In Old Kentucky Part 13

"_Father!"_ said the girl, in absolute amazement, hurrying toward him.

"Ah, Mr. Holton!" said Miss 'Lethe, bowing to him as the Colonel, plainly not too greatly pleased by the necessity for doing so, advanced toward him with extended hand.

"What brings you all up here?" asked Holton, after the greetings had been said.

"We came up to see Frank and the beauties of his long-forgotten land,"

Miss 'Lethe answered, in her softly charming voice. "He has property up here, you know, which has been for years a family possession, but which has been considered valueless, or almost so. When he learned that this new railway was to pa.s.s quite close to it, he decided to investigate it carefully and see just what it really amounted to."

Holton smiled a little wryly as she completed her explanation. "He's stayed here, studyin' it, a long time, ain't he?"

"Yes," Miss Alathea answered. "When he once reached here he seemed to find new beauties in the country every day. He wrote us the most glowing letters of it, and these letters and--and--other things, decided me to come and see him and the property he is so fond of. The Colonel was polite enough to volunteer as escort, your daughter to come as a companion."

Holton winked mysteriously at Colonel Doolittle. "You come at the right time," said he. "I'll have some things to tell you of this country and just what the railroad's going to do for it if you should care to listen."

The Colonel's eyes, plainly those of one who read the tale of character upon the faces of the people whom he met, looked at him with no great favor, but he smiled. "We've already learned some things which have astonished us," he said. Then, though, despite the fact that his remark had greatly aroused Holton's curiosity, evidently, he changed the subject somewhat abruptly, and turned grandiosely to Miss 'Lethe.

"May I offuh you my ahm, ma'am, for a little stroll about heah?" he inquired. "The greatest disadvantage which I see about this country is the lack of level places big enough to put a race-track in, ma'am. So far as I can see from lookin' round me, casual like, you couldn't run a quahtuh, heah, without eitheh goin' up a hill or comin' down one."

"_Isn't_ it rough!" said Barbara, with a gesture of aversion which seemed a bit affected.

Holton looked at her with what was plainly admiration. It was clear enough that, in a way, he was fond of his showy daughter. He ran his eye with satisfaction over her costume, from head to foot, and nodded.

"You ain't never seen much of rough life, now have you, Barbara?" He turned, then, to Miss Alathea. "These young folks, raised the way we raise 'em, nowadays, get thinkin' that the whole world has been smoothed out for their treadin'--an' they ain't far wrong. We _do_ smooth out the world for 'em. Now, there's your nephew, Frank; he--"

"Oh, he _likes_ it, here, as I have said," she answered.

"But it is so--_uncouth_" said Barbara, plainly for the benefit of one or two admiring youths from the surveying party, who were standing near.

"And some of the people look so absolutely vicious--some of the natives, I mean, of course, you know. Now look at that young fellow, over there!"

The girl had nodded toward Joe Lorey, who was standing not far off, observing them with an unwavering and disapproving, almost definitely hostile stare.

"He looks," the girl went on, "as if he hated us and would be glad to do us harm. So violent!"

"He's from up the mountains," one of the young engineers said, glancing toward him. "It's funny how those mountain people _all_ hate us. You see, they say, the hills around about here are all full of moonshiners and they believe the coming of the railroad will bring with it law and order and that when that comes, of course, their living will be gone."

"Moonshiners?" said Barbara. "Pray, what are moonshiners?"

Her father grimly smiled again. He knew that she knew quite as well what moonshiners were as any person in the group, but her affected ignorance of rough things and rough men amused him.

"Distillers of corn whisky who refuse to pay their taxes to the government," the youth replied. "The revenue officials have had dreadful times with them, here in the c.u.mberland, for years. Sometimes they have really b.l.o.o.d.y battles with them, when they try to make a raid."

"How terrible!" said Barbara, and shuddered carefully. She looked again at Lorey, who, conscious that he was the subject of their conversation and resentful of it, stared back boldly and defiantly. "And do you think that he--that very young man there--can possibly have ever actually _killed_ a man?"

