"It"ll take more nor you to save me, little one," he said, and smiled down at her pitifully. "There"s no hope for me, now. That"s why I"ve come hyar, to say to you all, afore I die, that I am innocent o" firin"
th" stable." He threw back his shoulders and stood before them, impressive and convincing. "Afore G.o.d, I am innocent!"
Frank looked at him with eyes which, as they gazed, altered their expression. He had thought the man quite possibly guilty of a vicious act--a foul attempt to burn a helpless animal in order to obtain revenge upon the man who owned her. But as he gazed he could not doubt that he was speaking simple truth. "Joe," he said impulsively, "I believe you!"
Joe turned to him with grat.i.tude plain upon his face. "You believe me--arter all that"s pa.s.sed?" He looked straight into the eyes of the young man he had hated, with a searching, earnest gaze. "Then," he said, after a second"s pause, "I believe as what you said, that night, war true. It war never you as ruined me." He held his hand out to the man whom, not so long ago, he had wished, with all his heart, to kill.
Frank grasped it with a hearty grip, just as the terrifying baying of the hounds approached the house.
"Frank, they"re coming here!" the Colonel cried, excited.
Joe turned away from Frank, looking here and there like a hunted animal.
"Oh, it"s hard to die afore I"ve met Lem Lindsay!" he said hopelessly.
It was quite plain that he considered his fate sealed.
Even as he spoke Holton and half-a-dozen others sprang to the broad gallery which fronted the whole room. Holton was plainly the leader of the party, for when he motioned all the others back, they obeyed his signal without protest, while he, himself, peered eagerly in through a wide, open window.
Frank, angered beyond measure by this bold intrusion, would have sprung toward him, to attack him, had not the Colonel waved him back.
"Frank, my boy," said he, "keep cool, keep cool!"
As he spoke, without apology, Holton stepped through the window into the room, itself.
"Layson," he said curtly, "I"m a committee o" one to ask if you"ll turn over that man, an" make no trouble." He jerked a thumb toward Joe.
Layson was wrathful at the man"s intrusion; he had been impressed by what the fugitive had said. "No," he answered, hotly. "Joe Lorey"s in my house, under my protection, and, by the eternal, you shan"t lay a hand on him!"
The Colonel smiled, delighted. "Kentucky blood!" he cried. "I"ll back you to a finish!"
He ranged himself by Frank, and Madge, as belligerent as either of them, hurried, also, to his side.
"I"m with you, Colonel," she exclaimed, with the spirit of the mountain-bred, "and we"ll win ag"in, as we did once before!"
Joe saw this with distress. Layson"s generosity had softened him. He knew, perfectly, by this time, that Madge was not for him, and her spirit in joining his defenders--the very men whom he had thought his enemies--touched him deeply. The realization came to him with a quick rush that he had wronged the bluegra.s.s folk whom he had hated with such bitterness. He looked first at those who wished to take him prisoner and make him suffer for a crime of which he was not guilty, and then at his defenders, who had every reason to doubt him, but still, without a question, had accepted his own plea of innocence. He had already made these people trouble. Now was his opportunity to save them from an awkward situation and, perhaps, a perilous one. There might be shooting if he offered to resist or let these good friends attempt to defend him.
That would endanger them, and, worse, endanger Madge. "I"ll go. I don"t want to make no trouble," he said hastily.
Holton nodded with approval. He wished to take the man as quickly and as simply as he could. Every complication which could be avoided would make less probable discovery of the fact that he, himself, and not the fugitive young mountaineer, was the real culprit.
"That"s sensible," he said, "for them men, out thar, are bound to hev you, by fair means or foul."
"Those men will listen to reason," Frank said with a determination which disconcerted the ex-slave dealer. "They shall hear me!" He stepped toward the open window. "Colonel, come with me." Without waiting for him he stepped to the gallery outside.
The Colonel started to go also, but, seeing that Holton, too, was about to hurry out, paused long enough to go up to him threateningly. "Don"t you dare to follow!" he warned him. "We"ll play this hand alone." The man fell back and the Colonel kept his eyes on him as, slowly, he joined Frank on the gallery.
