so, for every one
of those long twenty years."

"Twenty years!" He turned his head aside and muttered: "What a damned
fool I have been!" Then, to her, he said, exultantly: "Aha! A neck
ahead!"

It is difficult to say what would have happened, then, if Madge, Holton,
Barbara and Frank had not come from the stable, chattering about Queen
Bess.

CHAPTER XIV

Joe Lorey, mad with wrath, his heart filled with the lust of killing for
revenge, infuriated to the point where he felt need of neither food nor
sleep, yet made less rapid time down the rough mountain paths than had
the girl. Love-lent wings are swifter than an impulse born of hatred and
resentment can be. She had flown upon such wings to save the man who
filled her innocent thoughts with longing; Joe had gone clumsily,
despite his cunning as a mountaineer, for leaden, murderous thoughts had
weighed him down, hampering the quickness of his wit, delaying his fleet
feet, confusing the alertness of his watchfulness for faint-limned
trails, loose areas perilous of slides upon steep slopes. Indeed, though
hate had driven him, Joe Lorey never in his life had made so very slow a
journey to the bluegrass as that which he had started on from his
wrecked still, with hatred of Frank Layson, who he thought had viciously
betrayed him, blazing in his heart.

Hours after the light-footed girl, spurred by her fear for one whom she
but dimly guessed that she had learned to love, had arrived at the
bluegrass mansion and been welcomed by the owner of Queen Bess, the
mountaineer reached the confines of the splendid farm, and lurked there,
waiting for night-fall to make his entrance into the house grounds safe.

The rough youth's mental state was pitiable. Tragedy had pursued him,
almost from his life's beginning, he reflected, as he furtively awaited
opportunity for the revenge which he had planned. The fierce feud of the
mountains had robbed him of his parents, and, with them, of the best
years of his youth; the rough life of the mountains had robbed his
strong young manhood of those opportunities which, he dimly realized,
might have made him different and better; when love for sweet Madge
Brierly had come to him, Fate had brought up from the bluegrass the
young stranger, who, with his superior learning, polished manner and
smooth speech, had found the conquest of the girl (Joe bitterly
reflected) all too easy; and finally had come the crowning, black
disaster--the betray