In Old Kentucky Part 22

"Warn him!" said the older man, with a bitterness, real or counterfeited, whichever it might be, as fierce as that which rang in the young moonshiner's own voice, "I hate him as much as you. I'd rather warn you."

"Warn me o' what?" Lorey had begun to lose suspicion of the stranger.

If, really, he hated Layson, he might make of him a useful ally.

"Your name's Lorey," Holton answered, with his keen eyes fixed intently on those of the man who stood there, tensely listening to him, "an' yo'

keep a still."

Now Lorey again caught his rifle quickly in both hands; his face showed new apprehension, and a terrible determination, desperate and dreadful.

If this stranger knew about the still, was it not certain that he was a government spy and therefore worthy of quick death?

"Keerful!" he said menacingly. "Hyar in th' mountings that word's worth your life!" The youth, with frowning brow and glittering, wolfish eyes, stood facing Holton like an animal at bay, with what amounted to a threat of murder on his lips.

"I'm speakin' it for your own good," the old man answered, throwing into his voice as much of frankness as he could command. "I tell you that th'

revemooers have got word about your still."

"Then somebody's spied an' told 'em."

Here was Holton's chance. The vicious scheme came to him in a flash.

Layson he hated fiercely; this youth he hated fiercely. What plan could be better than to set the one to hunt the other? If Lorey should kill Layson it would remove Layson from his path and make his way clear to the purchase of Madge Brierly's coal-lands at a small fraction of their value. 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 pa.s.sed over as an ordinary mountain murder generally is by the authorities. Thus, at once, he might be rid of the young bluegra.s.s gentleman he hated and the young mountaineer he feared.

"You're right," said he. "Somebody's spied an' told 'em. Somebody as stumbled on yore still while he was huntin'."

Lorey looked at him, wide-eyed, infuriated. Instantly he quite believed what Holton said. It dove-tailed with his own grim hate of Layson that Layson should hate him and try to work his ruin by giving information to the revenuers. "Somebody huntin'!" he exclaimed. "Frank Layson! Say it, say it!"

"Promise you'll never speak my name?" said Holton. He had no wish to be mixed up in the tragic matter, and he knew, instinctively, that if Joe Lorey gave his word, moonshiner and lawbreaker as he was, it would be kept to the grim end.

"I promise it, if it air th' truth you're tellin' me," said Lorey.

"It's true, then," Holton answered. "You can see for your own self that I'm a stranger hyar. I couldn't a' knowed o' th' still exceptin' through Frank Layson."

The simple, specious argument to Lorey was convincing. "It air true," he admitted slowly. "n.o.body else would a' gin ye th' word." The angry youth paused in black, murderous thought. "He air a-comin' hyar, to-night," he went on presently. "I heered him tell Madge Brierly that he war comin'

back, this evenin'. You better--maybe you had better git along." He had no wish for witnesses to what he planned, now, to accomplish, when Layson should come back to Madge, as he had promised, with the engineer's report upon her coal lands.

Holton nodded, grimly satisfied that he had planted a suspicion which might flower into his own revenge. 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. What better fortune could he wish than to pit this mountain youth, whom, also, for a reason carried over from dark days in his past life, he hated, against the young man from the bluegra.s.s whom he hated no less bitterly?

"Go by _that_ path, thar," said Lorey, suddenly, and pointing, as Holton started to return by the direct route he had followed as he came. "It air round-about, but it'll lead you to th' valley. I'll run no risk o'

your warnin' him."

"Don't you be skeered," said Holton. "I'll keep mum, no matter what happens."

With a grim smile he started down the path which the mountaineer had pointed out.

"Laid his whip acrost my face!" he muttered as he went. "Trifled with my gal! Him an' Ben Lorey's son--let 'em fight it out! I'm so much th'

better off."

And Lorey, slipping back into the shadow of a rock, after he had made quite certain that the stranger was following his directions, was reflecting, bitterly: "He's come atween me an' th' gal I love! He's put th' revenoo hounds upon my track! Oh, if he had a dozen lives, I'd have 'em all!"

For ten alert and watchful minutes, which seemed to stretch to hours, he crouched there, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the coming of the man he hated. During five of these he listened to the sounds of Holton's downward progress, brought to his keen ear on the soft breezes of the young night. There came the crackling of a twig, the thud, thud, thud of a dislodged stone bounding down the slope, the rustle of leaves as the old man shuffled through a pocket of them gathered in the lea of some protruding rock by vagrant winds. Then all was still. He did not guess that Holton had been anxious that these sounds should reach him; that he had stumbled down the trail with awkward feet with no thought in his mind but to be certain that the sounds should reach him. Such was the case, however, and, after he felt sure that the crouching mountaineer above must be convinced that he had gone on to the valley, the old man turned, catlike, re-ascended with a skill as great as Lorey's own, and, with not a sound to warn the mountaineer that he had retraced any of his steps, took cautious place behind a rock upon the very edge of the open s.p.a.ce where, when Layson came, he felt quite sure a tragedy would be enacted.

