His thoughts were interrupted, for, for a second, he thought they must have seen him, so definite was their approach straight toward the thicket where he hid.  He crouched, frightened.  It would be a very awkward matter to be found there by them, and, besides, he did not know who might be out of sight within the hidden still.  It was quite possible that there might lurk a deadly enemy.  He must worm back through the thicket with great caution, and, following the secluded ways which he had traversed in his coming, get back to the railroad camp, where was safety.

He stepped backward hastily, and, in so doing, trod upon a rotten branch.  He had not been as cautious as he had intended, and this mis-step unbalanced him and sent him to the ground, with a tremendous crashing of the brittle twigs and dead-wood.

Springing to his feet while the young people, startled by the great disturbance, paused where they were standing, for an instant, he hurried back into the hidden, thicket-bordered path, now using all his recrudescent skill of silent woods-progression, and made complete escape, leaving them not sure that the disturbance had been caused by human blundering and not some vagrant beast’s.

Madge held back, but Layson hurried to the thicket, with gun raised ready for a shot.

Just then, from the carefully concealed cave-entrance, came Joe Lorey, rifle poised for trouble, eyes gleaming fiercely, evidently keyed to meet a raid by revenuers.

It was plain enough that he believed the noise which had disturbed, alarmed him, had been made by this young sportsman.  Indeed, as he who really had caused the uproar was, now, well on a cautious backward way along the path by which he had come up, and the girl and Layson were the only folk in sight, the young moonshiner’s mistake was natural.

Madge, almost as much disturbed as Lorey was by the crashing in the thickets, was looking in the direction whence the noise had come, and, at first, did not see him.  When she did she smiled at him, and called to him, but, absorbed in study of the bluegrass youth who had so suddenly appeared there in his secret place among the mountains in company with the girl whom he, himself, adored, Joe did not answer her, at first.  When he did it was with nothing more than a curt nod.  He was astonished and alarmed to see her in such company.

After that curt nod he waited for no explanation, but, like a shadow, slipped into a thicket, disappearing instantly.  No Indian from Cooper’s tales could have more instantly obliterated all trace of himself, could have more quickly, noiselessly, mysteriously disappeared amongst the greenery, than did this mountaineer.  His movements, made with the instinctive cunning of the woodsman and with muscles trained not only by wild life there in the mountains to speed, endurance and exactitude, but by many an hour of stealthy stalking of the “revenuers” sent to search out his moonshine still, raid it, take him prisoner, were almost magically active, cautious, furtive and effective.