s coiled. This man had a keen, white, lean
face, with an ascetic, abstemious expression, and he looked less like
a distiller than some sort of divine--some rustic pietist, with strange
theories and unhappy speculations and unsettled mind. It was a face of
subtle influences, and the very sight of it roused in Nehemiah a more
heedful fear than the "shootin'-iron" in the bluff moonshiners hand had
induced. He was silent, while the other resumed the office of spokesman.

"Ye ain't 'quainted hyar "--he waved his hand with the pistol in it
around at the circle of uncowering men, although the mere movement made
Nehemiah cringe with the thought that an accidental discharge might as
effectually settle his case as premeditated and deliberate murder. "Ye
dun'no' none o' us. What air ye a-doin' hyar?"

"Why, that thar war the very trouble," Yerby hastily explained. "_I
didn't know none o' ye!_ I hed hearn ez thar war a still somewhars on
Hide-an'-Seek Creek"--once more there ensued a swift exchange of glances
among the party--"but nobody knew who run it nor whar 'twar. An' one
day, considerable time ago, I war a-passin' nigh 'bouts an' I hearn that
fiddle, an' that revealed the spot ter me. An' I kem ter-day 'lowin' ye
an' me could strike a trade."

Once more the bluff man of force turned an anxious look of inquiry to
the pale, thoughtful face in the brown and dark green shadows beyond the
copper gleam of the still. If policy had required that Nehemiah should
be despatched, his was the hand to do the deed, and his the stomach
to support his conscience afterward. But his brain revolted from the
discriminating analysis of Nehemiah's discourse and a decision on
its merits. "Trade fur what?" he demanded at last, on his own
responsibility, for no aid had radiated from the face which his looks
had interrogated.

"Fur whiskey, o' course." Nehemiah made the final plunge boldly. "I
be goin' ter open a store at the cross-roads, an' I 'lowed I could git
cheaper whiskey untaxed than taxed. I 'lowed ye wouldn't make it ef ye
didn't expec' ter sell it. I didn't know none o' you-uns, an' none o'
yer customers. An' ez I expec' ter git mo' profit on sellin' whiskey
'n ennything else in the store, I jes took foot in hand an' kem ter see
'boutn it mysef. I never 'lowed, though, ez it mought look cur'ous ter
you-uns, or like a spy, ter kem ez bold ez brass down the path in full
sight."

The logic of the seeming security of his approach, and the a