing himself for a great spring through the
+lurid barrier, he cried, "I'll save her!" and would have leaped into the
+flaming entrance if Neb had not caught his arm with desperate grip.
+
+"No, honey," the old negro cried, "yo' shan't go in!"
+
+The Colonel joined the negro in restraining the half-crazed owner of
+Queen Bess. "It's no use, Frank," said he. "We'll not let you go in."
+
+They dragged the struggling youth back from the fire just as, to their
+amazement, an exultant voice rang from the inside of the burning
+building. "Back! Back!" it cried. "I'm a-comin' with Queen Bess!"
+
+An instant later Madge sprang out through the flames, followed by the
+mare, about whose head the mountain girl had wrapped her shawl.
+
+"Come, girl! Come, girl!" said Madge, alert of eye, cool-witted,
+soothing.
+
+As docilely as she had followed her that afternoon, the mare stepped
+through the blazing door and out into the stable-yard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Lexington was in a wild state of excitement on the morning of the year's
+great race, the Ashland Oaks. In a private parlor of the Phoenix Hotel
+the two men who were, perhaps, most deeply interested of all in it, were
+weary of their speculations after they had gone, for the thousandth
+time, over every detail of possible prophecy and speculation. The
+Colonel sat beside a table upon which stood a "long" glass from which
+protruded, and in which nestled fragrant mint-leaves. At the bottom of
+the glass there lingered, yet, the good third of a julep.
+
+"There's one capital thing about a mint-julep," he said comfortably, and
+smacked appreciative lips. "One always suggests another." He drained his
+glass and rose. At the other side of the room was the bell-button. His
+finger was extended and about to touch it when he stopped to think. "No!
+Great heavens!" said he. "That makes my third, already, and I'm as dry
+as the desert of Sahara." He sat down again, an air of martyrdom upon
+his face. "Ah, well, Miss 'Lethe's worth it. I say, Frank, anything new
+in the extra?"
+
+The youthful owner of Queen Bess, to whom it seemed as if almost life
+itself were staked on the result of the coming contest at the track,
+lowered, with a nervous hand, for an instant only, the newspaper he had
+been poring over.
+
+"Only this," he said, and slowly read: "'Queen Bess is still the
+favorite for the Ashland Oaks. The report that she was injured in the
+fire by which her stable was burned, proves to be a canard. Her owner
+declares her to be unhurt and in fine condition.'"
+
+The Colonel nodded his approval. "That's what I've telegraphed the Dyer
+brothers. I'm sure they won't refuse to take her when they know the
+facts in the case. It was a close shave, though. If it hadn't been for
+that little thoroughbred from the mountains--"
+
+"When she rushed into the flames, last night, wasn't she magnificent!"
+said Frank, flushing with enthusiasm. "And when she came out, leading
+Queen Bess to safety, she looked like an angel!"
+
+The Colonel coughed in deprecation. "The simile's off, a little bit,
+ain't it? Angels are not supposed to come out of the flames."
+
+"At least, Colonel, you'll admit that she's the best and bravest little
+girl you ever knew."
+
+The Colonel smiled. "Yes; but, my boy, this enthusiasm is alarming." He
+laughed outright. "It seems to indicate another conflagration, with
+Cupid as the incendiary."
+
+The youth colored. "Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"Be more careful, Frank," his friend urged, becoming serious. "She's a
+dear, simple little thing, not used to the ways of the world. Don't let
+her get too fond of you."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"See here, my boy. I know you young fellows don't want an old fool, like
+me, interfering with your affairs, but I've taken that little girl right
+to my heart. I tell you, Frank, she's too brave and true to be trifled
+with. She's not that kind."
+
+Layson flushed hotly. The intimation, even from the Colonel, was more
+than he could bear with patience. "Stop!" he cried. "You've said enough.
+What you mean to insinuate is false!"
+
+The Colonel rose, embarrassed. The youth's earnestness astonished him.
+Could it be possible that this scion of an ancient bluegrass family,
+this leader of the younger set in one of the most exclusive circles in
+Kentucky, could really be thinking seriously of that untutored
+mountain-girl? "My boy, forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I--I didn't
+understand. I never dreamed there could be anything--er--serious. I
+thought, of course--"
+
+Frank paced the floor with nervous tread. Other things than the
+impending contest for the Ashland Oaks had been worrying him of late.
+Since he had left the mountains there had scarcely been a moment, waking
+or sleeping, when the face of the sweet mountain girl who had fascinated
+him among her rocks and forests, and had come down to the bluegrass to
+save not only his life but the life of his beloved mare, had not been
+vividly before him. Untutored she might be, uncouth of speech, unlearned
+in all those things, in fact, which the women he had known had ever held
+most valuable, but her compensating virtues had begun to take upon
+themselves their actual values--values so overwhelming in their
+magnitude that her few lackings grew to seem continually less important
+in his mind.
+
+"Never mind, Colonel," he said slowly, "you can't say anything to me but
+what I've said, over and over again, to myself. I know she's ignorant
+and uncultured. I know what it would mean if I should marry her. If I
+were to choose for a wife a fashionable girl, whose life is centered in
+the luxury which surrounds her, the world would smile approval; but for
+Madge, with her true, brave heart and noble thoughts, there would be
+only sneers and insults because she happened to be born up there in the
+mountains. That is the kind of people we are down here in the
+bluegrass." He smiled, somewhat bitterly. "And I--well, I'm too much
+like the rest to need any warning--too much of a coward to think of
+making her my wife."
+
+He sat, dejectedly, in a chair by the long table, and, with face held
+between his hands and elbows planted on the board, looked across it,
+through the open window, out into the thronging street with gloomy
+eyes. For days he had been fighting battle after battle with himself. He
+could not make his mind up as to what he ought to do. He knew he loved
+the mountain-girl, but--but--
+
+"There, there, my boy, I'm sorry," said the Colonel, sympathetically,
+apologetically. "Let's drop the subject. The ladies will be here, soon.
+Before they come I'll step over to the office and get the answer from
+the Dyer Brothers." He rose, looking at his watch. "It's nearly time it
+was here. They were to wire promptly. I'll bring it to you as soon as it
+comes." He went to Frank and put his hand upon his shoulder
+comfortingly. "Don't worry, my boy. It will all come out, all right.
+Ahem! I mean there's nothing the matter with the mare and the sale will
+go through."
+
+"I hope so," said Frank, rising without much show of energy. He was
+clearly on the edge of real discouragement. "If it doesn't--and that
+assessment to be met--ah, well! What's the use of worrying? It doesn't
+help the matter any." He walked slowly to the window and looked out.
+"Here come Madge and Aunt 'Lethe," he announced, "through with their
+shopping at last. How different Madge looks from the little
+mountain-girl I first knew!" He turned and faced the Colonel. "Ah, if
+the world knew her as I do--"
+
+The Colonel left the room, bound for the telegraph-office, just before a
+shrill scream came from the corridor, without, startling Layson greatly.
+
+"Oh, dellaw!" the frightened voice said. "Le' me out! Le' me out!"
+
+He recognized the voice, at once, as belonging to the girl whom he had
+been discussing with the Colonel, and it was so full of terror that he
+rushed quickly to the door, prepared to rescue her from some dire peril.
+
+"What can be the matter?" he thought, frightened.
+
+At the door he met Madge, white of face and startled, coming in.
+
+"Why, Madge! What is it?"
+
+She leaned against the writing-table, gasping. It was plain enough that
+she had been greatly frightened.
+
+"Wait till I git my breath," she said; and then: "They got us into a
+little room, and, all of a sudden, we started skallyhootin' fer th'
+roof--room an' all!"
+
+Frank fell back, relieved, and trying not to show amusement.
+
+"That was the elevator," he explained. "A machine to carry you upstairs
+and save you the work of climbing."
+
+"Dellaw!" exclaimed the girl, not yet entirely calm. "As if I couldn't
+walk! Thought we was blowed up by another dynamighty bomb!"
+
+Miss Alathea entered hurriedly, looking about the room, in evident
+distress. At sight of Madge she gave a great sigh of relief. "My dear,
+I'm so sorry you were frightened!"
+
+The girl laughed nervously, pulling herself together. "I understand,
+now, Miss 'Lethe, and I'm as cool as a cucumber."
+
+There was a group of darkies at the door, and, suddenly, they all began
+to grin. Miss 'Lethe knew the sign.
+
+"The Colonel's coming," she said positively. "Their faces show it. Look
+at them?"
+
+Her guess proved a true prophecy. The Colonel, plainly busy with
+absorbing thoughts, was striding along the uneven old brick sidewalk,
+seeing nothing, hearing nothing, when the crowd of darkies, sure of his
+good-nature, beneficiaries from past favors, many times, surrounded him,
+beseeching him for tips upon the coming races. Very different were these
+city darkies from the respectful negroes of the Kentucky plantations of
+the time. They swarmed about him in an insistent horde.
+
+"Who gwine win dat race, Marse Cunnel? Who gwine win dat race?" they
+chorussed.
+
+He stopped and beamed at them good-naturedly.
+
+"Who's going to win?" said he. "Queen Bess, of course."
+
+He joined the group, inside, with a bundle in one hand and an open
+telegram in the other. "Good morning, ladies. Miss 'Lethe, you're
+looking fresh and blooming as you used to twenty years ago." He tried to
+catch himself, but failed. "As fresh and blooming," he corrected, "as
+usual, Miss 'Lethe." His bow was very courtly and her own no less so.
+
+"Frank, my boy," said he, turning to the youthful owner of Queen Bess,
+"I've got their answer, and it's all right."
+
+Frank had been acutely worried. There had been some question of the sale
+of the mare to the Dyer Brothers before the fire; now that this disaster
+had occurred and stories had been started, as, of course, he knew they
+must have been, about injuries to her, there might be, he had feared,
+good reason to expect the celebrated horsemen to withdraw their
+proposition. The Colonel's news, therefore, was very welcome.
+
+"They take the mare?" he asked, all eagerness."
+
+"N-o," began the Colonel, "but--"
+
+Frank's face fell, instantly, and his shoulders drooped despairingly.
+"Then it's all wrong."
+
+"Not yet," said the Colonel, "score again." He raised the telegram and
+read from it: "'Can't take mare without positive proof that she's all
+right. Let her run in the Ashland Oaks, to-day. If she wins, we take
+her.'" The Colonel looked up beamingly. "Do you hear? They take her!"
+
+The condition which, now, the Dyer brothers made, when, before this,
+they had made none, bothered Frank. The telegram did not elate him quite
+as much as the old horseman had supposed it would. "Ah, if she wins!"
+said he.
+
+Miss Alathea spoke up, eagerly. "Oh, Frank, of course she'll win."
+
+"She's _got_ to win!" exclaimed the Colonel with much emphasis.
+
+Frank was in a pessimistic mood. "I'm not so sure," said he, a little
+gloomily. The strain of the past days had been a hard trial for the
+youth. "If that imp of a jockey, Ike, should get in range of a whiskey
+bottle--however, he has promised not to leave his room."
+
+The Colonel laughed. "Ike leave his room?" he said. "You're right--he
+won't; but it will not be his promise that will keep him from it. He
+couldn't leave it if he would."
+
+"Why not?" inquired Miss 'Lethe.
+
+"Because," the Colonel answered, "I have got his clothes!"
