e made, when a sense of curiosity prompted him
to stop. He would see where the illegal traffic was being carried on.
Zeke was trustingly letting him in on his business and he might not
understand. After all, it was getting down in a way to the heart of
the business--in a way getting closer to Uncle Buzz. He had never
bothered much before. He climbed out of the car and Zeke shut off the
motor.

The silence, as he followed Zeke down the narrow path, was oppressive.
There would come a vast sighing like a wave of sound, and a settling,
a few crackings far off, and then silence. The ground was soft with a
matting of fallen leaves, damp and mouldy, and once as Zeke turned his
pocket flashlight from the path there came a gleam of water. Briars
flicked his face and scratched his hands, and once a low-hanging
branch struck him across the eyes and he stumbled from the path and
stepped into slime. He kept close behind his guide, for the darkness
was intense and the path was tortuous. Directly Zeke stopped. The
pocket light made a small circle on the ground.

"Heah 'tis," Zeke whispered, and pointed with the light.

A thicket of blackberry bushes crowded into a corner of an old
snake-rail fence and two old boards were all that was visible in the
narrow compass of the light--that, and a pool of dark water over to
one side. Up above, there was a break in the trees and a suggestion,
beyond, of open fields. He stood for a minute. Nothing else was
visible, nothing from the hand of man, as Zeke moved the light back
and forth in slow-sweeping arcs. It had been a waste of time; there
was nothing to see, nothing but the crude assignation place of a troop
of spectral whiskey jugs, and the seat of a profitable industry. He
turned to go, his mind shifting to other things. He heard Zeke
fumbling in the bushes, saw the light switch into the fence corner,
then across the pool; and then he heard a cry, a low cry of terror,
and caught a glimpse of something white--on the ground, near a big
tree. And then Zeke's voice, "Fo' Gawd!" and the light switched off
and someone came hurrying toward him in the darkness.

"Come on, Mist' Joe. Le's git away fum heah!"

Zeke brushed past him in an agony of haste. He heard his footsteps on
the leaf carpet, saw the crazy flickerings of the light through the
trees, and had a sudden intense desire to follow. But he paused,
curious, mastering his fear. And then the outline of the clearing came
slowly to his eye