In Old Kentucky Part 23

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 ident.i.ty. 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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 moons.h.i.+ne 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 a.s.sured 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 moons.h.i.+ner, 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 d.a.m.n'

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 sh.o.r.e 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 G.o.d 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 bluegra.s.s belle's accomplished city dressmakers.

Down in the bluegra.s.s home of the ancient Layson family all was excitement in antic.i.p.ation 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.