+
+"His clothes!" said Frank, astonished.
+
+"Yes--a Napoleonic device. When I went to see him, this morning, I found
+him in bed. I knew how it might be if he got out, so I saw to it that
+his meals would reach him promptly, and borrowed the one suit of clothes
+he brought with him, under pretence of needing them to help me order a
+new jockey-suit for him to wear in the great race. I've been fair about
+it, too--I've got the new clothes for him." He pointed to the bundle
+which he had just brought in. "They're in there--and they'll not
+disgrace Queen Bess. They're the best I could get."
+
+Frank, less interested in the clothes than in the fact that the jockey,
+now, was quite secure against temptation, sighed with satisfaction.
+"Then he's safe," said he.
+
+The Colonel nodded, notably well satisfied with his performance. Miss
+Alathea, shocked, as she tried to be, by all this business, adjunct of
+gambling, every bit of it, yet smiled admiringly at the big horseman.
+Only Madge, learned, through much experience with mountaineers, whose
+greatest curse is whisky, in the ways of men addicted to its use, was
+not convinced that all was surely well.
+
+"I'd keep a watch on him, just the same," she said. Now that she
+understood the vast importance of this race to Layson her whole heart
+was wrapped up in its fortunes. "When a man wants whisky he gener'ly
+finds a way to git it."
+
+"You're right, Madge," Frank agreed. "I think I'll go and look after
+him, now."
+
+He started toward the door just as a knock sounded on it. When he opened
+it he found Horace Holton standing waiting for admittance. The man
+seemed to be excited.
+
+"I don't want to intrude, sar," said the ex-merchant in slaves, "but I
+come to tell you what you'd orter know. Th' news of th' fire, last
+night, hev set ev'rybody wild. They're lookin' to you, sar, to sw'ar out
+a warrant for Joe Lorey an' set th' sheriff on his track."
+
+Frank came back into the room with the old man, worried by the news
+which he had brought. He had been thinking of this very matter and he
+was not at all convinced that he wished to swear a warrant out for
+Lorey. Finally, after a few seconds of silent and deep thought, he shook
+his head. "I want more proof, first," he declared.
+
+Holton was astonished and ill-pleased. "What more proof d' ye want?" he
+asked. "Ain't it as plain as day that he come down from th' mountings to
+get even with you for th' raidin' of his still? Who else would 'a' done
+it?"
+
+Madge was listening with flushed face and frowning brow. She did not,
+for a second, think Joe Lorey was the culprit. Her suspicions had not
+wholly crystalized, but she had known the mountain-boy since she had
+known anyone, and she could not believe that he would fire a building in
+which was confined a dumb and helpless creature. She knew him to be
+quite as fond of animals as she was. She believed Holton, also, had some
+ulterior reason, which she did not fathom, then, for trying to fasten
+suspicion on the lad. In her earnestness, as she considered these
+things, she stepped close to the old man, almost truculently. "That's
+what I mean to find out," she declared. "Who else done it."
+
+Holton was angered by her manner and her opposition. He had not expected
+to meet any difficulty in the execution of his plan to throw the blame
+of the outrageous crime at Woodlawn, on the shoulders of the
+mountaineer. "What have you got to do with it?" he angrily demanded.
+
+She was not impressed by his quick show of temper. "Reckon I've got as
+much to do with it as you hev," she replied. "Joe Lorey wouldn't never
+plan to burn a helpless dumb critter. He ain't no such coward."
+
+"Who else had a call to do it?" said the old man, placed, unexpectedly,
+on the defensive. "Who else war an enemy of Mr. Layson's?"
+
+Madge spoke slowly. She was not sure, at all, whom she was accusing; her
+suspicions were indefinite, obscure, but they were taking form within
+her mind. "Thar's one as I knows on," she slowly answered. "It's th' one
+as told Joe Lorey that Mr. Frank had set th' revenuers onto him." Her
+conviction strengthened as she spoke, and, as she continued, she looked
+Holton firmly in the eye and spoke with emphasis. "Show me th' man as
+told that lie, an' I'll show you th' scoundrel as tried to burn Queen
+Bess!"
+
+Layson liked the spirit of her warm defense of her old friend, and,
+himself, knew enough about the moonshiner to make it seem quite
+reasonable. He knew that Joe was a crude creature, but believed, and had
+good reason to believe, that he had his code of honor which he would
+abide by at all cost. It was impossible for him to feel convinced that
+this would have permitted him to set fire to the stable. "Madge, I
+believe you're right," said he.
+
+Holton was nonplussed. Things were not going as he had expected and had
+wished them to, at all. "Oh, shore, it war Joe Lorey," he protested. "It
+couldn't 'a' been nobody else. I warns you, here an' now, Layson, that
+ef you don't set th' law after him he'll be lynched before to-morrer
+night."
+
+Layson was a little angered by the man's persistence. "I'll see that
+that doesn't happen," he replied, "and I'll leave no stone unturned to
+find the scoundrel who really did the deed, and have him punished. But
+I'm not certain that the man will prove to be Joe Lorey."
+
+Holton, angry, baffled and astonished, left the room, with a maddening
+conviction growing in his mind that things were going wrong and would
+continue to go wrong. He almost regretted, now, that he had yielded to
+the impulse to set fire to the stable. If Layson would not let him throw
+suspicion where he had intended it should fall, then one part of his
+plan would have failed utterly: he would not have put Joe Lorey, who, at
+liberty, must ever be a peril to him, from his path; and, furthermore,
+if they kept on with investigation, in the end they might--they
+might--but he would not let himself believe that, by any possibility,
+the real truth could come out. He assured himself as he stepped out into
+the crowded street that he was safe, whether or not the crime was ever
+fastened on Joe Lorey.
+
+Layson, after Holton left, looked around upon the party with a worried
+eye. "I can't take this matter up, yet," he declared. "Until the race is
+over I can think of nothing else. Colonel, I'll look after Ike, and then
+we'll be off to the track."
+
+"So we will, my boy," the Colonel answered, "so we will. Ah, what a race
+it will be!" As Frank went out, the horseman rubbed his hands with keen
+anticipations of delight.
+
+"Oh, Colonel," exclaimed Madge, brought back by this turn in the
+conversation to contemplation of the most exciting prospect which had
+ever been before her, "won't we have fun?"
+
+"Won't we?" said the Colonel, very happily.
+
+But then Miss Alathea spoke. She had listened to all the talk about the
+fire, the incendiary, the pursuit, and its dreadful possibilities of
+lynching, with the keenest of distress. Now the Colonel's calm
+declaration that, presently, they would be off to the race-track which
+he had sworn forever to taboo, shifted her mind suddenly from those
+unpleasant topics.
+
+"Colonel!" she exclaimed, in pained astonishment. "Do you forget your
+promise?"
+
+"Er--er--" the old horseman began and became speechless.
+
+Madge was all excitement. "Mr. Frank has told me all about it," she said
+gaily. "I kin see it, now--th' grand-stand filled with folks, th'
+jockeys ridin' in their bright colors, th' horses a-champin' an'
+a-pullin' at their bits--an' then--th' start!" The girl had dreamed
+about such scenes before she had so much as guessed that she might ever
+witness one, and now, when she was actually about to go out to the
+track, herself, and with her own eyes gaze upon the greatest race which
+old Kentucky had known for many a year, it seemed too good to be true.
+Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, her feet danced as if they might be in
+the stirrups, her hands clutched on imaginary reins. "All off together,
+a-goin' like th' lightnin'!" she exclaimed. "Queen Bess a-lyin' back an'
+lettin' th' others do th' runnin', Ike never touchin' her with whip nor
+spur until th' last, an' then jest liftin' her in as if she had wings!"
+
+"Stop! Stop!" cried the Colonel. "Not another word, or I'll drop dead in
+my tracks!" Then, cautiously, to Madge: "I say, little one, couldn't you
+let me have a word alone with Miss 'Lethe?"
+
+The girl nodded wisely. "I understand," said she; and then, with a quick
+glance at Miss Alathea, who was not attending, and an earnest and
+imploring look at the poor Colonel: "Whatever you do don't you forget
+that we are goin' to th' races!" She left the room.
+
+Forget! The Colonel was not likely to forget about those races! He was
+in deep misery of mind. "Miss 'Lethe?" he said timidly.
+
+"Yes, Colonel," said the charming lady, turning toward him.
+
+"Miss 'Lethe, have you the remotest idea of the agony I'm suffering?"
+
+"Why, Colonel, what's the matter? Aren't you well?" Miss 'Lethe's keen
+anxiety was instantaneous.
+
+"Yes--yes--I'm well--that is, I am now, but I shouldn't wonder if I'd be
+dead before night. Miss 'Lethe, when we made our little arrangement,
+yesterday, I didn't know that the sale of the mare, your twenty-five
+thousand dollars, the assessment on Frank's stock, everything was going
+to depend upon this race. I tell you, if I don't see it, I'm liable to
+an attack of heart-disease."
+
+"Ah, Colonel," said she, sadly, "I see where your heart really is!"
+
+"With you, Miss 'Lethe, always with you," he urgently assured her; but
+there was pleading in his eyes which really was pitiful.
+
+"Remember your solemn promise."
+
+"But one little race," he begged. "That wouldn't count, would it? And
+then swear off forever."
+
+"No, Colonel; no," she firmly answered, "for if you yield, this time,
+I'll know that in the race for your affections the horse is first, the
+woman second."
+
+The Colonel sank dejectedly into a chair. "I can't permit you to think
+that," said he. "I'll--keep my promise."
+
+She went to him, delighted. "Ah, I was sure you would," said she. "Now I
+can go and finish my shopping in peace. It's all for your good,
+Colonel--for your good." With a happy smile she left him there, alone.
+
+"For my good!" exclaimed the Colonel, ruefully. "That's what the teacher
+used to say, but the hickory smarted, just the same. Of course Miss
+'Lethe is first--but--but--the horse is a strong second!"
+
+To add to the man's agony, Madge, now, returned, dressed and ready for
+the most exciting moments of her life. "I'm all ready, Colonel," she
+said eagerly. "Think we'll have good seats? I do hope I'll be whar I kin
+see!"
+
+He would not, yet, disappoint the child; he would not, yet,--he could
+not--admit that he, himself, was to meet with such a bitter
+disappointment. "You'll see, all right," he told her, "and so will I."
+But, after a second's thought he added: "I will if I can hire a
+balloon!"
+
+They heard Neb's excited voice out in the corridor, and, an instant
+later, the old darkey hurried in. Immediately the Colonel knew, from his
+appearance, that something had gone seriously wrong.
+
+"What is it, Neb; what is it?" he demanded.
+
+"Fo' de Lawd, sech news!" said Neb. "Sech news!"
+
+"Neb, Neb, what's the matter?" Madge asked, frightened by his manner.
+
+"Somebody," said the negro, "done gone smuggle in a bottle o' whiskey to
+dat mis'able jockey, Ike, an' he am crazy drunk!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+"Drunk!" cried the Colonel, shocked inexpressibly. "And the race this
+afternoon!"
+
+"Marse Frank said you was to come, suh, an' help sobuh him."
+
+Madge approached the Colonel anxiously. "Yes; sober him, if you have to
+turn him inside out!"
+
+"'Fraid he's done on bofe sides, missy; drunk cl'ar t'rough," said Neb.
