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. "Damn 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' hell 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 embarrassed: 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 assented, 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 bluegrass, 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!"