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