The engineer laughed heartily. "That he may _possibly_ have killed a man," said he, "there is no doubt. I don't know that he has, however, and it is most improbable. I don't even know that he's a moonshiner."

Among the others who had left the train, which, now, had been switched off to a crude side-track, the cars left there and the locomotive started at the handling of dirt-dump-cars, were two tall, sunburned strangers, whom Miss Alathea, who had noted them as she did everyone, had cla.s.sed as engineers or surveyors, but who had not, when they had arrived, mingled with the other men employed on the construction of the railroad. While the young man and Barbara were talking about moonshiners, one of them had drifted near and he gave them a keen glance at the first mention of the word. Now he turned, but turned most casually, to follow with his own, their glances at Joe Lorey. Then he sauntered off, and, as he pa.s.sed Holton, seemed to exchange meaning glances with him.

Soon afterward Lorey turned away. The day was getting on toward noon.

The long tramp back to his lonely cabin in the mountains would consume some hours. The sight of all these strangers, all this work on the new railroad worried him, made him unhappy, added to and multiplied the apprehension which for weeks had filled his heart about Madge Brierly and young Layson. He battled with a mixture of emotions. There was no ounce of cowardice, in Joe. Never had he met a situation in his life before which he had feared or which had proved too strong for him. All his battles, so far, and they had been many and been various, as was inevitable from the nature of his secret calling, had resulted in full victories for his mighty strength of body or his quick foot, certain hand, keen knowledge of the mountains and the woods resource and wit that went with these; but now things seemed to baffle him. His soul was struggling against acknowledgment of it, while his mind continually told him it was true. Everything seemed, now, to be against him.

He knew, but would not admit, even to himself, that the march of progress must inevitably drive out of existence the still hidden in his cave and make the marketing of its illicit product doubly hazardous, nay, quite impossible. He knew that he must give it up; he realized that real good sense would send him home, that day, to bury the last trace of it in some spot where it never could be found again. But his stubborn soul revolted at the thought of being beaten, finally, by this civilization which he hated; he would not admit, even in his mind, that it had bested him, or could ever best him. He ground his teeth and pressed his elbow down against the stock of his long rifle with a force which ground the gun into his side until it hurt him. He would never give up, never! Let them try to get him if they could, these lowlanders!

He would not be afraid of them. His father had not been--and he would never be.

And there was a voice within him which kept whispering as did the one which counselled the abandonment of his illegal calling, the abandonment of that other effort, infinitely dearer to him, to win Madge Brierly's love and hand in marriage. His common-sense a.s.sured him that she was not made for such as he, that, while she had been born there in the mountains there were delicacies, refinements in her which would make her mating with his rude and uncouth strength impossible, would make it cruelly unhappy for her, even should it come about. But this voice he steadfastly declined to listen to, even more emphatically than he did to that which counselled caution in his calling. Again he ground his teeth. His heels, when they came down upon the rocky mountain trails up which he soon was climbing, fell on the slopes so heavily that, constantly, his progress was followed by the rattle of small stones down the inclined path behind him, constant little landslides. And, at ordinary times, Joe Lorey, awkward as he looked to be, could scale a sloping sand-bank without sending down a sliding spoonful to betray the fact that he was moving on it to the wild things it might startle.

Heavily he resolved within his soul, against his own best judgment, to keep up both fights and win.

The dynamite which he had stolen and which nestled in his game-sack comforted him, although he did not know how he would use it. Many times, as he worked through the narrow trails, jumped from stepping-stone to stepping-stone in crossing mountain-streams, pulled himself up steep and rocky slopes by clutching swaying branches, or rough-angled boulders, he let his left hand slip down to the side of the old game-sack, where, through the soft leather, he could plainly feel the smooth, terrific cylinder.

He swore a mighty mountain oath that none of the advancing forces ever should win victory of him. If the revenuers ever tried to get him, let G.o.d help them, for they would need help; if Frank Layson stole his girl from him, then let G.o.d help him, also, for even more than would the revenuers the young bluegra.s.s gentleman would need a.s.sistance from some mighty power.

