In Old Kentucky Part 20

"Huh! Her!" said Madge and would have changed the subject had he let her.

"Really?" he asked, wickedly. "Didn't you like her?"

"I ain't sayin' much," said Madge, "because she's different from me, has had more chance, is better dressed, knows more from books an' so on, an'

it might seem like I was plumb jealous of her. Maybe I am, too. But, dellaw! Her with her pollysol! When she opened it that way at me I thought it war a gun an' she war goin' to fire! Maybe I ain't had no learnin' in politeness, but it seems to me I would a been a little more so, just the same, if I'd been in her place. She don't like me, she don't, an' I--why, I just _hates_ her! Her with her ombril up, an' not a cloud in sight!"

Layson looked at her and laughed. The letter in his pocket made it seem probable that she would not need, in future, to submit to such humiliations as the bluegra.s.s girl had put upon her, so his merriment could not be counted cruel.

"Jealous of her?" he inquired, quizzically.

She sat in deep thought for a moment and then frankly said: "I reckon so; a leetle, teeny mite. Maybe it has made me mean in thinkin' of her, ever since."

"You're honest, anyway," said he, "and I shall tell you something that will comfort you. She was as jealous of you as you were of her."

"_She_ was!" the girl exclaimed, incredulous, surprised. "Of _me_?"

You're crazy, ain't you?"

"Not a bit."

"What have _I_ got to make _her_ jealous?"

"A lot of things. You've beauty such as hers will never be--"

"Dellaw!" said Madge, incredulously. She had no knowledge of her own attractiveness. "Don't you start in makin' fun o' me."

"I'm not making fun of you. You're very beautiful--my aunt said so, the Colonel said so, and _I've_ known it, all along."

No one had ever said a thing like this to her, before. She looked keenly at him, weighing his sincerity. When she finally decided that he really meant what he had said, she breathed a long sigh of delight.

"They said that I--was _beautiful_!"

"They did, and, little girl, you are; and you have more than beauty. You have health and strength such as a bluegra.s.s girl has never had in all the history of women."

"Oh, yes," said she, "I'm strong an' well--but--but--"

"But what?"

"But what?" she quoted bitterly. "But I ain't got no eddication. What does strength and what does what you tell me is my beauty count, when I ain't got no eddication? Why--why--I looked plumb _foolish_ by the side of her! You think I don't know that my talk sounds rough as rocks alongside hers, ripplin' from her lips as smooth as water? You think I don't know that I looked like a scare-crow in all them clo'es I had fixed up so careful, when she come on with her gowns made up for her by _dressmakers_? Why--why--I never _see_ a dressmaker in all my life! I never even see one!"

"Well," said he, and looked at her with a slow smile, "there probably will be no reason why you may not see as many as you like, in years to come,"

She was amazed. "This some sort o' joke?"

"No, Madge. How would you like to be rich?"

"Me?... Rich? Oh ... oh, I'd like it. _Then_ I could go down in th'

bluegra.s.s, study, l'arn, an'--I could do a heap o' good aroun' hyar, too" She sighed. "But thar never was n.o.body rich in these hyar mountings an' I reckon thar never will be."

"Perhaps you may be," said the youth, and there was a serious quality in his voice which made her start and then lean forward on her stump to gaze at him with searching, eager eyes.

"Your land down in the valley," he went on, "may contain coal and iron enough to give you a fortune. Now there are bad men in this world, and I want you to promise me to sell it to n.o.body without first coming to me for advice."

"Promise?" said the girl, the wonder all as.h.i.+ne in her big eyes. "In course I'll promise that. But is there r'ally a chance of it?"

"There really is."

"Oh, if I only knowed, for sh.o.r.e! Seems like I couldn't wait!"

"You shall know, to-night, or, maybe, sooner. I have the engineers report, but I must study it out carefully and make sure what boundaries he means. I'm almost certain they include your land. As soon as I find out I'll come back here and call to you and let you know."

"I reckon you won't have to call! I'll be watchin' for you every minute."