+
+The Colonel grasped his hat. "We'll try, we'll try," he said. "Oh,
+whisky, whisky! What a pity anyone can get too much of so good a thing!"
+
+"I neber could, suh," Neb replied, "but dat 'ar jockey--"
+
+They hurried out together.
+
+Madge was in intense distress. She knew what this might mean. If Queen
+Bess could not run--and she could not, certainly, without a jockey--the
+Dyer Brothers would not buy her, probably; and if she were not sold in
+time, then Layson would be quite unable to meet the assessment on his
+stock in the coal-mining company. She was by no means certain what this
+was, or what the reason for it, but she had heard talk of it and knew
+that it was very serious. Almost beside herself with her anxiety, she
+could do nothing save sit there and wait for news. The entrance, even of
+Barbara Holton, who came in, now, was a relief to her overtaxed nerves.
+
+"Say," said she, admitting Barbara nearer to good-fellowship than she
+had ever done before, "I reckon you have heered the news--Ike's
+drunk--dead drunk!"
+
+Barbara regarded her excitement with a careful calm. She, herself, had
+been excited by the news when it had reached her, but a moment since,
+but she would not let this girl know that. Her role was to endeavor to
+force the mountain girl back into what she thought her place, at any
+cost.
+
+"Yes, I've heard," said she, "and it's too late to get another jockey,
+so Queen Bess can't run."
+
+She had formed a plan, deep in her mind, and had sought the
+mountain-girl with the skilful scheme.
+
+"Then Mr. Frank is goin' to be ruined!" Madge exclaimed, dejectedly.
+
+"Not unless you wish it," Barbara replied, looking straight into her
+eyes.
+
+"Dellaw! Me wish that? Just you tell me what you mean!"
+
+The bluegrass girl stood looking at the mountain maiden with appraising
+eye for a few seconds. Then she crossed the room and stood close by her
+side, while she tapped upon the table nervously with her carefully
+gloved fingers.
+
+"If this sale fails, as it seems it must," she said, slowly, "it rests
+with you whether my father will advance the money to pay the assessment
+on that stock of Mr. Layson's."
+
+"Your father give him the money?" Madge said in astonishment. "Well, I'd
+never thought o' that! But what have I got to do about it?"
+
+The situation was a hard one, even for the self-possession of the
+lowlands girl, who had inherited her father's coolness in emergency as
+well as some other traits less desirable. Her color rose and she tried,
+earnestly, to gather words which would express the thought she had in
+mind without including a confession of the weakness of her own position.
+This she could not, do, however. She walked over to the window, gazed
+from it, for a moment, at the passing crowds, and then returned to
+Madge, to tell her bluntly: "I want you to go away from here."
+
+"Me go away? What for?"
+
+It was impossible, Barbara now discovered, to make her meaning wholly
+clear, without some measure of humiliation. The first thing that was,
+obviously, necessary was a statement of facts as they were, and this
+must include confession of her own sore weakness. She hesitated, trying
+to avoid it, but when she quite decided that it could not be helped,
+plunged on with a perfect frankness. What she wished was immediately to
+gain her point. If she must eat a bit of humble pie in order to
+accomplish this, why, she would eat it, much as she disliked the diet.
+
+"Can't you see that it is you who stand between Frank and me?" she
+cried. "If it hadn't been for you, I should have been his promised wife!
+If you will go away and never see him again, I can win him back."
+
+Madge was dumbfounded. The cold and utter selfishness of the girl's
+proposal was astounding. She looked at Barbara with eyes in which
+incredulous amazement gave way, slowly, to an expression of chill
+wonder. "Say, you don't seem to squander many thoughts on other people!
+S'posin' I happen to love him a little, myself!"
+
+Barbara laughed scornfully. Sprung from low stock, herself, but reared
+in luxury, she had the most complete contempt for anyone whom
+circumstances had denied advantages such as she had known. "You--_you_
+love him!" she exclaimed.
+
+The words had slipped from Madge's lips without forethought, and,
+instantly, she very much regretted them; but, now that she had uttered
+them she did not so much as think of trying to recall them or deny their
+truth. "Yes, and I ain't ashamed of it," said she. "I _do_ love him--a
+thousand times better nor you ever dreamed of."
+
+"What good will it do you?" asked her rival, coldly. "You don't suppose
+he'll ever think of making you his wife! Why, look at the difference
+between you and me!"
+
+"Yes," said Madge, sarcastically, "there _is_ a powerful sight of
+differ! You'd be willin' to ruin' him to win him, while I'd be willin'
+to gin up my happiness to save him!"
+
+Barbara, more in earnest than she ever had been in her life before, took
+a quick step toward the mountain girl. "Then prove it by going away,"
+said she, "and I will see that my father advances Frank Layson the money
+he needs." She looked at her eagerly. "Do you promise?"
+
+"No," said Madge, with firm decision. "No; I won't."
+
+"Then it is you who will ruin him."
+
+While they had been talking an idea had sprung to sudden flower in
+Madge's mind. It was a daring, an unheard of plan that had occurred to
+her. There were details of it which filled her with shrinking. She knew
+that if she put it into practice, and it ever became generally known,
+she would be the talk of Lexington and that not all that talk would be
+complimentary. She knew that, after she had carried out the plan, even
+the man for whom she thought of doing it might look at her with scorn.
+But it was the only plan which her alert and anxious brain could find
+which promised anything at all. And if it won, perhaps--perhaps--he
+might not scorn her! At any rate it was a sacrifice, and sacrifice for
+him was an attractive thought to her.
+
+"Me ruin him?" she said to Barbara. "Don't you be too sure! There is a
+shorter and a better way nor yours, to save him, an' I'm goin' to try
+it!"
+
+The bluegrass girl, astonished, would have questioned her, but Madge
+waited for no questioning. Without another word she hurried from the
+room, in a mad search for Colonel Doolittle.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+From the country round about for miles the planters had come into
+Lexington upon their blooded mounts, their wives, daughters,
+sweethearts, riding in great carriages. Now and then a vehicle, coming
+from some far-away plantation, was drawn by a gay four-in-hand, and the
+drivers of such equipages, negroes always, showed a haughty scorn of
+their black fellow-men who travelled humbly on the backs of mules, or
+trudged the long and dusty way on foot. Gorgeous were the costumes of
+the ladies whom the carriages conveyed; elegant the dress of the gay
+gentlemen who rode beside the vehicles on prancing steeds, gallant
+escorts of Kentucky's lovely womanhood, prepared, especially, to watch
+the carriage-horses when the town was reached and guard against
+disasters due to their encounter with such disturbing and unusual things
+as crowds, brass-bands and other marvels of a great occasion.
+
+Everywhere upon the sidewalks people swarmed like ants, delighted with
+the calm perfection of the day, the magnetism of the crowds, the blare
+of martial music, the novelty of passing strangers, and, above all, by
+the prospect of the great race which, for weeks, had been the theme of
+conversation everywhere throughout the section.
+
+In the spacious corridors and big bar-rooms of the city's hostelries the
+rich men of the section vied with flashily dressed strangers, in
+magnitude of wagers, and the gambling fever spread from these important
+centers to the very alleys of the negro quarters. Poor indeed was the
+old darkey who could not find two-bits to wager on the race; small,
+indeed, the piccaninny who was not wise enough in the sophisticated ways
+of games of chance to lay a copper with a comrade or to join a pool by
+means of which he and his fellows were enabled to participate in more
+important methods of wooing fickle Fortune.
+
+Here and there and everywhere were the piccaninnies from Woodlawn, the
+Layson place, crying the virtues of the mare they worshipped and her
+owner whom they each and everyone adored, boasting of the wagers they
+had made, strutting in the consciousness that ere the moment for the
+great race came "Unc" Neb would gather them together to add zest to the
+occasion with their brazen instruments and singing. The "Whangdoodles"
+were the envy of every colored lad in town who was not of their high
+elect, and created, about noon, a great diversion upon one of the main
+streets, by gathering, when they were quite certain that their leader
+could by no means get at them, and singing on a corner for more coppers
+to be wagered on Queen Bess. The shower of coin which soon rewarded
+their smooth, well-trained harmonies, burned holes in their pockets,
+too, until it was invested in the only things which, on this day, the
+lads thought worth the purchasing--tickets on the race in which the
+wondrous mare would run.
+
+Through the gay crowd old Neb was wandering, disconsolate, burdened with
+the melancholy news of the defection of the miserable jockey, looking,
+everywhere, for Miss Alathea Layson, but without success. He stopped
+upon a corner, weary of the search and of the woe which weighed him
+down.
+
+"Marse Frank," he muttered, "say I war to tell Miss 'Lethe de bad news;
+but he didn't tell me how to find a lady out shoppin'. Needle in a
+haystack ain't nawthin'! Reckon 'bout de bes' dat I kin do is stand heah
+on dis cohnuh an' cotch huh when she comes back to de hotel."
+
+He stood there for fully fifteen minutes, peering in an utter desolation
+of woe, at every passing face, but finding nowhere that one which he
+sought. Then, at a distance, he saw the Colonel coming. The expression
+on the horseman's face amazed him and filled him with an instant hope
+that something had turned up to rob the situation of the horror which
+had darkened it, for him, ever since he had discovered that the jockey
+had disgraced himself.
+
+"Dar come Marse Cunnel," he exclaimed, in his astonishment, "_a-lookin'
+mighty happy_! Dat ain't right, now; dat ain't right, unduh de
+succumstances."
+
+He hurried to the Colonel, who, instead of seeming sorrowful,
+discouraged, wroth, beamed at him with a genial eye.
+
+"What's the matter, Neb?" he asked. "You look like a funeral!"
+
+"Dat's de way I feel, suh; wid no jockey fo' Queen Bess an' Marse Frank
+good as ruined."
+
+"Neb," said the Colonel, coolly, "you don't mean to be a liar, but you
+are one."
+
+"What?" cried the darkey in delight. "Oh Marse Cunnel, call me anyt'ing
+ef tain't so about de mare!"
+
+"Of course it isn't," said the Colonel happily. "I have found a jockey,
+Neb; a jockey."
+
+"Praise de Lawd!" cried the old negro.
+
+"One of the best," the Colonel went on, gaily. "Just come in from
+the--from the east. I engaged him at once, so you get word to Frank. In
+five minutes we'll be on our way out to the track."
+
+Neb's spirits had instantly revived. Six inches droop was gone from his
+old shoulders. "It'll be de grandest race eber run in ol' Kentucky!
+Lawsy, Cunnel, won't it tickle you to death to see Queen Bess romp in a
+winnuh?"
+
+Instantly the Colonel's high elation faded. More than the droop which
+had been in Neb's shoulders now oppressed the horseman's. His face
+clouded. "There _he_ goes, too!" he cried. "Neb, another word like that
+and I shall brain you! Do you hear me? I--I shan't be there!"
+
+"Not be dar!" Neb exclaimed. "Kain't swaller dat, suh. Ef you should
+miss dat race, why, you'd drop daid."
+
+"I believe you, Neb--believe you. I say, Neb, look here. I have promised
+on the honor of a Kentuckian, never to enter another race-track. I must
+keep my word; but, for the Lord's sake, isn't there a knot-hole, that
+you know of, somewhere in the fence, which would let me see the race
+without going inside?"
