"Wal," said Holton, "I think it's a blamed good thing. I'd only like the chance to go into it, myself." He went closer to the youth and spoke in an instinctively low tone. "By the way, this gal, hyar, Madge Brierly, owns fifty acres o' land down there in the valley, that's bound to be wuth money. Like enough, with your help, I could buy it for a song. I'll make it all right with you. What do you say? Is it a bargain, Layson?"

He held out his hand, evidently with no thought but that the questionable offer would be snapped up at once.

Layson drew back angrily. "No," he replied.

Holton, seeing that he had made a serious mistake, tried to correct it.

"Oh, shucks, now! I didn't mean no harm. That's only business."

Layson was intensely angered. "I won't waste words on you," he said, "but think twice before you make me such a proposition again."

Holton's wrath rose vividly. "d.a.m.n him!" he muttered as he walked away.

"I'll pay him back for that! I'll get that gal's land in spite of him, and I won't stop at that. I'll pay him back for ... everythin'! I'll teach him what it air to stir the hate o' h.e.l.l in a man's heart!"

Barbara, distressed anew by this unpleasant episode, had started to go after him, when the weird cry of an owl, a long drawn, tremulous: "Hoo-oo-oo!" came from somewhere in the forest, close at hand. It startled her. "Heavens!" said she. "What's that?"

Neb, who also had been startled at the first penetrating, weird call, bethought himself, now, and answered her: "It's de deah."

"The phenomenon!" exclaimed Miss Alathea.

"The Diana!" said the Colonel, looking at Frank slyly.

"Yes; she's coming," Frank said gaily, and then, looking down the path, started violently. "Heavens, she's coming!"

The Colonel, who also had looked down the path, hurriedly approached him, feigning worry. "Frank, I haven't got 'em again, have I?"

Madge approached them slowly in the quaint, old-fashioned costume she had resurrected from the chests of her dead mother's finery and re-made, very crudely, in accordance with the fashion-plates which she had found down at the cross-roads store. The result of her contriving was a startling mixture of fashions widely separated as to periods. Her untutored taste had mixed colors clashingly. Her unskilled fingers had sewed very bunchy seams.

The girl was much embarra.s.sed: it required the last ounce of her bravery to advance. Before she actually reached the little group, she half hid, indeed, behind a tree. It was from this shelter that she called her greeting: "Howdy, folks, howdy!"

Frank went toward her with an outstretched hand. "Come, Madge," said he, encouragingly.

"Reckon I'll have to," she a.s.sented, with a bashful smile and took a step or two reluctantly. But she had never seen folk dressed at all as were these visitors from the famed bluegra.s.s, and her courage again faltered. Instantly she realized how wholly her own efforts to be elegant had failed. She hung back awkwardly, pathetically.

"Don't be nervous, Madge; just be yourself," Frank urged her.

"Free and easy? Well, I'll try; but I'm skeered enough to make me wild and reckless."

Frank led her forward, while she made a mighty effort to accept the situation coolly. "These are my friends, Madge. Let me introduce you."

She got some grip upon herself and smiled. "Ain't no need. Know 'em all by your prescription." With a mighty effort she approached the Colonel.

"Colonel Sandusky Doolittle, howdy!"

The Colonel was delighted. Her knowledge of his name was flattering. He had forgotten her strange costume the moment his glance had caught her wonderful, deep eyes. "Howdy, howdy!" he said heartily, shaking her hand vigorously. "Why, this is real Kentucky style!" It won't take _us_ long to get acquainted."

"Know all about you now," she said. "Great hossman. Colonel, I'll have a race with you, sometime."

"What, you ride?" said the delighted Colonel.

"Ride! Dellaw!" said she, with, now, unembarra.s.sed animation. The subject was that one, of all, which made her most quickly forget everything beside. "Why, me and my pony takes to racin' like a pig to carrots. Before he lamed himself, whenever th' boys heard us clatterin'

down th' mounting, they laid to race us back. Away we went, then, clickity-clip, up th' hills and around th' curves--an' I allus won."

