you don't know a man like that, do you?"

Holton spoke a little hurriedly. "No, no; there ain't no man like that
in these parts."

"It don't make no differ whar he bides," said Joe. "Soon or late our
paths'll cross an' bring us face to face. When he struck down my father
it war sealed and signed above that he war to fall by my hand; an'
there's a feelin' in my heart that that hour air drawin' nigh." He
nodded and then turned away. "Good-night, stranger."

Holton was thoroughly alarmed. Many things distressed him. He could
plainly see that his daughter's love-affair with Layson had gone wrong,
he realized that there was little chance that he could buy Madge
Brierly's coal lands at anything but a fair value, and now--to fall by
his hand!

"I'll make that false," he muttered, "Why, I've got to do it!"

He moved away among the trees, but stopped in frequent thought as he
progressed.

"They'll lay the crime on Lorey," he reflected, after he had laid his
plan. "They'll hunt him down and lynch him and I shall be safe.
Layson'll be ruined, he'll have to sell Woodlawn, and my gal'll be th'
missus there, in spite of him. I've got to do it."

Like a shadow of the night he hurried through the grounds until he
reached the stable where Queen Bess was thought to be secure.

"Every window barred, every door is sealed but this!" he cunningly
reflected as he paused at the front entrance.

With frantic haste, lest he should be discovered at the work, he piled
brush from a near refuse pile against the door and stuffed wisps of
grass and hay into the bottom of the heap. Into this tinder pile he
thrust a lighted match and disappeared, just as Madge came to the bench
where she had paused when she first came to Woodlawn, early in the
afternoon.

It was plain enough, from her dejected looks and listless attitude, that
the dance had given her no pleasure, but, on the contrary, had filled
her with distress.

"I couldn't stand it thar, no longer," she was thinking, bitterly. "I
war jest a curiosity, like a wild woman. Miss Barbarous poked fun at me
till I war plumb afraid I'd fly at her like a wild-cat, so I jest
slipped away. Oh, I see, now, as I never seed afore; the differ that
there is 'twixt Mr. Frank an' me! An' I know, now, what 't is air ailin'
me. I loves him. Oh, I loves him better nor my life! But it can't never
be." She dropped her head into her hands and sobbed. "Good-bye, good,
kind, Mr. Frank, good-bye!" She stretched