had told her of them, had spoken of the father without much enthusiasm,
and she felt quite sure that she could never like the daughter. She had
noticed, she believed, that when it came to talk of her her friend had
hesitated with embarrassment. Could it be possible that this young lady
who had had the chances she, herself, had been denied, for education and
for everything desirable, would seem to him, when she appeared upon the
scene, less lovely, less desirable, than a simple little mountain maid
like poor Madge Brierly? The thought seemed quite incredible and the
worry of it quite absorbed her for a time and drove away forebodings
about the possible hatred of Joe Lorey for Layson and his possible
expression of resentment. She even ceased her wonderings about the
footsteps which had gone down the road, that morning, and which, so far
as she could see, had not come back again.

CHAPTER VI

They were, indeed, the great imprints of Joe Lorey's hob-nailed boots,
quite as she suspected. Long before the sun had risen the young
mountaineer, distressed by worries which had made his night an almost
sleepless one, had risen and wandered from his little cabin, lonelier in
its far solitude, even than the girl's. For a time he had crouched upon
a stump beneath the morning stars with lowering brows, sunk deep in
harsh, resentful thought, forgetful of the falling dew, the chill of the
keen mountain air, of everything, in fact, save the gnawing apprehension
that the "foreigner," who had invaded this far mountain solitude might,
with his better manners, infinitely better education and divers other
devilish wiles of the low country, snatch from him the prize which he
had grown up longing to possess.

The youthful mountaineer's distress was not without its pathos. He loved
the girl, had loved her since they had been toddling children playing in
the hills together. Never for an instant had his firm devotion to her
wandered to any other of the mountain girls; never for an instant had
he had any hope but that of, some day, winning her. That he recognized
the real superiority of Layson made his worry the more tragic, for it
made it the more hopeless.

A dull resentment thrilled him, not only against this man, but against
the whole tribe of his people, who were, in these uncomfortable days,
invading the rough country which, to that time, had been the undisputed
domain of the mountaineer. He thought with bitterness about the growin