+
+Neb knew that race-track as he knew the plot of hard-trodden ground
+before the little cabin where he had been born back of the big house out
+at Woodlawn. Many a race had he seen surreptitiously when he had not
+funds to buy admission to the track. He grinned, remembering talk which
+he had heard between the Colonel and Miss 'Lethe, and understanding,
+now. He laughed. "Oh, I yi!" he cried. "Marse Cunnel, dar ain't
+nobody'll git ahead of you! You bet dar is a knot-hole, not fur off frum
+de gran'-stan', neither, an' a tree, too, you could climb, stan's mighty
+handy."
+
+The Colonel groaned. "I climb a tree to peek above a race-track fence!"
+said he. "No; never. They'd think I was trying to save my admission
+fee! The knot-hole will have to do for me, Neb. You've saved me. Heaven
+bless you! Have a cigar--they're good."
+
+"T'ankee, suh," said Neb, reaching for the weed the Colonel now held
+toward him. "Lawsy, ain't dat jus' a whoppuh? Whah you-all git sech
+mon'sous big cigahs as dat?"
+
+"I'm only smoking half as many, now, so I get 'em double size," the
+Colonel answered, sighing but not wholly miserable.
+
+Neb did not see the humor of this detail. He was thinking of the race
+and of Queen Bess. "Hooray fo' de Cunnel!" he exclaimed, irrelevantly,
+to a little group of colored men who had been gathering. "Whatever he
+says yo' kin gamble on. Lawsy, ain't I glad I's got my money on Queen
+Bess? Golly, won't Marse Holton jes' feel cheap when he done heahs dis
+news? Seen him down dar in de pool-room, not so long ago, a-puttin' up
+his money plumb against Queen Bess. Goin' to lose it, suah, he will." He
+went off, muttering, and shaking his old head. "Somehow I jes' feels it
+in mah bones dat he ain't true to Marse Frank, yessuh. If I evah fin's
+it out fo' suah, I'll jes' _paralyse_ him!"
+
+He had quite forgotten that he had come out to find Miss Alathea, and
+was not looking for her when he actually stumbled into her.
+
+"Why, Neb, what are you doing?" she said, recoiling.
+
+"Pahdon, pahdon, please, Miss 'Lethe," said the negro. "I was thinkin'
+of de sweet bimeby an' waitin' fo' to tell de news to you--fust dat Ike
+got drunk an' Marse Frank war gwine hab to scratch de mare--"
+
+"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Then Frank--why, he'll lose everything!"
+
+"Hol' on, Miss 'Lethe; dat de fust half, only. Secon' half am dat Marse
+Cunnel found a jockey an' Queen Bess am gwine ter run."
+
+"Bless his heart!" she cried. "I wonder if it's wrong for me to pray
+that that jockey will win." She looked, almost embarrassed at the aged
+negro for a moment, and then, mustering up courage, said: "Neb, look
+here. I'm ashamed to acknowledge so much interest in a horse-race, but
+it seems as if I can't wait to hear of the result."
+
+"Lawsy, I don't blame you, none; feel dat way mahse'f."
+
+"I must know the result the instant the race is decided."
+
+"Send yo' wuhd right off, Miss 'Lethe."
+
+"Oh, I can't wait for that. Neb, I never did such a thing before and
+never will again, and, even now, I won't enter a race-track; but, Neb,
+isn't there some place outside the fence where I could watch the race
+without actually going in?"
+
+Neb doubled up in silent laughter. The old negro was enjoying life,
+exceedingly, on this, the day, which, for a time, had seemed so full of
+gloom. The white folks were quite at his mercy. "You bet dar is," said
+he, "a knot-hole not fur f'm de gran'-stan', an' a tree what you could
+climb, right handy."
+
+Miss Alathea was not favorable to the thought of climbing trees, and
+said so. "No, no; the knot-hole will be far better for me."
+
+"But, Miss 'Lethe, why, de Cunnel--"
+
+She did not let him make his explanation. "Sh! Sh!" she hissed. "Not a
+word of this to him, or anyone! Will you show me, when the time comes?"
+
+"Oh, I'll show you," Neb replied, and before he had a chance to add a
+word she had hurried off into the crowd.
+
+"I war gwine to tell her dat de Cunnel'd be dar, too, but she wouldn't
+wait to heah. Wal, I reckon she'll jes' fin' 'im when she git dar."
+
+Down the street his piccaninny band came straggling, looking for him.
+
+"Hol' on, chillun; hol' on," he cried, and joined them. "Now yo' lissen.
+Yo' is not to make a squawk until the end of de Ashlan' Oaks. Yo's to
+sabe yo' bref to honuh ouah Queen Bess. If she wins, yo' staht in
+playin' 'Dixie' as yo' nevuh played afo'. If she loses yo's to play,
+real slow an' mo'nful, 'Massa's in de Col', Col', Groun'.'"
+
+In the meantime the Colonel, in a quiet spot, had joined the jockey who
+had been discovered to take the place of drunken Ike. The unknown rider
+was wrapped closely in an ulster, from beneath which riding boots,
+unusually small, peeped, now and then, as the feet within them moved
+somewhat nervously about.
+
+"All right, are you?" he inquired.
+
+"I ain't afeared," the jockey answered, "but I'm powerful nervous. Never
+had on clo'es like these before, an'--don't you look at me!"
+
+Strange talk, this was, for the jockey who was soon to ride Queen Bess
+for the capture of the Ashland Oaks and the salvation of the fortune of
+the house of Layson!
+
+"Don't look at you!" said the Colonel, in expostulation, and, in the
+next sentence, revealed a secret which he was guarding carefully from
+everyone. "See here, little girl, you've got to face thousands and not
+wince, and you can't ride in that overcoat, either."
+
+But the jockey wrapped the coat still tighter. "Oh, sho! That can't make
+no differ--just a little coat!"
+
+"I tell you it's impossible. It would give the game away at once. Come,
+take it off. Practice up on me."
+
+The jockey shivered nervously. "Reckon I will hev to. Say, turn your
+back till I am ready."
+
+The Colonel turned his back, somewhat impatiently. The time was getting
+short. "All right, but hurry up."
+
+The jockey pulled the long coat partly off, then, in a panic, shrugged
+it on again. "Oh, now, you're lookin'!"
+
+"Not a wink," declared the Colonel.
+
+"Wal, here goes!" This time the coat came wholly off and the jockey who
+had been discovered to take the place of drunken Ike stood quite
+revealed. The voice which warned the Colonel of this was a faint and
+faltering one. "Now," it said timidly.
+
+The Colonel turned. "Hurrah!"
+
+The jockey held the coat up in a panic.
+
+"See here, now--none o' that!" the Colonel warned. "Give it to me." He
+reached his hand out for the coat, and, reluctantly, the jockey let him
+take it.
+
+There stood the trimmest and most graceful figure ever garbed in racing
+blouse, knickers, boots and cap, with flushed face, dilating, frightened
+eyes and hands not a little tremulous. The girl who had told Barbara
+Holton that she would not hesitate to make a sacrifice to save the man
+she loved was making one--a very great one--the sacrifice of what, her
+whole life long, she had considered fitting woman's modesty. Queen Bess
+must win and there was no one else to ride her. The mountain-girl shrank
+from the thought of going, thus, before a multitude, as shyly as would
+the most highly educated and most socially precise girl in the
+grand-stand, near, which, now, was filling with the gallantry and
+beauty of Kentucky; but she did not let her nervous tremors conquer her.
+There was no other way to save the day for Layson, and, somehow, the day
+must certainly be saved.
+
+The Colonel, now, spoke very seriously as she stood there, shrinking
+from his gaze. There was not a smile upon his face. It was plain that he
+regarded the whole matter with the utmost gravity.
+
+"Now, little one, you begin to realize what this means," said he.
+"Or--no, you don't and I've got to be square with you if it spoils the
+prettiest horse-race ever seen in old Kentucky. I tell you, my dear
+child, we're mighty particular about our women, down here in the
+bluegrass. We'd think it an eternal shame and a disgrace forever for one
+of them to ride a public race in a costume like the one that you have
+on, and it would mean not less than social ruin to the man that married
+her. If anyone should find it out, what you are going to do might stand
+between you and your happiness. I'm warning you because I know I ought
+to. Think it over and then tell me if you're willing to face it--willing
+to take all the risks."
+
+"I don't need to think it over," Madge said firmly. "I said as I'd gin
+up my happiness to save him, an' I will. Colonel, I've got on my
+uniform, I've enlisted for th' war, an' I am goin' to fight it through!"
+
+"A thoroughbred!" he cried. "A thoroughbred, and I always said it of
+you. Come on, little one."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Brilliant as a garden of flowers was the grand-stand where the fairest
+of old Kentucky's wondrous women were as numerous as were her gallant
+men; full of handsome figures were the lawns, where old Kentucky's youth
+and manhood strolled and smoked and gossipped of the day's great race to
+come; like an ebon sea in storm was the great crowd of blacks which in
+certain well-defined limits crowded to the rail about the track. The
+blare of the band kept the air a-tremble almost constantly, the
+confused, uneven murmur of a great crowd filled the pauses between
+brazen outbursts. Everywhere was life and gayety, intense excitement, as
+the moment for the starting of the famous Ashland Oaks approached. The
+cries of the book-makers rose, strident, from the betting-ring; on the
+tracks the jockeys, exercising or trying out their mounts, were, each
+after his own kind, preparing for the struggle of their lives;
+stable-boys, and the hundred other species of race-track hangers-on
+which swarm at such times to the front, were everywhere in evidence;
+touts with shifty eyes slipped, here and there, among the sightseers,
+looking for some credulous one who might be willing to pay well for
+doubtful information. Every minute amidst the throng the words "Queen
+Bess" might be heard at any chosen point, as the crowd gossipped eagerly
+about the horse which had been looked on as the favorite, but which,
+many positively now declared, had been so injured in the fire that she
+would run but poorly in the race which, it had been thought, would be
+the most sensational effort of her life.
+
+Frank, nervous and excited, stood in the paddock, watch in hand, with
+old Neb by his side.
+
+"Why doesn't that jockey come?" he asked, for the hundredth time, almost
+beside himself with worry as the moments slipped away.
+
+"He'll come, Marse Frank," said Neb. "You kin gamble on de Cunnel."
+
+"If I only knew what kind of a jockey he is!" Then, as Horace Holton
+came up, smiling greetings: "Holton, how's the betting?"
+
+"Can't you hear?" said Holton, as a vagrant breeze brought to their ears
+bits of the vocal tumult from the betting-ring.
+
+"Ten to nine against Queen Bess," Frank heard a voice call loudly,
+although the crowd's great murmur made the words come indistinctly to
+his ears. "Even on Catalpa," was the next penetrating cry, and then:
+"Two to one, Evangeline!"
+
+The young owner shuddered. Could it be possible that Neb was right and
+that the Colonel's jockey would appear on time, or were the dire
+predictions of defeat which, he knew, were being made everywhere around
+him, true prophecies? Tales of all but fatal injuries to the handsome
+mare had been freely circulated, and, despite denials in the newspapers,
+were still alive, and these he knew to be quite false; but he knew of
+the other dire disaster--the defection of his jockey--of which the crowd
+was also well aware. He had not the slightest doubt that if Queen Bess
+should run at all she would do all that her best friends expected of her
+and more; but it seemed to him a possibility that he would find it
+necessary, at the last minute, to withdraw her from the race entirely,
+for sheer lack of a rider.
