rtect yersefs agin spies an' revenuers an' sech 'n nuthin' in
this worl'. The las' raid, ye 'member, we hed the still over yander;" he
jerked his thumb in the direction present to his thoughts, but unseen
by his coadjutors; "a man war wounded, an' we dun'no' but what killed in
the scuffle, an' it mought be a hang-in' matter ter git caught now. Ye
oughter keep sober; an' ye know, Isham, ye oughter keep Hil'ry sober. I
dun'no' why ye can't. I never could abide the nasty stuff--it's enough
ter turn a bullfrog's stomach. Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink.
Let them consarned idjits in the flat woods buy it, an' drink it.
Whiskey is good ter sell--not ter drink."

This peculiar temperance argument was received in thoughtful silence,
the reason of all the mountaineers commending it, while certain of them
knew themselves and were known to be incapable of profiting by it.

Nehemiah had scant interest in this conversation. He was conscious of
the strain on his attention as he followed it, that every point of
the situation should be noted, and its utility canvassed at a leisure
moment. He marked the allusion to the man supposed to have been killed
in the skirmish with the raiders, and he appraised its value as coercion
in any altercation that he might have in seeking to take Leander from
his present guardians. But he felt in elation that this was likely to
be of the slightest; the miller evidently found himself hampered rather
than helped by the employment of the boy; and as to the moonshiner's
sentimental partisanship, for the sake of an old attachment to the
dead-and-gone mountain girl, there was hardly anything in the universe
so tenuous as to bear comparison with its fragility. "A few drinks
ahead," he said to himself, with a sneer, "an' he won't remember who
Malviny Hixon was, ef thar is ennything in the old tale--which it's
more'n apt thar ain't."

He began, after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his
success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this
uncomfortable interlude! Why could he not have discovered Leander's
whereabouts earlier, and by now be jogging along the road home with the
boy by his side? Why had he not bethought himself of the mill in
the first instance--that focus of gossip where all the news of the
countryside is mysteriously garnered and thence dispensed bounteously to
all comers? It was useless, as he fretted and chafed at these untoward
omissions, to urge in h