e been there for some
other reason. Brodie, I mean. Remember that the ancient and
time-honoured pastimes of the Kentucky mountains have come into vogue in
the West. Everybody knows, and that includes even the government agents
in San Francisco, that there is a lot of moonshine being made in
out-of-the-way places of the California mountains. There's a job for
Swen Brodie and his crowd. There's talk of it, Mark."

"Maybe," King admitted. "But Brodie was looking for something, and not
revenue men, at that. He and Parker were up on the cliffs not a
quarter-mile from the old cabin. They stood close together, right at the
edge. Parker fell. Brodie looked down, turned on his heel and went off,
smoking his stinking pipe, most likely. I buried Parker the next
morning."

"Poor devil," said Gaynor. Then his brows shot up and he demanded:

"You mean Brodie did for him? Shoved him over?"

"That's exactly what I mean. But I can't tie it to Brodie, not so that
he couldn't shake himself free of it. Parker didn't say so in so many
words; I saw the whole thing from the mountain across the lake, too far
to swear to anything like that. But this I can swear to: Brodie was in
there for the same thing we've been after for ten years. And what is
more, it's open and shut that he was of a mind to play whole-hog and
pushed Andy Parker over to simplify matters. In my mind, even though I
can't hope to ram that down a jury."

"How do you _know_ what Brodie and Parker were after?"

"Andy Parker. He was sullen and tight-mouthed for the most part until
delirium got him. Then he babbled by the hour. And all his talk was of
Gus Ingle and the devil's luck of the unlucky Seven, with every now and
then a word for Loony Honeycutt and Swen Brodie."

"If there is such a thing as devil's luck," said Gaynor with a sober
look to his face, "this thing seems plastered thick with it."

King grunted his derision.

"We'll take a chance, Ben," he said. "And, after all, one man's bane is
another man's bread, you know. Now I've told you my tale, let's have
yours. You saw Honeycutt; could you get anything out of him?"

"Only this, that you are dead right about his knowing or thinking that
he knows. He is feebler than he was last fall, a great deal feebler both
in body and mind. All day he sits on his steps in the sun and peers
through his bleary eyes across the mountains, and chuckles to himself
like an old hen. 'Oh, I know what you're after,' he cackles at me,