+
+Again the breeze brought from the betting-ring the loud shouts of the
+book-makers. The message that they told was most depressing to the
+worried owner.
+
+"Why, this morning she was the favorite," he said, "and now the odds are
+all against her!"
+
+Holton nodded. "On the strength o' this jockey as nobody knows. Got any
+money on, yourself, Layson?"
+
+"Not a cent. I've enough at stake, already."
+
+Holton smiled unpleasantly, intimating that Frank's lack of betting on
+his horse was proof positive that the worst tales told were true. "That
+settles it. The bookies are right. Th' mare's no chance with a new
+jockey, an' you know it."
+
+"If I were betting," said Frank angrily, "I'd back her with every dollar
+that I have on earth."
+
+Holton smiled at him unpleasantly. "I say she can't win and you know
+it." He waited for some answer from the anxious owner, but received
+none. Then, taking out his check-book: "See here--I'll bet you
+five-thousand even against her!"
+
+Frank, annoyed but helpless, shook his head. "I haven't the money," he
+admitted.
+
+"You ain't got the sand!" said Holton, aggravatingly.
+
+Frank turned from him angrily, and old Neb, who had listened, stepped
+quickly up to him. "Marse Frank," he pleaded, "don' yo' let dat
+white-trash bluff yo'!" The old darkey's voice was tremulous, his eyes
+were moist with feeling for his humiliated master. A great resolve
+thrilled through him. "See heah, honey, I's be'n sabin' all mah life.
+I's got a pile o' money in de bank. Take it all, now, honey, an' bet it
+on Queen Bess."
+
+Frank shook his head, but smiled at the old darkey, touched alike by his
+devotion to himself and confidence in the mare they both loved. "No, no,
+Neb; not your money," he replied. He stood in deep thought, for a
+moment, tapping the ground nervously with worried foot. "But I'll back
+the mare for all _I'm_ worth!" he finally declared. "If she loses, I'm a
+ruined man, anyway." He turned, now, to Holton. "Holton," he said,
+"I've got just three thousand dollars in the bank. I'll put it all on
+Queen Bess against your five-thousand."
+
+It seemed, almost, as if Holton had been waiting for this offer, for his
+smile broadened as he found that he had goaded Layson into making it.
+"I'll take it," he said quickly, and then, turning to the crowd about
+them, among which were some of the state's best citizens, he added:
+"Gentlemen, you're witnesses. Three-thousand against five-thousand on
+Queen Bess."
+
+They nodded, and not one of them but looked at Layson with
+commiseration, as at a man foredoomed to bitter disappointment.
+
+Neb, however, grinned at Holton impishly. "Yes; you'll look mighty sick
+when yo' hab to pay it, too."
+
+From the judge's stand rang out the silvery notes of a quavering
+bugle-call, and Holton smiled unpleasantly.
+
+"The call to th' post," said he, "an' whar's your jockey?"
+
+"He'll be here on time," said Frank, voicing a confidence which it was
+hard for him to feel. He turned, then, to the darkey. "Neb, bring out
+Queen Bess."
+
+The excitement, all around them, was intensifying, every minute.
+Jockeys, now, were mounting their horses, and riding off for the short
+canter to the judges' stand. As each appeared in view of the great
+crowd in and about the grand-stand a mighty shout arose.
+
+Holton's smile was broadening. "If that jockey doesn't show up mighty
+quick," he sneered, "you're out of the race."
+
+Just as he spoke old Neb returned, with the superb mare behind him,
+saddled, bridled, ready for the race, fretting at her bit, impatient of
+the crowds and noise.
+
+"Who knows whether he's coming, at all?" said Holton, a bit dashed at
+sight of the fine mare's superb condition, but still sneering. "Nobody's
+seen him."
+
+Neb looked off toward the weighing-room. "Yo' 're wrong," he shouted,
+capering with amazing spryness for one whose limbs were old and stiff,
+"fo' heah he comes!"
+
+Every member of the party turned, in haste, to look in the direction
+whence Neb pointed.
+
+They saw a slight, graceful figure, dressed in the brilliant colors of
+the Layson stable, which, without so much as glancing at them, ran to
+Queen Bess and took a place upon the far side of the mare, where,
+stooping as if to look carefully to the saddle-girths, its face was
+quickly hidden. But, even as the jockey stooped, one of his hands held
+out to Frank, across the saddle, a little folded paper.
+
+Without paying much attention to the jockey, Layson took this note and
+hastily unfolded it. "It's from the Colonel," he announced. "I knew
+he'd never fail me."
+
+Then he read, aloud, so all might hear:
+
+"This will be handed to you by a jockey I have just engaged. He comes
+from the east and is highly recommended. I know his endorser. Regretting
+that the promise of a Kentuckian prevents me from being with you, I am
+yours regretfully, on the outside, SANDUSKY DOOLITTLE."
+
+"It's all right!" Frank shouted, gleefully, and then, to the strange
+jockey: "Quick, on the mare and off to the post!"
+
+Without a word, without a second's pause, Madge, for the unknown jockey
+was, of course, the little mountain girl, jumped upon Queen Bess and
+hastily rode off, to be greeted, with a mighty outburst of cheering and
+applause as the favorite appeared before the waiting crowds in
+unmistakably fine condition and mounted by a rider whose every movement
+showed a perfect knowledge of the work and complete sympathy with the
+beautiful animal he rode.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Doomed by his promise on the honor of a gentleman to Miss Alathea, to
+witnessing the race from the outside, if he witnessed it at all, Colonel
+Sandusky Doolittle, fully aware of the unusual interest of the moments,
+some account of which has just been made, was sunk in melancholy after
+he had sent Madge through the magic portals, with explicit instructions
+as to exactly what to do when once she was safe inside. He was breathing
+hard from the mere exertion of preventing his unruly feet from running
+to the gate, of keeping his unruly hand from diving deep into his pocket
+for the entrance fee. These preventions he accomplished, though, without
+once really weakening, and was safe at a good distance from the tempting
+gate when the crowd within began to shout as the horses were brought
+out.
+
+"There, they're bringing out the horses!" he exclaimed, unhappily. He
+set his jaws as might one who, with a great effort, abstains from food
+when famishing. "I didn't go in!" he muttered. "I've kept my word,
+though it has nearly finished me!"
+
+Anxiously, if hurriedly, he searched along the fence for the knot-hole
+Neb had told him of. Twice, in his great eagerness, he passed it by,
+but, on the third inspection he discovered it, and placed his eye to it.
+In a moment he backed away, dejectedly. "I can't see worth a cent!" he
+bitterly complained. "It's not hole enough for me!" Lost, in his
+disappointment, even to shame for the wretched pun, he straightened up,
+surveying his immediate surroundings.
+
+Close by was the tree which Neb had also spoken of. He examined it with
+an appraising eye, then looked about to see what spectators were near.
+No one was in sight save a pair of piccaninnies, down the fence a
+hundred yards or so, with eyes glued to other knot-holes or to cracks.
+
+"To the deuce with dignity!" he cried. "I'll just inspect that tree."
+
+He was doing this with care, when, breathless and eager, a lady hurried
+toward him. As the tree intervened between them he did not see her
+coming, nor did she note his presence. It would have been quite plain to
+anyone who had observed her that she was engaged upon a quest much like
+that which he had pursued, for she carefully inspected each plank in the
+high fence, as, slowly and cautiously lest she should pass unheeded that
+which she was seeking eagerly, she made her way in his direction.
+
+"Everybody's at the races," she thought, comforting herself. "I'm
+perfectly safe. No one in the world will see me.... But where _is_ that
+blessed knot-hole?"
+
+Suddenly her eye chanced on it, and, an instant later, was applied to
+it, the while the Colonel paused, with his back to her, still anxiously
+inspecting the tree.
+
+"Ah!" said Miss Alathea, aloud, as she caught a glimpse of something
+interesting inside the fence.
+
+Instantly the Colonel turned and looked down at her, startled. Then: "A
+woman!" he exclaimed, beneath his breath. "A woman at my knot-hole!"
+
+Firmly determined to maintain his right he sternly approached her.
+
+"Madam!" he exclaimed, as incensed by her usurpation of the knot-hole
+as he would have been, at ordinary times, by theft of watch or
+pocket-book, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
+
+She shrank back from the knot-hole, startled and indignant. "Sir!" she
+cried, and then, as he recognized her, she turned and saw who had
+addressed her.
+
+"Colonel Sandusky Doolittle!" she exclaimed, amazed.
+
+"Miss Alathea Layson!" cried the Colonel, equally amazed, at first, but
+winding up his gesture of surprise with a low and courtly bow.
+
+"Colonel, what are you doing here?"
+
+"Madame," he countered, "what are _you_ doing here?"
+
+Miss Alathea's dignity forsook her. "Colonel," she confessed, "I
+couldn't wait to hear the result."
+
+"No more could I," he somewhat sheepishly admitted.
+
+"But I didn't enter the race-track," she explained in haste.
+
+"I was equally firm."
+
+"And Neb told me of this knot-hole."
+
+"The rascal--he told me of it, too."
+
+"Colonel," she said, smiling, "we must forgive each other. If you really
+must look, there is the knot-hole."
+
+"No, Miss 'Lethe," he said gallantly, "_I_ resign the knot-hole to you.
+I shall climb the tree." Without delay (for sounds from the barrier's
+far side hinted to his practiced ear that matters of much moment were
+progressing, there) he scrambled with much more difficulty than dignity
+into the spreading crotch.
+
+"Oh, be careful Colonel!" Miss Alathea cried, alarmed. "Don't break your
+neck!" But she added, as an afterthought: "But be sure to get where you
+can see."
+
+"Ah, what a gallant sight!" he cried as he found himself in a position
+whence he could command a view of the exciting scene within the barrier.
+"There's Catalpa ... and Evangeline ... and ... yes, there is Queen
+Bess!"
+
+A burst of cheering rose from the crowd within.
+
+Miss Alathea was on tip-toe with excitement. "What's that?" she begged.
+
+"A false start," he answered, scarcely even glancing down at her.
+"They'll make it this time, though," he added, and she could see his
+knuckles whiten with the strain as he gripped a rough limb of the tree
+with vise-like fingers.
+
+A moment later and the shouting became a very tempest of sound.
+
+"They're off!" he cried, staring through his field glasses in an
+excitement which promised, if he did not curb it, to send him tumbling
+from his shaky foothold. "Oh, what a splendid start!"
+
+"Who's ahead?" inquired Miss Alathea, very much excited. "Colonel, who's
+ahead?"
+
+"Catalpa sets the pace, the others lying well back."
+
+"Why doesn't Queen Bess come to the front?" Miss Alathea cried, as if he
+were to blame for the disquieting news he had reported to her. "Oh," she
+exclaimed, to the Colonel's great astonishment, "if I were only on that
+mare!"
+
+"At the half," the Colonel shouted, beside himself with worry,
+"Evangeline takes the lead ... Catalpa next ... the rest are bunched."
