deadly peril of it, was, at first, the cooler of the two. Her life there
in the mountains, where any man she knew might meet, and her own father
had met, death stalking with a rifle in his bended elbow, or a knife
clutched in his clenched hand, had given her a certain poise in time of
peril, an admirable self-control, quick wits, firm nerves. She felt that
there was small chance of escape, yet she was not visibly terrified, and
made no outcry.

Had she been caught, thus, with a mountaineer (which scarcely could have
happened) she would have felt small apprehension. Learned in the perils
of the woods, heavy-booted, sturdy-legged, a native, like Joe Lorey, for
example, would, she felt quite certain, have been able to effect her
rescue. But the chances, she decided, were practically nil, with this
untrained "foreigner" as her companion. She had been told that
"bluegrass folks" were lacking in strong nerves and prone to panic if
real danger threatened. Barefooted as she was, there was little she,
herself, could do. She knew that she would quickly fall unconscious from
intolerable pain if she so much as tried to make a dash for safety. That
she was badly frightened she would have readily admitted, that she was
panic-stricken none who looked at her could, for a moment, dream.

She glanced at Layson with a curiosity which was almost calm, as, for a
moment quite bewildered, he ran from side to side of their rapidly
narrowing space of safety, endeavoring to find a weak spot in the wall
of flames through which they might escape, but failing everywhere. For a
moment she thought that he had lost his head, and thus proved all too
true those tales which she had heard of "foreigners." It was almost as
one race gazing at another suffering ordeal in test, that she observed
his every movement, each detail of his facial play. While they had sat
there on the log, intent upon their work above her spelling-book, she