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Updated: May 20, 2025
"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!"
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.
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.
"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. The moonshiner stood there, pathetic in his beaten strength before them.
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.
"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.
"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?"
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.
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.
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.
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