+
+Miss Alathea, at the moment, was trying to see satisfactorily, through
+the very knot-hole which the Colonel had abandoned. She sprang from it
+hastily, however, and to the foot of the tree which acted as his
+pedestal, when he exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, great heavens! There's a fall ... a jam ... and Queen Bess is left
+behind three lengths!" He leaned so far out that he heard the limb
+beneath him crack, and, in hastening to a firmer footing, almost lost
+his balance. This startled him, and, for an instant, took his eager gaze
+away from the struggling horses on the track within, but he quickly
+regained poise. "She hasn't the ghost of a show!" he cried,
+disheartened. "Look! Look!"
+
+Miss Alathea hugged the tree and looked, not at the horses, for that was
+quite impossible, but up at him with wide, imploring eyes.
+
+"She's at it again, though, now!" he cried. "It's beyond anything
+mortal, but she's gaining ... gaining!"
+
+Miss Alathea's excitement now was every bit as great as his. She had
+never seen a race in all her life, yet, now, she performed there at the
+foot of the great tree, a series of evolution not unlike those of many a
+"rooter" at the track within. She jumped up and down upon her toe's,
+clenched her hands and cried: "Oh, keep it up! Keep it up!"
+
+"At the three-quarters she's only five lengths behind the leader and
+still gaming!" cried the Colonel, in excited optimism.
+
+Miss Alathea could no longer endure the agony of waiting on the ground
+for his reports. Instead she tried to scramble to his side, but,
+failing, utterly, to accomplish this unaided, held her hands up to him,
+crying: "Oh, pull, pull! I can't stand it! I've just got to see!"
+
+The Colonel turned upon his perch and looked down at her, smiling.
+"Coming up, Miss 'Lethe?" he inquired. "All right, don't break your
+neck, but get where you can see." Hastily he gave her such assistance as
+his absorbed attention to the events within the fence permitted, and,
+with a wild scramble, she found herself close by his side, holding half
+to him, half to a curving branch.
+
+"Look! Look!" he cried, again. "In the stretch! Her head is at Catalpa's
+crupper ... now at her saddle-bow ... but she can't gain another inch.
+Still ... yes ... yes ... she lifts her! See!... See!... Great God! She
+wins!"
+
+Within the fence wild pandemonium broke loose. The crowd went mad with
+shouting. Hats, handkerchiefs, canes, umbrellas, flew into the air as if
+blown upward by the mad explosion of the crowd's enthusiasm. The band
+was playing "Dixie."
+
+Frank and Neb rushed forward to lift from the winner the victorious
+jockey, who by such superb riding as that track had never seen before,
+had snatched victory from defeat after the mare had been delayed in the
+bad pocket which, from his distant point of survey, had alarmed the
+Colonel. The jockey eluded them, however and, with face averted, hurried
+with the splendid mare back to the paddock, and there disappeared,
+disregarding the crowd's wild shouts of acclamation.
+
+Holton stood near Frank, white-faced and angry. Old Neb, as he ran
+beside Queen Bess, looked back at him and grinned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Miss Alathea, on the day after the great race, sat waiting for the
+Colonel in the handsome old library of Woodlawn, worrying about her
+unconventionalities of the preceding day. When she heard his voice, out
+in the hall, telling Neb to carry certain bundles into the library and
+knew, of course, that he would follow after them almost immediately, her
+heart throbbed fiercely in her bosom. She shrank back into a window
+recess, too embarrassed to face him without first pausing to gather up
+her courage.
+
+"Put 'em there, Neb," said the Colonel, pointing to the table, and then,
+after the packages had been arranged to suit him: "Here, take this, and
+drink to the jockey that rode Queen Bess."
+
+"T'ankee, Marse Cunnel, t'ankee," Neb replied, pocketing the tip. "Oh,
+warn't it gran'? An' yo' climbed de tree, arter all!"
+
+"Sh! Clear out, you rascal!"
+
+Neb did not go at once, but, with the boldness of an old and privileged
+retainer, stood there, chuckling. "Climbed de tree!" he gurgled. "An'
+so did Miss 'Lethe!"
+
+With this he slapped his knee, and, laughing boisterously, left the room
+as the embarrassed lady of the house stepped out of her concealment.
+
+"Ah, Miss 'Lethe," said the Colonel, "good morning."
+
+"I expected you back from Lexington last night, Colonel." She looked at
+him reproachfully.
+
+"Stayed over to celebrate, my dear," the Colonel answered. "Stayed to
+celebrate the victory." With a beaming face he advanced upon the lady,
+plainly planning an embrace.
+
+But she eluded him. "Wait a moment, Colonel. On what did you celebrate?"
+
+The Colonel laughed. "Oh, I didn't forget. I celebrated on ginger-ale
+and soda-pop."
+
+Miss Alathea smiled with happy satisfaction. She eluded him no longer,
+but, herself, went to him and bestowed the kiss.
+
+"I doubt if my stomach ever recovers from the insult," said the Colonel,
+delighted by the kiss but remembering the mildness of the beverages
+which had marked his jubilation. "Miss 'Lethe, a julep--a
+mint-julep--before I perish."
+
+With a smile she crossed the room to where, upon the side-board (a
+side-board is an adjunct of all well-regulated libraries in old
+Kentucky), a snowy damask cloth concealed glorious somethings. With a
+graceful sweep she took it from them and revealed three juleps in their
+glory of green-crowns. "Look, Colonel!"
+
+"Three! Great heavens!" the Colonel cried, delighted. He took one and
+disposed of it in haste.
+
+"I mixed them myself," Miss 'Lethe said.
+
+The Colonel drank another, but less rapidly.
+
+"Remember," she said, warningly, "three and no more!"
+
+"Yes, yes," he granted. "I must save the other one." It was difficult to
+sip it, for Miss Alathea's juleps were like nectar to his thirsty
+palate, but he restrained himself and drank of this last ambrosial glass
+with great deliberation, trying to make it last as long as possible.
+
+"What are all those bundles, Colonel?" asked Miss Alathea, pointing to
+the packages which old Neb had brought in.
+
+"They're for Madge. She bought them yesterday." He sighed. "Ah, will you
+ever forget yesterday?"
+
+"Oh, don't speak of it!"
+
+"Can't help it." The Colonel waxed enthusiastic at the mere memory of
+the great occasion. "Whoopee!" he cried. "What a race it was!"
+
+"To think," said Miss Alathea, "that I--_I_--should enter a race-track!"
+
+"To think that _I_--should stay out of one!"
+
+"It was all your fault, Colonel," said Miss Alathea. "In your excitement
+after the race you grasped my hand and I was compelled to follow."
+
+"How strange!" exclaimed the Colonel, slowly, with a slight smile
+tickling at the corners of his mouth. "At times I fancied you were in
+the lead, I following."
+
+"Colonel," said the lady slowly, "perhaps I might as well confess. I've
+made a discovery. The sin isn't so much in looking at the horses
+run--it's in betting on them. That's where souls are lost."
+
+"And likewise money," said the Colonel, nodding, gravely.
+
+"So, Colonel, if you'll promise not to bet, I've no objection to your
+attending the races in moderation."
+
+In delighted amazement the Colonel forgot that that last julep could be
+brought to a quick end by hurried management and took a hasty and a
+mammoth swallow. "What!" he cried. "Can I believe it? Miss 'Lethe,
+you're an angel! It's the last drop in my cup of happiness!"
+
+Miss Alathea shyly smiled--smiled, indeed, a bit shame-facedly. "There's
+one condition, Colonel--that you take me along--yes, to watch over you."
+
+"Take you with me?" said the Colonel. He paused in puzzled contemplation
+of her for an instant. "Oh, I catch on. You'll go with the children to
+see the animals!" He laughed. "You rather like it." He became
+enthusiastic. "No more knot-holes or trees for us! At last--two souls
+with but a single thought, two hearts that beat when Queen Bess won!
+Here's to our future happiness!"
+
+He raised the glass and would have drunk from it, but, now, alas! the
+glass was empty. It surprised and grieved him, but, when Miss Alathea
+held her hand out, quietly, for the vessel which had held the final
+julep but which now held it no longer, he yielded it up gracefully nor
+asked her to refill it.
+
+As Miss Alathea placed the empty glass upon the side-board Madge entered
+from the hallway. She ran up to the Colonel. "I heard you'd come," she
+said, "an' couldn't wait. Say, air it all fixed about Queen Bess?"
+
+"Fixed?" cried the gallant horseman. "Well I should remark! Queen Bess
+is sold and paid for and a draft for the assessment forwarded to the
+Company. Inside of a year Frank will have the income of a prince."
+
+"All," said Miss Alathea, "owing to that mysterious jockey who
+disappeared immediately after the race. Oh, I'd like to kiss that boy!"
+
+"If you did, I should not be jealous," said the Colonel with an air of
+generosity.
+
+"Miss 'Lethe, kiss me. Won't I do as well?" Madge asked, going to her.
+
+Miss Alathea kissed her, but was still thinking of the unknown jockey,
+who, in the nick of time, had come from nowhere, materialized from
+nothing, to save the day for Frank by riding Queen Bess to victory. "I
+feel as if I must know his name," she said. "Madge, help me persuade the
+Colonel to tell us." She went to him and petted him. "Colonel, you will
+not refuse me!"
+
+Madge looked at him apprehensively, warningly. "An' I reckon you won't
+refuse me, Colonel." Then, going close to him, she whispered: "Remember,
+mum's the word!"
+
+"Away, you tempters, away!" the Colonel cried, and waved them from him.
+"It's a professional secret, and I've promised to keep it on the honor
+of a Kentucky gentleman--just as I promised you, Miss 'Lethe."
+
+"As you promised me? That's enough, Colonel--not another word!"
+
+Madge nodded, smilingly. "That's right, Colonel. Mustn't break your
+word." Just then she caught sight of the bundles which the Colonel had
+had Neb bring in. "Oh, are them my bundles, Colonel?"
+
+"Every one of them."
+
+The girl hurried to the mysteriously fascinating packages and began
+investigation of their contents. "Thank ye, thank ye!" she exclaimed,
+while she was busy with the wrappings. "Awful good of you to bring 'em."
+Then, to Miss Alathea in explanation: "Things I bought yesterday, Miss
+'Lethe, all by myself. Jus' went wild. Reckon I'll let you an' th'
+Colonel see 'em." She took a large, dressed doll out of its wrappings.
+"Look at that!"
+
+"What a beauty!" cried the Colonel.
+
+"Can talk, too." Madge pressed the wondrous puppet's shirred silk chest.
+"Ma-ma," it cried. "Ma-ma."
+
+"Never had nothin' but a rag-doll, myself," the girl went on, delighted
+by their approval of this automatic wonder. "'Tain't for me. It's for a
+little girl as lives up in th' mountings."
+
+From the doll she turned to an amazing jumping-jack, the next treasure
+taken from the packages. She pulled the toy's animating strings and
+watched its antics with delight. "Mos' as lively as a Kentucky Colonel
+climbin' a tree," said she, and laughed roguishly at the horseman. "Oh,
+I heard of it; I heard of it."
+
+The Colonel tried in vain to protest, Madge's laughter kept up merrily,
+as she took an old-fashioned carpet-sack from quite the biggest of the
+bundles and began to pack her purchases in it, until the Colonel and
+Miss Alathea left the room, gaily protesting at her ridicule.