Then Layson came blithely up the trail. He had gone through the engineer's report with care. The coal prospects included the girl's land. He was full of rare elation at thought of the good luck which had descended on the little mountain-maid, full of pleasant plans for a bright future from none of which she was omitted.

His dreams were rudely interrupted as Joe Lorey stepped ominously from behind the rock where he had waited for him.

"Hold up your hands!" the mountaineer commanded, with his rifle levelled at the advancing youth.

"Joe Lorey!" exclaimed Layson.

"You know what air between us. Your time air come. If you want to pray, do it quick, for my finger air itchin' to pull th' trigger."

Layson's blood and breeding told, in this emergency. He did not flinch a whit. "I'm ready," he said calmly. "I'm not afraid to die, though it's hard to meet death at the hands of a coward."

"Coward!" said the mountaineer, amazed. "You call me that?"

"The man who shoots another in cold blood, giving him no chance for his life, deserves no better name."

This appealed to Lorey. So had his father died--at the hands of one who killed him in cold blood, giving him no chance for his life. "You shan't die callin' me that!" he cried. He leaned his rifle against a nearby rock, threw his knife upon the ground beside it, pulled off his coat, and thus, unarmed, advanced upon his enemy. "We're ekal now," he said with grim intensity, and pointed to the chasm through which ran the stream which made Madge Brierly's refuge an island. "That gully air a hundred feet straight down," he said, "an' its bottom air kivered with rocks. When we're through, your body or mine'll lay there. Air you ready?"

Holton, tense with excitement, was watching every move of the two men from his hidden vantage point. Upon his face was the expression of an animal of prey.

"Ready!" said Frank, quietly.

It was a terrific struggle which ensued. The trained muscles of the lowland athlete were matched against the lithe thews of the mountaineer so evenly that, for a time, there was doubt of what the outcome might be. Holton, watching, watching, thrilled with every second of it. Little he cared which man won; the best thing which possibly could happen, for his own good, he reflected, would be that both should crash down to the bottom of the gully locked in one of their bear-hugs, to fall together on the jagged rocks below. The fierce breathing of the contestants, the shuffle of their struggling feet upon the ground, the occasional involuntary groan from one man or the other as his adversary crushed him in embrace so painful that an exclamation could not be suppressed, were all music to the ears of the old man behind the rock. Both youths were perils to him. Let them kill each other. He would be the gainer, whatever the outcome of the battle.

Suddenly Frank's foot slipped on a rolling pebble. Instantly Lorey had taken advantage of the mishap, and, with a quick wrench, thrown him crashing to the earth. He lay there, scarcely breathing, utterly unconscious.

The mountaineer bent over him, ready to meet the first sign of revival with renewed attack, his bloodshot eyes strained on the face of the young man upon the ground. Then, anxious to be satisfied that his prostrate enemy was not feigning, he knelt by him and peered into his face, placed his hand upon his chest above his heart, felt his pulse with awkward fingers. He wondered, now, if he had not killed him, outright, for Frank's head had struck the ground with a terrific impact.

But Layson's nostrils soon began to dilate and contract with a spasmodic breathing. He still lived.

Rendered careless by the excitement of the moment, Joe again yielded to the habit engendered by much solitude and spoke his thoughts aloud.

"It'll be long afore he'll stir," he muttered. "I'll throw him down into th' gully."

He rose, and, going to the side of the ravine, peered over with a fearful curiosity at the brawling torrent, cut into foam-ribbons by a horde of knife-edged rocks. Then he went to Layson and stretched out his hand to grasp his shoulder.

Occurred a psychological phenomenon. He found his courage fail at thought of laying hands upon the man as he was stretched there helpless.

"I--I can't touch him!" he exclaimed. "It'd be--why, it'd be like handlin' th' dead!"

He drew back, nonplussed, ashamed of his own timidity, yet unable to overcome it. He had felled the man and meant to kill him, yet, now, he could not bring himself to lay a hand upon him.

The thought then flashed into his mind of the dreadful contents of his old game-sack.

"Th' bomb," he said. "Th' dynamighty bomb that I was savin' for th'

revenuers! Let that finish out th' man as set 'em onto me!"

He took the bomb from the old sack with trembling fingers, laid it by Frank's side and, with a match which flickered because the hands which held it were unsteady as a palsied man's, set fire to the fuse. Then he drew off to one side.

"Now, burn!" he said, with set teeth and lowering brow. "Burn! Burn!"