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Updated: May 17, 2025
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.
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.
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!"
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.
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!"
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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