+
+Instantly all of the signs of high elation vanished from the girl's
+face. She drooped. Left alone, it quickly became plain that her recent
+animation had been forced, unreal. "Well I guess I'd better not open up
+th' other bundles," she said listlessly. "I'll pack 'em as they be. It's
+time I started too. I'm goin' back to the mountings." Softly she hummed
+the air the darkies had been singing when she came into the room.
+
+  "Weep no more, my lady, oh, weep no more to-day,
+  I will sing one song of my old Kentucky home,
+  Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"
+
+There was infinite pathos in her half-unconscious rendition of the
+plaintive, darkey melody. To the mountain girl the moment was full of
+sadness. She had come down from her mountains to save the man she loved
+from the assassin's bullet and had saved him, not from that alone, but
+from a crushing blow to hope and fortune. Her work was done. All that
+now was left to her was to go back to her little cabin, hiding the
+secret of her love for him in her sore heart, enshrining, there, the
+memory of every minute she had ever passed with him as holy memories to
+comfort her in days to come. Melancholy thoughts pressed on her hard.
+
+Frank entered.
+
+He stopped short in the doorway, looking with amazement at her work of
+packing for departure.
+
+"Why, Madge!" said he. "What does this mean? Packing up! Surely you're
+not going away!" There was a thrill of real distress in his pleasant,
+vibrant voice which comforted her.
+
+"Yes, I'm going back to th' mountings. I was ... goin' afore, but I
+couldn't miss that hoss-race."
+
+"Madge," he cried impulsively, "you must not and you shall not go. I
+cannot bear to think of you wasting your life in the lonely mountains.
+Madge, your land will make you rich, and with your brightness you could
+study and learn. Education will make you an ornament to any society."
+
+She shook her head. "As fur as I can see," said she, "society ain't what
+it is cracked up to be. I don't seem to have no hankerin' after it. Oh,
+o' course, I'd like to have all this softness an' pootiness around me,
+always; I'd like to go out in th' world an' see th' wonders as I've
+heard of; but I don't think that 'u'd satisfy me. I'd still be hankerin'
+an' thirstin' arter somethin' that I couldn't have. There's been a
+feelin' in my heart, ever sence I come here, that'll take th' air o' th'
+mountings to cl'ar away. Like enough, up there among th' wild things
+that love me, amongst th' rocks an' hills, I'll find th' rest an' peace
+I ain't had since I come away."
+
+The youth looked at her with wide, worried eyes. He had not thought the
+situation out in any very careful detail; but he had, at no time,
+contemplated her immediate departure. Now that it seemed imminent it
+brought his feelings to a focus, showed him, instantly, that he could
+not bear to have this mountain maiden who had done so much for him thus
+vanish from his life. A realization that he loved her deeply, tenderly,
+unchangeably rushed over him. That she was a child of nature, uneducated
+and unaccustomed to the world he knew became a matter of but small
+importance to him as he stood there watching her, while, sadly but
+deliberately, she kept on with her work of packing in the carpet-bag her
+small possessions and the many gifts which she had purchased in the city
+for the children of her "mountings." That the world which he had ever
+thought his world might laugh at her and ridicule him if he married her
+he knew, but, suddenly, this seemed of little consequence. The errors in
+her education could be readily corrected and her heart and instincts
+were more nearly right, already, than those of any lowland girl whom he
+had ever known.
+
+"Madge," he cried, "I cannot give you up! I love you!"
+
+The girl's hands stopped their busy work among the bundles. Her cheeks
+paled and her lips parted to a gasping little intake of breath. It had
+not, once, occurred to her modest, self-sacrificing mind that, even as
+the bluegrass gentleman had found her heart and taken it forever and
+forever to be his own, no matter where she was or how great might the
+distance be which separated them, so, also, had his heart really and
+forever passed to her, the simple, unlettered and untrained little
+maiden of the wilderness. It seemed impossible, incredible.
+
+"You love me!"
+
+"Yes, I love you as I never have, as I never can love any other woman.
+Madge, dearest, I want you for my wife!"
+
+The great desire, the certainty that if he did not win her then all
+other triumphs would be empty, meaningless, had come suddenly upon him,
+but it had come with overwhelming force. His voice was vibrant with a
+passion which surprised himself.
+
+"No, no; it can never be!" she said tremulously. Her heart was in a
+turmoil, her hands trembled with excitement. Ah, it was hard for her to
+put away from her the brilliant vista which had opened there before her
+startled eyes! But she was sure that she must do it; that if she loved
+this man she must forswear him for his own dear sake. What right had
+she, a mountain-girl, to come down there to the bluegrass to shame him
+in the face of friends and foes by her ignorance and awkwardness? Her
+heart yearned toward him with a warmth and fervor which she had not
+known as possible to human longings, but--no, no, for his sake she must
+give him up, as, for his sake, she had made the long, desperate journey
+from the mountains to save him from Joe Lorey's bullet, as, for his
+sake, shrinking and dismayed, conscious that in doing it she might very
+well be sacrificing his respect for her, she had donned the blouse and
+breeches of a jockey, yesterday, to ride his mare to victory when none
+other had been there to save the day for him. That had been a sacrifice
+almost beyond the power of words to tell--a sacrifice of modesty; now
+came an even greater one, but one which, none the less, must certainly
+be made. "No, no," said she again, "it can never, never be!"
+
+"But I want you--just as you are! What do I care for the world, without
+you, or for what it says, so long as you are mine?"
+
+A flood of bitterness rushed to her heart. Ah, why, why, had fate made
+it so necessary that, to save him, she must do what, yesterday, she had
+been forced to do!
+
+"You're thinkin' of my ignorance, an' such," she said, with sad eyes
+bent upon the gifts which, now, although she looked at them, she did not
+see and had forgotten. "But there's more nor that as stands between us,
+Mr. Frank."
+
+"You mean you don't love me?"
+
+"No, no; oh, what air th' use o' denyin' it? I love you! It's that--it's
+that that drives me from you, an' that breaks--my--heart!"
+
+He went close to her and tried to take her hands in his. "Madge, dear,"
+he said softly, "I want you to listen to me. I tell you I shall not let
+any foolish pride or any fears for the future stand in the way of our
+happiness. When I thought, a moment ago, that I might lose you forever,
+I saw what my life would be without you; and, now that I know you love
+me, nothing shall come between us. Madge, dear heart, I want you to put
+your hand in mine."
+
+She drew away, but it was plain that she was sorely tempted. "Ah, if I
+only dared!" said she.
+
+"Come, Madge, darling!" he said fervently, opening his arms to fold her
+to his heart.
+
+"No, no," she said, "it wouldn't be right." The Colonel's words: "We'd
+think it an eternal shame and a disgrace for one of our women to ride a
+race in a costume such as you have on," rang in her mind and filled her
+with despair. "The Colonel said--" she began, weakly.
+
+"Oh, damn the Colonel!" Frank cried angrily, wondering why any one
+should meddle with his heart-affairs.
+
+And as he spoke the Colonel entered hurriedly, evidently bearing news of
+import.
+
+Startled by the young man's earnest words, he stopped short in
+astonishment. "Why--what's that, sir?" he exclaimed amazed, and then,
+seeing clearly that he had broken in upon a fervent sentimental
+situation and unwilling to believe that Frank could really have meant
+him when he had been so emphatic, turned his thoughts, again, to the
+news which had brought him in such haste.
+
+"I say," he said, excitedly, "I've been cross-examining that rascal,
+Ike, and I've found out who smuggled the whiskey to him."
+
+"Who was it?" Madge and Frank cried almost in unison.
+
+"That double-distilled, three-ply scoundrel, Horace Holton," said the
+Colonel, angrily.
+
+"Holton!" Frank exclaimed. "I wouldn't have believed it!"
+
+"I would," Madge commented.
+
+"I'll find him and settle with him for it!" Frank angrily exclaimed.
+
+"I'm afraid that's easier said than done," the Colonel answered, "but
+I'm with you, and we'll do our best."
+
+Through the windows came the noise of baying hounds. It instantly
+attracted their attention, as it ever will that of Kentuckians. "What's
+that? A fox-hunt?"
+
+Frank had hurried to the window and was looking out. "No," he answered,
+in incredulous amazement, "it's Holton and his gang. They're hunting Joe
+Lorey with dogs!"
+
+Madge hurried to his side, distressed beyond the power of words to tell.
+"Oh, oh!" she cried. "They're coming this way, and--and--who's that?"
+
+As she spoke Joe Lorey dashed up, breathless to the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The moonshiner stood there, pathetic in his beaten strength before them.
+
+"They're huntin' me with dogs!" he said. "They're goin' to string me up
+without justice or mercy!"
+
+Madge hurried to his side. "Joe, they shan't do it!" she exclaimed, and
+took his hand.
+
+"It'll take more nor you to save me, little one," he said, and smiled
+down at her pitifully. "There's no hope for me, now. That's why I've
+come hyar, to say to you all, afore I die, that I am innocent o' firin'
+th' stable." He threw back his shoulders and stood before them,
+impressive and convincing. "Afore God, I am innocent!"
+
+Frank looked at him with eyes which, as they gazed, altered their
+expression. He had thought the man quite possibly guilty of a vicious
+act--a foul attempt to burn a helpless animal in order to obtain revenge
+upon the man who owned her. But as he gazed he could not doubt that he
+was speaking simple truth. "Joe," he said impulsively, "I believe you!"
+
+Joe turned to him with gratitude plain upon his face. "You believe
+me--arter all that's passed?" He looked straight into the eyes of the
+young man he had hated, with a searching, earnest gaze. "Then," he said,
+after a second's pause, "I believe as what you said, that night, war
+true. It war never you as ruined me." He held his hand out to the man
+whom, not so long ago, he had wished, with all his heart, to kill.
+
+Frank grasped it with a hearty grip, just as the terrifying baying of
+the hounds approached the house.
+
+"Frank, they're coming here!" the Colonel cried, excited.
+
+Joe turned away from Frank, looking here and there like a hunted animal.
+"Oh, it's hard to die afore I've met Lem Lindsay!" he said hopelessly.
+It was quite plain that he considered his fate sealed.
+
+Even as he spoke Holton and half-a-dozen others sprang to the broad
+gallery which fronted the whole room. Holton was plainly the leader of
+the party, for when he motioned all the others back, they obeyed his
+signal without protest, while he, himself, peered eagerly in through a
+wide, open window.
+
+Frank, angered beyond measure by this bold intrusion, would have sprung
+toward him, to attack him, had not the Colonel waved him back.
+
+"Frank, my boy," said he, "keep cool, keep cool!"
+
+As he spoke, without apology, Holton stepped through the window into
+the room, itself.
+
+"Layson," he said curtly, "I'm a committee o' one to ask if you'll turn
+over that man, an' make no trouble." He jerked a thumb toward Joe.
+
+Layson was wrathful at the man's intrusion; he had been impressed by
+what the fugitive had said. "No," he answered, hotly. "Joe Lorey's in my
+house, under my protection, and, by the eternal, you shan't lay a hand
+on him!"
+
+The Colonel smiled, delighted. "Kentucky blood!" he cried. "I'll back
+you to a finish!"
+
+He ranged himself by Frank, and Madge, as belligerent as either of them,
+hurried, also, to his side.
+
+"I'm with you, Colonel," she exclaimed, with the spirit of the
+mountain-bred, "and we'll win ag'in, as we did once before!"
