The old negro looked at him, puzzled and frightened by his grim tone and manner.
"Why—why—" he began. "Is it hereabouts he hunts fo' deer? He wrote home he was findin' good spo't in the mountains, huntin' deer."
Joe's mouth twitched ominously, involuntarily. The mere presence of Old Neb, there, was another evidence of the great advantage, which, he began to feel with hopeless rage, the man who had stolen that thing from him which he prized most highly, had over him. The negro was his servant. Servants meant prosperity, prosperity meant power. Backwoodsman as he was, Joe Lorey knew that perfectly. His face gloomed in the twilight.
"Yes," he answered bitterly, "it's here he has been huntin'—huntin' deer—the pootiest deer these mountings ever see." Of course the old negro did not understand the man's allusion. He was puzzled by the speech; but Joe went on without an explanation: "But thar is danger in sech huntin'. Your young master, maybe, better keep a lookout for his-self!"
His voice trembled with intensity.
In the meantime Layson was still seated thoughtfully before his fire of crackling "down-wood," busy with a thousand speculations. Just what Madge Brierly, the little mountain girl, meant to him, really, he could not quite determine. He knew that he had been most powerfully attracted to her, but he did not fail to recognize the incongruity of such a situation. He had never been a youth of many love-affairs. Perhaps his regard for horses and the "sport of kings" had kept him from much travelling along the sentimental paths of dalliance with the fair sex. Barbara Holton, back in the bluegrass country, had been almost the only girl whom he had ever thought, seriously, of marrying, and he had not, actually, spoken, yet, to her about it. When he had left the lowlands for the mountains he had meant to, though, when he returned. There were those, he thought, who believed them an affianced couple. Now he wondered if they ever would be, really, and if, without actually speaking, he had not led her to believe that he would speak. He was astonished at the thrill of actual fear he felt as he considered the mere possibility of this.
The news which had been brought to him by mail that upon the morrow he would see the girl again, in company with his Aunt and Colonel Doolittle, had focussed matters in his mind. Did he really love the haughty, bluegrass beauty? He was far from sure of it, as he sat there in the little mountain-cabin, although he had been certain that he did when he had left the lowlands.
It seemed almost absurd, even to his young and sentimental mind, that one in his position should have lost his heart to an uneducated girl like Madge, but he definitely decided that, at any rate, he had never loved the other girl. If it was not really love he felt for the small maiden of the forest-fire and spelling-book, it surely was not love he felt for the brilliant, showy, bluegrass girl.
He was reflecting discontentedly that he did not know exactly what he felt or what he wanted, when he heard Joe Lorey's startling imitation of the panther's cry, outside, and, rising, presently, when careful listening revealed the fact that the less obtrusive sound of human voices followed what had seemed to be the weird, uncanny call of the wild-beast, he went to the door and opened it, so that he could better listen.
Joe and the negro had not been in actual view of Layson's cabin, up to that time. A rocky corner, rising at the trail's side, had concealed it. Now they stepped around this and the lighted door and windows of the little structure stood out, despite increasing darkness, plainly in their view.