Holton"s discomfiture lasted but a moment. As soon as the Colonel had pa.s.sed out of sight he got his wits back and looked threateningly at Madge and the mountaineer. "We"ll see about that," he declared viciously, and, making a movement of his hand which indicated that he must be armed, although he had not shown a weapon, so far, moved toward another window which also opened on the gallery.
But he had not counted on old Neb. The darkey found in this emergency the opportunity for which he had been waiting many years. Lapse of time had never dulled his keen resentment of the blow the man had struck him; now it was with keen delight that he stepped out of the shadow just outside the window, with a carelessly held pistol in his hand, which somehow appeared to cover Holton. "De Cunnel said you"d please stay heah, suh," he said placidly; but the pistol gave his words an emphasis which could not be mistaken.
Holton paled with rage, but did not take another forward step.
As he fell back Joe Lorey spoke. The murmur of the mob outside, incited, he well knew, to hunger for his life, and the loud voices of the Colonel and of Frank, raised in expostulation, made an accompaniment for what he had to say to Holton, and that he still was in grave danger made his att.i.tude more menacing, his words more impressive.
"Yes," he said to Holton, while Madge gazed, spellbound, "you hold on.
I"ve a word to say to you."
"Say it, then, and say it quick," said Holton, trying to make his tone contemptuous.
"I"ll say it quick, and I"ll say it plain. You know as it war never me as fired that stable. You war there an" saw me leave afore th" fire.
It"s yer place to cl"ar me. Why air you a-houndin" me to my death?"
Holton was uncomfortable. "Them men out thar believe ye guilty. It ain"t my work," he said.
The mountaineer was not deceived. He knew this man to be his enemy, although he knew no reason for his hatred. "It"s you as air settin" "em on," he said, "as you set me on Frank Layson when you told me that lie ag"in him in th" mountings."
Madge had listened, speechless, during this dramatic scene, but stood watching it, alert and ready to lend aid to her friend, if opportunity arose. Now, at Joe"s words, she started forward.
"Was it him as told you?" she inquired, amazed.
Joe did not answer her, but continued to face Holton and address him. "I believed you," he went on, "because I thought you couldn"t a-knowed o"
th" still except through him; but since he never told you, it air proof to me that you have been in these here mountings, sometime, afore."
Strange suspicions were glittering from his hostile eyes as he faced the now thoroughly alarmed man who, a moment since, had been the bl.u.s.tering bully.
"I tell you I were never thar!" said Holton hurriedly.
"Then how did you know of th" cave an" the oak?" said Joe, accusingly.
The glitter of suspicion in his eyes was growing brighter every second.
"It"s plain to me as how you"ve pa.s.sed many a day thar in them mountings. Thar"s somethin" bound up in yer past as has egged you on ag"in me. I wants to know what that thing is--I wants to know just who an" what ye air!"
"It"s easy enough to show who Horace Holton is," the man said, bl.u.s.tering, but he was very ill at ease. "What do I care what you want?"
And then he made a slip. "You can"t bring no proof--" he began, but caught himself.
Madge had been watching him with new intentness. The excitement of the moment may have sharpened the girl"s wits, or, possibly, its hint of peril may have brought to Holton"s face some detail of expression, which, during recent weeks, had not before appeared upon it.
"But I kin," she said, slowly. "I war right in what I thought when I first saw you in th" mountings. I _had_ seen your face afore!"
"Don"t you dare say that!" cried Holton, stepping toward her angrily.
The man who had been the accuser, was, strangely, now, quite plainly, half at bay.
"That look ag"in!" the girl said, studying his face. "That look war printed on my baby brain!"
"Silence, I say!" cried Holton, now badly frightened. He had not counted on this recognition.
"Never!" the girl said boldly. She was certain, now, as she looked at him, that the suspicion which had flashed into her mind was accurate.
Her cheeks paled and she stepped toward him with set face, clenched hands. Every fibre in her thrilled with horror of him, every drop of blood in her young body cried for vengeance on him. "I"ll rouse th"
world ag"in ye!" she exclaimed, so tensely that even Lorey looked at her with alarmed amazement. "I"ll rouse th" world ag"in ye, for I"m standin"
face to face with my own father"s murderer--Lem Lindsay!"
"Lem Lindsay!" said Joe, wonderingly, and then, with the expression on his face of a wild-beast about to spring upon his prey: "At last!"