eep a watch on him, just the same," she said. Now that she
understood the vast importance of this race to Layson her whole heart
was wrapped up in its fortunes. "When a man wants whisky he gener'ly
finds a way to git it."

"You're right, Madge," Frank agreed. "I think I'll go and look after
him, now."

He started toward the door just as a knock sounded on it. When he opened
it he found Horace Holton standing waiting for admittance. The man
seemed to be excited.

"I don't want to intrude, sar," said the ex-merchant in slaves, "but I
come to tell you what you'd orter know. Th' news of th' fire, last
night, hev set ev'rybody wild. They're lookin' to you, sar, to sw'ar out
a warrant for Joe Lorey an' set th' sheriff on his track."

Frank came back into the room with the old man, worried by the news
which he had brought. He had been thinking of this very matter and he
was not at all convinced that he wished to swear a warrant out for
Lorey. Finally, after a few seconds of silent and deep thought, he shook
his head. "I want more proof, first," he declared.

Holton was astonished and ill-pleased. "What more proof d' ye want?" he
asked. "Ain't it as plain as day that he come down from th' mountings to
get even with you for th' raidin' of his still? Who else would 'a' done
it?"

Madge was listening with flushed face and frowning brow. She did not,
for a second, think Joe Lorey was the culprit. Her suspicions had not
wholly crystalized, but she had known the mountain-boy since she had
known anyone, and she could not believe that he would fire a building in
which was confined a dumb and helpless creature. She knew him to be
quite as fond of animals as she was. She believed Holton, also, had some
ulterior reason, which she did not fathom, then, for trying to fasten
suspicion on the lad. In her earnestness, as she considered these
things, she stepped close to the old man, almost truculently. "That's
what I mean to find out," she declared. "Who else done it."

Holton was angered by her manner and her opposition. He had not expected
to meet any difficulty in the execution of his plan to throw the blame
of the outrageous crime at Woodlawn, on the shoulders of the
mountaineer. "What have you got to do with it?" he angrily demanded.

She was not impressed by his quick show of temper. "Reckon I've got as
much to do with it as you hev," she replied. "Joe Lorey wouldn't never
plan to burn a helpless dumb critter. He ain't no such c