+
+Joe saw this with distress. Layson's generosity had softened him. He
+knew, perfectly, by this time, that Madge was not for him, and her
+spirit in joining his defenders--the very men whom he had thought his
+enemies--touched him deeply. The realization came to him with a quick
+rush that he had wronged the bluegrass folk whom he had hated with such
+bitterness. He looked first at those who wished to take him prisoner and
+make him suffer for a crime of which he was not guilty, and then at his
+defenders, who had every reason to doubt him, but still, without a
+question, had accepted his own plea of innocence. He had already made
+these people trouble. Now was his opportunity to save them from an
+awkward situation and, perhaps, a perilous one. There might be shooting
+if he offered to resist or let these good friends attempt to defend him.
+That would endanger them, and, worse, endanger Madge. "I'll go. I don't
+want to make no trouble," he said hastily.
+
+Holton nodded with approval. He wished to take the man as quickly and as
+simply as he could. Every complication which could be avoided would make
+less probable discovery of the fact that he, himself, and not the
+fugitive young mountaineer, was the real culprit.
+
+"That's sensible," he said, "for them men, out thar, are bound to hev
+you, by fair means or foul."
+
+"Those men will listen to reason," Frank said with a determination which
+disconcerted the ex-slave dealer. "They shall hear me!" He stepped
+toward the open window. "Colonel, come with me." Without waiting for him
+he stepped to the gallery outside.
+
+The Colonel started to go also, but, seeing that Holton, too, was about
+to hurry out, paused long enough to go up to him threateningly. "Don't
+you dare to follow!" he warned him. "We'll play this hand alone." The
+man fell back and the Colonel kept his eyes on him as, slowly, he joined
+Frank on the gallery.
+
+Holton's discomfiture lasted but a moment. As soon as the Colonel had
+passed out of sight he got his wits back and looked threateningly at
+Madge and the mountaineer. "We'll see about that," he declared
+viciously, and, making a movement of his hand which indicated that he
+must be armed, although he had not shown a weapon, so far, moved toward
+another window which also opened on the gallery.
+
+But he had not counted on old Neb. The darkey found in this emergency
+the opportunity for which he had been waiting many years. Lapse of time
+had never dulled his keen resentment of the blow the man had struck him;
+now it was with keen delight that he stepped out of the shadow just
+outside the window, with a carelessly held pistol in his hand, which
+somehow appeared to cover Holton. "De Cunnel said you'd please stay
+heah, suh," he said placidly; but the pistol gave his words an emphasis
+which could not be mistaken.
+
+Holton paled with rage, but did not take another forward step.
+
+As he fell back Joe Lorey spoke. The murmur of the mob outside, incited,
+he well knew, to hunger for his life, and the loud voices of the Colonel
+and of Frank, raised in expostulation, made an accompaniment for what he
+had to say to Holton, and that he still was in grave danger made his
+attitude more menacing, his words more impressive.
+
+"Yes," he said to Holton, while Madge gazed, spellbound, "you hold on.
+I've a word to say to you."
+
+"Say it, then, and say it quick," said Holton, trying to make his tone
+contemptuous.
+
+"I'll say it quick, and I'll say it plain. You know as it war never me
+as fired that stable. You war there an' saw me leave afore th' fire.
+It's yer place to cl'ar me. Why air you a-houndin' me to my death?"
+
+Holton was uncomfortable. "Them men out thar believe ye guilty. It ain't
+my work," he said.
+
+The mountaineer was not deceived. He knew this man to be his enemy,
+although he knew no reason for his hatred. "It's you as air settin' 'em
+on," he said, "as you set me on Frank Layson when you told me that lie
+ag'in him in th' mountings."
+
+Madge had listened, speechless, during this dramatic scene, but stood
+watching it, alert and ready to lend aid to her friend, if opportunity
+arose. Now, at Joe's words, she started forward.
+
+"Was it him as told you?" she inquired, amazed.
+
+Joe did not answer her, but continued to face Holton and address him. "I
+believed you," he went on, "because I thought you couldn't a-knowed o'
+th' still except through him; but since he never told you, it air proof
+to me that you have been in these here mountings, sometime, afore."
+Strange suspicions were glittering from his hostile eyes as he faced the
+now thoroughly alarmed man who, a moment since, had been the blustering
+bully.
+
+"I tell you I were never thar!" said Holton hurriedly.
+
+"Then how did you know of th' cave an' the oak?" said Joe, accusingly.
+The glitter of suspicion in his eyes was growing brighter every second.
+"It's plain to me as how you've passed many a day thar in them
+mountings. Thar's somethin' bound up in yer past as has egged you on
+ag'in me. I wants to know what that thing is--I wants to know just who
+an' what ye air!"
+
+"It's easy enough to show who Horace Holton is," the man said,
+blustering, but he was very ill at ease. "What do I care what you want?"
+And then he made a slip. "You can't bring no proof--" he began, but
+caught himself.
+
+Madge had been watching him with new intentness. The excitement of the
+moment may have sharpened the girl's wits, or, possibly, its hint of
+peril may have brought to Holton's face some detail of expression,
+which, during recent weeks, had not before appeared upon it.
+
+"But I kin," she said, slowly. "I war right in what I thought when I
+first saw you in th' mountings. I _had_ seen your face afore!"
+
+"Don't you dare say that!" cried Holton, stepping toward her angrily.
+The man who had been the accuser, was, strangely, now, quite plainly,
+half at bay.
+
+"That look ag'in!" the girl said, studying his face. "That look war
+printed on my baby brain!"
+
+"Silence, I say!" cried Holton, now badly frightened. He had not
+counted on this recognition.
+
+"Never!" the girl said boldly. She was certain, now, as she looked at
+him, that the suspicion which had flashed into her mind was accurate.
+Her cheeks paled and she stepped toward him with set face, clenched
+hands. Every fibre in her thrilled with horror of him, every drop of
+blood in her young body cried for vengeance on him. "I'll rouse th'
+world ag'in ye!" she exclaimed, so tensely that even Lorey looked at her
+with alarmed amazement. "I'll rouse th' world ag'in ye, for I'm standin'
+face to face with my own father's murderer--Lem Lindsay!"
+
+"Lem Lindsay!" said Joe, wonderingly, and then, with the expression on
+his face of a wild-beast about to spring upon his prey: "At last!"
+
+Holton shrank away from them in terror which he could not hide. His
+bravado was all gone. He was, no longer, the accuser, but, with the
+mention of that name, had changed places with Joe Lorey and become the
+fugitive, shrinking, alarmed.
+
+"'Sh! Don't speak that name!" he pleaded. He made no effort at denial.
+There was that in the girl's eyes which told him that her recognition
+had been absolute. "I've been hidin' it for years." He spoke pleadingly.
+"Look hyar. I've got everythin' that heart can wish. Joe Lorey, I'll
+save you from them men. I'll sw'ar I saw you leave the stable afore th'
+fire begun." He moved his eyes from one of the accusing faces to the
+other, terrified. "I'll make ye both rich if you'll never speak that
+name ag'in!"
+
+[Illustration: "I'M STANDIN' FACE TO FACE WITH MY OWN FATHER'S
+MURDERER--LEM LINDSAY"]
+
+"Your weight in gold would make no differ!" Joe cried menacingly. "Lem
+Lindsay, it air Heaven's work that's given you into my hands!" He went
+toward him slowly, menacingly, with his strong fingers working with
+desire to clutch his shrinking throat. "It air Heaven's will as you
+should meet your fall through Ben Lorey's son!"
+
+Holton, desperate, gathered courage for a last effort to escape from the
+net which he had woven to his own undoing. With a quick movement he drew
+from his belt, where his long coat had concealed its presence, hitherto,
+a gleaming knife, and, with it upraised, rushed at Joe viciously. "I'm a
+free man, yet," he cried, "an' I'm a-goin' to stay free!"
+
+Joe, alert, calm-eyed, cool-witted, waited for him with a hand upraised
+to catch his wrist, with muscles braced to meet the fierce attack.
+
+Madge rushed to the window, calling loudly: "Colonel! Mr. Frank!"
+
+But Holton and Joe Lorey were, by that time, locked in a desperate grip
+and struggling with the energy of men battling for their lives. Twisting
+and straining, each striving with the last ounce of energy within him to
+get the better of the other, they plunged across the room and out into
+the hall.
+
+Just as Frank and the Colonel hurried in, a shot was heard and then a
+heavy fall. An instant later Joe came to the door.
+
+"Heaven's will are done!" he said, quite simply.
+
+Layson rushed toward him, but paused, aghast, looking off through the
+open door. "Joe, you've killed him!" he exclaimed.
+
+"An' I had a right!" said Joe, now strangely calm. "When he killed my
+father it were ordained that he should fall by my hands. I ain't afeared
+to stand my trial."
+
+"The men outside have promised," Layson said, dismayed by this new and
+terrible complication, "that you shall have a fair trial on the other
+charge. They've gone, now, for the sheriff. But this charge," he looked
+toward the door which led into the hall, "will be more serious!"
+
+"I can clear him of 'em both," said Madge. "I'll sw'ar th' killin' was
+in self-defense; I'll sw'ar that Holton owned, before me, that he saw
+Joe leave th' stable afore th' fire."
+
+"He saw him!" exclaimed Frank, astonished. "What was Holton doing
+there?"
+
+"Oh, don't you see?" said Madge. "He war your enemy--th' man as told Joe
+th' lie ag'in you in th' mountings, th' man as tried to burn Queen
+Bess."
+
+The Colonel had entered, quickly, from the gallery, and stood listening,
+amazed and fascinated. Now, after a moment's pause to think the matter
+out, he advanced to Joe with outstretched hand. For the man who had
+been guilty of that vile mischief he felt no regret, for the man who
+had, in a fair fight and with good reason, shot him down, he felt full
+sympathy. "Tried to burn Queen Bess!" he cried. "Joe, the jury'll clear
+you without leaving their seats! Come, my boy--the sheriff's here, and
+you will have to go with him; but don't you worry. I'll see you
+through."
+
+Joe stood, thinking, with bowed head and frowning brow. Suddenly he
+looked up and cast his eyes about upon the company. "Before I goes, I
+wants to say a word to Madge," said he, and turned to her with an
+impressive earnestness. "Little one, don't you never fret about me, no
+more." He took her hand and she gave it to him gladly. "I see, now, as
+you was never made for me." He took a step toward Frank and led her to
+him. "I see whar your heart is, an' I puts your hand in his." With bowed
+head he relinquished the brown hand of the mountain-girl whom he had
+loved since childhood, to the outstretched hand of the young
+"foreigner," whom he no longer looked at with the hatred which had so
+long thrilled his heart. "And--now I says good-bye. God bless you both!"
+
+He went out, slowly, with the Colonel.
+
+"Madge, he's right," said Frank, "this little hand is mine."
+
+He would have clasped her in his arms, but, finally, she held him off.
+
+"No, no," said she, "not till you know my secret. It was I who rode
+Queen Bess,"
+
+"You rode Queen Bess!"
+
+The Colonel was re-entering the room. "But the world will never know
+it," he said gallantly, "on the honor of a Kentuckian."
+
+Frank's smile was radiant. "If it did, I should say: 'Here, Madge, in my
+arms, is your shelter from the world.'" He drew her to him gently.
+"Madge, my little wife!"
+
+
+
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