elt, rag, junk, empty-bottle and old-iron emporium on lower Court
Street, just off the Market Square. September's hurried twilight had
descended upon the town when the scouting conspirator tapped for
admission at the alley entrance to the back room of Mr. Rosen's
establishment, where the owner sat amid a variegated assortment of
choicer specimens culled from his collected wares. Mr. Rosen needed no
sign above his door to inform the passing public of the nature of his
business. When the wind was right you could stand two blocks away and
know it without being told. Here at Mr. Rosen's side door Red Hoss
smacked his nostrils appreciatively. Even to one newly come from a
wild-animal show, and even when smelled through a brick wall, Mr.
Rosen's place had a graphic and striking atmosphere which was all its
own.

As one well acquainted with the undercurrents of community life, Red
Hoss shared, with many others, the knowledge that Mr. Rosen, while
ostensibly engaged in one industry, carried on another as a sort of
clandestine by-product. Now this side line, though surreptitiously
conducted and perilous in certain of its aspects, was believed by the
initiated to be really more lucrative than his legitimatized and avowed
calling. Mr. Rosen was by way of being--by a roundabout way of
being--what technically is known as a bootlegger. He bootlegged upon a
larger scale than do most of those pursuing this precarious avocation.

It was stated in an earlier paragraph that national prohibition had not
yet come to pass. But already local option held the adjoining
commonwealth of Tennessee in a firm and arid grasp; wherefore Mr.
Rosen's private dealings largely had to do with discreet clients
thirstily residing below the state line. It was common rumor in certain
quarters that lately this traffic had suffered a most disastrous
interruption. Tennessee revenue agents suddenly had evinced an
unfriendly curiosity touching on vehicular movements from the Kentucky
side.

A considerable chunk of Mr. Rosen's profits for the current year had
been irretrievably swallowed up when a squad of these suspicious
excisemen laid their detaining hands upon a sizable order of case stuff
which--disguised and broadly labeled as crated household goods--was
traveling southward by nightfall in a truck, heading toward a
destination in a district which that truck was destined never to reach.

Bottle by bottle the aromatic contents of the packages had been poured