Holton was astonished and ill-pleased.  “What more proof d’ ye want?” he asked.  “Ain’t it as plain as day that he come down from th’ mountings to get even with you for th’ raidin’ of his still?  Who else would ‘a’ done it?”

Madge was listening with flushed face and frowning brow.  She did not, for a second, think Joe Lorey was the culprit.  Her suspicions had not wholly crystalized, but she had known the mountain-boy since she had known anyone, and she could not believe that he would fire a building in which was confined a dumb and helpless creature.  She knew him to be quite as fond of animals as she was.  She believed Holton, also, had some ulterior reason, which she did not fathom, then, for trying to fasten suspicion on the lad.  In her earnestness, as she considered these things, she stepped close to the old man, almost truculently.  “That’s what I mean to find out,” she declared.  “Who else done it.”

Holton was angered by her manner and her opposition.  He had not expected to meet any difficulty in the execution of his plan to throw the blame of the outrageous crime at Woodlawn, on the shoulders of the mountaineer.  “What have you got to do with it?” he angrily demanded.

She was not impressed by his quick show of temper.  “Reckon I’ve got as much to do with it as you hev,” she replied.  “Joe Lorey wouldn’t never plan to burn a helpless dumb critter.  He ain’t no such coward.”

“Who else had a call to do it?” said the old man, placed, unexpectedly, on the defensive.  “Who else war an enemy of Mr. Layson’s?”

Madge spoke slowly.  She was not sure, at all, whom she was accusing; her suspicions were indefinite, obscure, but they were taking form within her mind.  “Thar’s one as I knows on,” she slowly answered.  “It’s th’ one as told Joe Lorey that Mr. Frank had set th’ revenuers onto him.”  Her conviction strengthened as she spoke, and, as she continued, she looked Holton firmly in the eye and spoke with emphasis.  “Show me th’ man as told that lie, an’ I’ll show you th’ scoundrel as tried to burn Queen Bess!”

Layson liked the spirit of her warm defense of her old friend, and, himself, knew enough about the moonshiner to make it seem quite reasonable.  He knew that Joe was a crude creature, but believed, and had good reason to believe, that he had his code of honor which he would abide by at all cost.  It was impossible for him to feel convinced that this would have permitted him to set fire to the stable.  “Madge, I believe you’re right,” said he.

Holton was nonplussed.  Things were not going as he had expected and had wished them to, at all.  “Oh, shore, it war Joe Lorey,” he protested.  “It couldn’t ‘a’ been nobody else.  I warns you, here an’ now, Layson, that ef you don’t set th’ law after him he’ll be lynched before to-morrer night.”

Layson was a little angered by the man’s persistence.  “I’ll see that that doesn’t happen,” he replied, “and I’ll leave no stone unturned to find the scoundrel who really did the deed, and have him punished.  But I’m not certain that the man will prove to be Joe Lorey.”