hand, like a bottle-fed baby," the hostess
apologized, "an' he ain't never f'und out fur sure that he ain't folks."

There seemed no possible intimation of moonshine in this entourage, and
the coffin filled with jugs, a-wagoning from some distillers' den in the
range to the cross-roads' store, might well have been accounted only the
vain phantasm of an overtired brain surcharged with the vexed problems
of the revenue service. The disguised revenue-raider was literally
overcome with drowsiness, the result of his exertions and his vigils,
and observing this, his host gave him one of the big feather beds under
the low slant of the eaves in the roof-room, where the other men, who
had been out all night, also slept the greater portion of the day. In
fact, it was dark when Wyatt wakened, and, leaving the rest still torpid
with slumber and fatigue, descended to the large main room of the cabin.

The callow members of the household had retired to rest, but the elders
of the band of moonshiners were up and still actively astir, and Wyatt
experienced a prescient vicarious qualm to note their lack of heed or
secrecy--the noisy shifting of heavy weights (barrels, kegs, bags of
apples, and peaches for pomace), the loud voices and unguarded words.
When a door in the floor was lifted, the whiff of chill, subterranean
air that pervaded the whole house was heavily freighted with spirituous
odors, and gave token to the meanest intelligence, to the most
unobservant inmate, that the still was operated in a cellar, peculiarly
immune to suspicion, for a cellar is never an adjunct to the ordinary
mountain cabin. Thus the infraction of the revenue law went on securely
and continuously beneath the placid, simple, domestic life, with its
reverent care for the very aged and its tender nurture of the very
young.

It was significant, indeed, that the industry should not be
pretermitted, however, when a stranger was within the gates. The reason
to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought,
was only too plain. They intended that the "revenuer" should never go
forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow his
trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of his
intention. He had put himself hopelessly into the power of these
desperate men, whom his escape or liberation would menace with
incarceration for a long term as Federal prisoners in distant
penitentiaries, if, indeed, they were no