"Well, I'm off. But remember what I said about letting anyone buy any of your land from you. Don't sell an inch, don't give an option at whatever price, to anyone without consulting me."

When he had left, the girl still sat there, dreaming on her stump after she had watched him out of sight.

The news that she might become rich had stirred her deeply for a moment, but, soon she wondered if riches, really, would mean everything, and decided that they would not.

"Somehow," she mused, "somehow I don't care much about it, not unless--unless--oh, I can't think of nothin' in th' world but him! An'

he says he's goin' to go away, never to return no more!... Other folks has gone away, afore, but it didn't seem to hurt my heart like this. I wonder what is ailin' me."

Her thought turned back to that half-bitter, half-delightful moment when he had tried to kiss her at the bridge. "Why, even then," she mused, "thar were somethin' seemed to draw me to him in spite o' myself. Never felt anythin' like it afore. It war--just as if I war asleep, all over, an' never wanted to wake up! I wonder if I wish he warn't comin' back, to-night--not half so much, I reckon, as I wish he warn't never goin'

away!"

She left her resting place upon the stump, and, torn by varying emotions, found a place upon the trail where she could look off to his camp. She was standing there, leaning listlessly against a tree, when the sound of someone coming made her turn her head. She saw Joe Lorey.

"Madge," said he, approaching, "I wants a word with you,"

She did not wish to talk with him. Her mind was far too busy with its thoughts of Layson, its dismay at the prospect of his departure. "No time, Joe; it's too late," said she. She started to go by him toward her little bridge.

But he was not inclined to be put off. The mountaineer's slow mind had been at work with his great problem and he had quite determined that he would take some action, definite and unmistakable, without delay. He had leaned his ever-present rifle up against a stump, had laid the old game-sack, still burdened with the stolen dynamite, upon the ground, close to it, and was prepared to talk the matter out, to one end or the other. He loved her with the fierce love of the primitive man; his rising wrath against the circ.u.mstances amidst which he seemed to be so powerless had made him sullen and suspicious; mountain life, continual defiance of the law, unceasing watchfulness for "revenuers," does not teach a man to be smooth-mannered, half-way in his methods. He made a move as if to catch her arm; she darted by him, running straight toward the old game-sack.

That burden in the game-sack had been a constant horror to him ever since he had first stolen it down at the railroad workings. The mighty evidence of the power of the explosive which had been shown to him when it had torn and mangled its poor victim there, had filled him with a terror of it, although it had also filled him with determination to make use of that great power if necessary. But now, as he saw her running, light-footed, lovely, toward the bag which held it, running in exactly the right way to stumble on it if a mis-step chanced, his heart sprang to his throat. What if the dire explosive he had planned to use upon his enemies should prove to be the death of the one being whom he loved? He sprang toward her with the mighty impulse of desperate muscles spurred by a panic-stricken mind and caught her, roughly, just before her foot would have touched and spurned the game-sack.

"Stop!" he cried, in desperation.

She was amazed that he should take so great a liberty. She stopped, perforce, but, after she had stopped, she stood there trembling with hot anger. "Joe Lorey," she exclaimed, "you dare!"

Now he was all humility as he let his hand fall from her arm. "It was for your sake, Madge," said he. "A stumble on that sack--it mout have sent us both to Kingdom Come!"

She looked at him incredulously, then down at the sack. "That old game-sack? Why, Joe, you're plumb distracted!"

"I'm in my senses, yet, I tell you," he persisted. "T'other day I went down where they're blastin' for th' railroad. I see 'em usin'

dynamighty, down thar, an' I watched my chance an', when it come, I slipped one o' th' bombs into that game-sack. Ef you'd chanced to kick it--"

She was impressed. "Dynamighty bombs? Dellaw! What's dynamighty bombs?"

"It's a giant powder, a million times stronger nor mine." He reached into the sack and, with cautious fingers, took out the cartridge and the fuse, exhibiting them to her. "See here. I seed 'em take a bomb no bigger nor this one, an' light a fuse like this, an' when it caught it ennymost shook down a mounting! I seed a poor chap what war careless with one, an' when they picked him up, why--"