said mechanically. He
was looking down, absorbed in thought, secret, mysterious, yet not
devoid of a certain inexplicable suggestion of triumph; for a subtle
cloaked elation, not unlike a half-smile, was on his face, although
its intent, persistent expression intimated the following out of a
careful train of ideas.

"Then what is it?" demanded Hite arrogantly, as if he claimed the
right to know.

"I really couldn't undertake to say," the stranger responded, his
definite manner so conclusive an embargo on further inquiries that
Hite felt rising anew all his former doubts of the man, and his fears
and suspicions as to the errand that had brought him hither.

Could it be possible, he argued within himself, that to the agency of
"revenuers" was due that mysterious glow, more brilliant than any
ordinary fire, steady, suffusive, continuous, rising in the dark
wilderness, in the deep midnight, to reveal that ominous face
overlooking all the countryside, with subtle flickers of laughter
running athwart its wonted contortions, more weird and sinister in
this ghastly glare than by day? And what significance might attend
these strange machinations? Revolving the idea, he presently shook his
head in conclusive negation as he rode along. The approach of raiders
was silent and noiseless and secret. Whatever the mystery might
portend it was not thus that they would advertise their presence,
promoting the escape of the objects of their search. Hite's open and
candid mind could compass no adequate motive for concealment in all
the ways of the world but the desire to evade the revenue law, or to
practice the shifts and quirks necessary to the capture of the wary
and elusive moonshiner. Nevertheless, it was impossible, on either of
these obvious bases, to account for the fact of something withheld in
the stranger's manner, some secret exultant knowledge of the
phenomenon which baffled the mountaineer's speculation. Hite, all
unaware that in his impulsive speech he had disclosed the fact of his
hazardous occupation, began to feel that, considering his liability to
the Federal law for making brush whiskey, he had somewhat transcended
the limit of his wonted hardihood in so long bearing this stranger
company along the tangled ways of the herder's trail through the
wilderness. "He _mought_ be a revenuer arter all, an' know all about
me. The rest o' the raiders mought be a-waitin' an' a-layin' fur me at
enny turn," he reflected. "Leastwis