The two children had followed him into the room. Joe stood by the door, holding by the frame, swaying back and forth, attempting some distortion of attitude impossible to the human configuration; but the little girl had seated herself staidly in a chair opposite, and showed herself not averse to conversation. "'Kase thar be sech a lot o' strange, idle folks in the Cove," said the prim Miss Cornelia, with an expression of strong disapprobation. Larrabee could not restrain an exclamation of surprise. It was indeed like a new world, the familiar Cove, so long he had been shut out of it. "What folks?" he asked succinctly. "Them ez hev been building the new hotel," said Sis. "Them, in course." "What they doin' now? Ain't they buildin'?" he hazarded tentatively. "Naw,"--the small Cornelia Taft pursed up her lips contemptuously,--"jes' a-roamin' round the Cove in gangs, a-foolin' an' a-idlin', an', my sakes, a-drinkin' whiskey, thick ez bees!" A new light was breaking in on Larrabee. Taft had at first desired that he should leave the Cove,--slip away quietly; now, since it was infested with a troop of scattered workmen, apparently out of a job, all of whom had doubtless spent an idle hour agape over the story of the supposed Jasper Larrabee, the last nine days' wonder of the Cove,--the facetious freak of the pretended arrest, the miraculous escape of the fall from the cliffs, the mysterious disappearance, the suspicion of moonshining, and the threatened vengeance of the deputy sheriff,--it was scarcely probable that he could get away without exciting notice which might lead to recognition, pursuit, and arrest. He was safer at the still,--this he himself admitted now,--far safer in the depths of the earth; except, indeed, for Taft and his fellows. "Did you-uns see the fire?" demanded Joe suddenly, still writhing and twisting against the door frame. "_I_ did!" in triumph. "Ye wouldn't ef I hedn't a-woke ye up," said Sis, with acerbity. "I 'low ye didn't see much nohows, bein' so sleepy-headed." Larrabee sat looking in surprise from one to the other, his questions anticipated by their eager relish of the subject. "Dad never seen nuthin'!" cried the boy triumphantly. "Dad wouldn't b'lieve thar war a fire till he went an' viewed the cinders of the hotel," said the girl. The hotel! A sudden suspicion smote Larrabee, a recollection of the threat to burn the building which had originated amongst the moonshiners before a stone was laid in mortar or a timber lifted. He did the craft injustice in this instance; Taft and his associates had no part in the conflagration. But with Espey out of control, and Larrabee touched with the suspicion of moonshining, a chance word might fix upon the distillers this far more serious crime known to them both to have already been broached here. There was much reason for his detention,--too much. He must be going, and that shortly.