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"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!"
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
There are a great variety of birds in this country; all those of the parrot tribe, such as the macaw, cockatoo, lorey, green parrot, and parroquets of different kinds and sizes, are cloathed with the most beautiful plumage that can be conceived; it would require the pencil of an able limner to give a stranger an idea of them, for it is impossible by words to describe them*. The common crow is found here in considerable numbers, but the sound of their voice and manner of croaking, is very different from those in Europe.
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.
"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.
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