While he was talking, old Bob Thornton, carrying the long rifle that Sam Turner had taken from its peg in the cabin, was creeping through the laurel and over the vines toward a point of rocks that commanded a view of the path by which he was sure Merriwell and his friends would descend from the mountains. He did not try to conceal his bitter hate, as Hammond was doing. His mind was inflamed with the angriest of passions, for Hammond had made him believe that the mountain climb was an excuse on the part of Merriwell to get into these hills, where Thornton’s little copper still, for making liquor, lay hidden. The ravine that held it was less than a mile from the top of Bald Mountain, in a wild and almost inaccessible gorge, and he was fairly shaking with the fear that Merriwell had spotted the gorge from the mountain’s top, and would try to enter it later in the day. “He’ll never hunt anuther still ef I git a good crack at him!” the mountaineer growled. “The guv’ment’s got ter be larnt that it jes’ ain’t ary bit o’ use to send revnoo spies peekin’ ’roun’ hyar. We uns o’ Bald Mounting won’t stan’ it!” Ward Hammond dissembled with considerable skill. He laughed, joked and praised the climbing of the members of the Lake Lily Club, all the while wondering if Bob Thornton would try the shot he threatened, and hoping that the bullet would at least maim Merriwell for life. Hammond held by inheritance from these rude mountaineers the fierce hate that made them such a terror to their foes, and caused among them such bloody feuds. In him Frank Merriwell had an enemy to be feared. He had a purpose in playing a friendly part that day, and in staying with Frank’s party. He fancied that if Merriwell should be killed by a shot sent from the woods by an unseen hand, he might be suspected as the shooter, which could not be the case if he remained at Merriwell’s side. “Hammond doesn’t seem so bitter as we’ve been led to believe,” declared Rattleton, speaking to Bart Hodge. “Perhaps he’s been painted a good deal blacker than he really is.” “I hope so,” said Hodge, who more than once had been made uneasy by the accounts given by Colson and others of Hammond’s fire-eating and unforgiving spirit. “He seems pleasant enough to-day, at any rate.” Without a thought of danger, Frank descended the mountain path, laughing and joking. Bob Thornton was still stealing through the bushes, with the long rifle in the hollow of his arm. But there was another stealing after him, with bated breath and shining eyes. Nell Thornton, his daughter, who, having observed his movements, suspected his evil intentions, and was now following to thwart them if she could. When he reached the rocky point, from which he expected to send the shot, and from which he could dive into a jungly growth that would protect him from view and pursuit, Nell was close at his heels, though he was still unaware of it.