The Colonel realized with a great joy that he had found a kindred spirit. "Shake again!" he said to her, after further most congenial talk, and then turned to Frank. "My boy, you're right. She _is_ a phenomenon--a thoroughbred, even if she hasn't any pedigree."

Up to this time the ladies had remained somewhat in the background, watching the young mountain girl as the Colonel drew her out.

Madge now turned to Frank, but looked at Barbara. "Is that the young lady from the bluegra.s.s?" The girl was hurt and really offended by the stranger's aloof manner. "Looks like she can't see common folks."

"That is Miss Barbara." He led the mountain girl toward her. "Barbara, this is my friend--er--Madge." He was, himself, a little disconcerted.

The maiden from the lowlands bowed, but said no word. For an instant Madge shrank back, but then she advanced with an unusual boldness. Her spirit was aroused.

"Howdy, Miss Barbarous, howdy!" she exclaimed and held her hand out to the handsomely dressed girl.

But Miss Barbara was annoyed by the whole happening. She felt that this uncultivated country girl was getting far too much attention. The child's unconscious pun upon her name infuriated her. She did not answer her, but raised a lorgnette and stared at her.

Madge was ready with an instant sympathy. "Oh, that's why you couldn't see, poor thing! Spectacles at your age!" Whether she really thought this was the case, not even Frank could tell by looking at her.

Miss Holton was incensed. The haughty treatment she had planned to, give the mountain girl had not had the results she had expected. "There's nothing whatever the matter with my eyes!" she exclaimed hastily.

"Wouldn't think you'd need a machine to help you star-gaze at folks, then," said the mountain girl. "But maybe it's the fashion in the bluegra.s.s."

Frank hurried up with Holton, planning a diversion. "This is Mr. Holton, Madge."

"Howdy, sir," said she, and then started in astonishment. "Ain't I seen your face before, sir?"

"Wal, I reckon not," said Holton most uneasily. "I was never hyar in these hyar mountings afore."

She stepped closer to him, gazing straight at his grey eyes. They seemed strangely to recall the very distant past, she knew not how. There were other things about him which seemed much more immediately familiar, although his more elaborate garb prevented her, for the moment, from recognizing him as the stranger with the hammer, who had, that day of the forest-fire, been tap-tapping on the rocks upon her pasture-land.

"Your eyes seem to bring something back." She plainly paled. She knew that their suggestion was a dreadful one, but could not make it definite.

Miss Alathea noted her agitation instantly, and hurried to her side.

"Poor child, what is the matter?"

Madge had regained control of her features, which, for an instant, had shown plain horror. "Tain't nothin', ma'am. It couldn't be. It's all over now." She smiled gratefully at Miss Alathea. "An' you're his aunt, ain't you? I'd know you for his kin, anywhere. Why, somehow, you remind me of my lost mother."

"Thank you, my dear. You must be very lonely, up here all alone."

"I am, sometimes," said the girl, "but I have lots of fun, too. The woods are full of friends. Th' birds an' squirrels ain't afraid o' me.

They seem to think I'm a wild thing, like 'em."

"It's true," said Frank, with an admiring, cheering look at the little country girl. "Their confidence in her is wonderful."

The bluegra.s.s girl's annoyance was increasing. She had come up to the mountains thinking that, among such crude surroundings, her gowns and the undoubted beauty they adorned, would hold the center of the stage, and by contrast, hold Layson quite enthralled; but here, instead, was a brown-faced country maid in grotesque, homemade costume, attracting most of his attention. She was conscious that by showing her discomfiture she was not strengthening her own position, but she could not hide it, could not curb her tongue.

"A rider of races," said she; "a tamer of animals! What accomplishments!

Do you actually live here, all alone?"

"Come," said Madge, determined to be pleasant, "and I'll show you." She led the bluegra.s.s girl to a convenient point from which her cabin was in sight.