Joe Lorey was unhappy in his mountains. After the visiting party had gone down from Layson's camp, and, in course of time, Layson himself had followed them because of the approach of the great race which was to make or mar his fortunes, the man breathed easier, although their coming and the subsequent events had made, he knew, impressions on his life which never could be wiped away. He hated Layson none the less because he had departed. He argued that he had not gone until he viciously had stolen that thing which he, Lorey, valued most: the love of beautiful Madge Brierly. He brooded constantly upon this, neglecting his small mountain farm, spending almost all his time at his illegal trade of brewing untaxed whisky in his hidden still, despite the girl's continual urgings to give up the perilous occupation before it was too late. He had told her that he would, if she would marry him; now that she would not, he told her surlily that he would continue to defy the law even if he knew that every "revenuer" in the state was on his trail. He was conscious that there was real danger; he believed that Layson knew about the still and that the bitter enmity resulting from the fight which had so nearly proved his death might prompt him to betrayal of the secret; but with the stubbornness of the mountaineer he clung doggedly to his illegal apparatus in the mountain-cave, kept doggedly at the illegal work he did with it. It was characteristic of the man, his forbears and his breed in general, that, now, when he knew that deadly danger well might threaten, he sent more moonshine whisky from the still than ever had gone from it in like length of time, either in his father's day or his. That his actual and only dangerous enemy was Holton, he did not, for an instant, guess. He knew of not the slightest reason why this stranger should include him in the hatred he had sworn he felt for Layson--that hatred which, he had assured him, was as bitter as his own. He would have been as much astonished as dismayed had he known that Holton's almost instant action, upon arriving at the county-seat, had been to make a visit to the local chief of the Revenue-Service--cautiously, at night, for to be known as an informer might have cost his life at other hands than Lorey's, would have made the mountain for far miles blaze vividly with wrath against him.