But a fate was closing on Joe Lorey which all his uncouth strength could not avert. As he had left the railway those two men whom simple-minded Miss Alathea had supposed were engineers, but who had not mingled with the throng of railway builders had looked at Horace Holton for confirmation of their guess. In a quick glance, so keen that they could not mistake its meaning so instantaneous that none else could suspect that the three men were even casual acquaintances, he had told them they had guessed aright.

They sauntered off and disappeared in the direction whence the mountaineer had gone, and, though his feet were well accustomed to the trails and were as expert in their climbing as any mountaineer's for miles, these men proved more expert; though his ear was as acute as a wild animal's, so silently they moved that never once a hint that they were following, ever following behind him, reached it; their endurance was as great as his, their woods-craft was as sly as his.

A fate was closing on Joe Lorey. The march of civilization was, indeed, advancing toward his mountain fastnesses at last. And nothing stays the march of civilization.

CHAPTER VIII

The afternoon was waning as Joe climbed a sudden rise and saw before him Layson's camp.

Through a cleft in the guardian range the sun's rays penetrated red and fiery. Already the quick chill of the coming evening had begun to permeate the air. A hawk, sailing from a day of foraging among the hen-yards of the distant valley, flew heavily across the sky, burdened with plunder for its little ones, nested at the top of a black stub on the mountain-side. Squirrels were home-going after a busy day among the trees. The mournful barking of young foxes, anxious for their dinners, thrilled the air with sounds of woe. Among the smaller birds the early nesters were already twittering in minor among the trees and thickets; a mountain-eagle cleft the air in the hawk's trail, so high that only a keen eye could have caught sight of him. Daylight insects were beginning to abate their clamor, while their fellows of the night were tuning for the evening concert. Mournfully, and very faintly, came a locomotive's wail from the far valley.

Joe Lorey paused grimly in his progress to stare at the rough shack which housed the man he hated. He was no coward, and he would not take advantage of the loneliness and isolation of the spot to do him harm surrept.i.tiously, but vividly the thought thrilled through him that someday he would a.s.sail him. Smoke was curling from the mud-and-stick chimney of the little structure, and he smiled contemptuously as he thought of how the bluegra.s.s youth was doubtless pottering, within, getting ready to go down into the valley to greet his fine friends and be greeted. He had no doubt that long ere this the aged negro had reached him with the news of their arrival. He wondered, with a fierce leap of hope, if, possibly, their coming might not be the signal for the man's departure from the country where he was not wanted.

This hope keenly thrilled him, for a moment, but, an instant later, when, through the small window, he saw the youth seat himself, alone, before a blazing fire of logs, stretch out his legs and lounge in the comfort of the blaze, it left him. He wondered if Layson did not intend to go down at all to meet his friends.

Just then his quick ear caught the sound of stumbling, hurried footsteps, plainly not a mountaineer's, down in the rough woodland, below. Instantly his muscles tautened, instantly he brought his rifle to position; but he soon let it fall again and smiled, perhaps, for the first time that day.

"Lawsy! Lawsy!" he could hear a scared voice muttering. "Lawsy, I is los', fo' suah!"

His smile broadened to a wide, malicious grin of satisfaction. The black messenger who had been started with the news, evidently had not fared well upon the way, and was, but now, arriving. "It's that n.i.g.g.e.r wanderin' around up hyar," he mused. And then: "I'm goin' to have some fun with him."

Silently he slipped down the path by which he had so recently ascended, and, at a good distance from the cabin, but still well in advance of the unhappy negro, hid behind a rock, awaiting his approach.

Old Neb, advancing, scared tremendously, was talking to himself in a loud, excited voice.

"Oh, golly!" he exclaimed. "Dis am a pretty fix for a bluegra.s.s cullud gemman! Dis am a pretty fix--los', los' up heah, in de midst of wolves an' painters!"

Joe, from behind his rock, wailed mournfully in startling imitation of a panther's call.

The darkey almost fell p.r.o.ne in his fright. "Name o' goodness!" he exclaimed. "Wha' dat? Oh--oh--dere's a painter, now!"

Joe called again, more mournfully, more ominously than before.