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 moonshine 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 assured 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 tha