t 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
moonshiner, 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 damn'
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 shore 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
God 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