It was high in the sky when Mink Lorey rode along the wild mountain ways. More than once he looked up earnestly at it, not under the spell of lunar splendors, but with a prosaic calculation of the hour. Suddenly he drew up the mare. He lifted his head, listening. Voices sounded in the depths of the woods,—faint, far, hilarious voices; then absolute silence. He struck the mare with his heels. The animal pushed on unwillingly, breaking through the brush, stumbling over the stones, scrambling up and down steep slopes. All at once, with a burst of laughter, there was disclosed an opening in the forest. A glory of pale moonlight suffused the mountains in the distance and the shimmering mists in the valley. In the flecking shadow of the great trees were half a dozen figures, with hairy moonlit faces and shining eyes, seated on logs or rocks, or lying upon the ground. Not fauns nor satyrs; not Bacchus come again with all his giddy rout. Only the malcontents because of the bonded still. “Hy’re, Mink!” exclaimed Jerry Price. “We fund the jug hyar ’cordin’ ter promise, hid in a hollow tree.” “I hope,” said Mink with sudden apprehension, as he dismounted, “thar be some lef’ fur me.” “A leetle, I reckon. Hyar, Mink, wet yer whistle.” Mink sat down on the roots of a tree draped from its summit to its lowest bough with the rank luxuriance of a wild grapevine. The pendent ends swayed in the wind. The dew was upon the bunches of green fruit and the delicate tendrils, and the moonlight slanted on them with a glistening sheen. Mink took the jug, which gurgled alluringly. He removed the cob that served as stopper, and smelled it with the circumspect air of those who drink from jugs. Then he turned it up to his mouth. A long bubbling sound, and he put it down with a sigh of satisfaction. “Ye don’t ’pear ez riled ez ye did when ye rid out’n Piomingo Cove,” suggested Pete Rood. He had a swaggering, triumphant manner, although he was lying on the ground. Mink, leaning back against the bole of the tree, the moonlight full on his wild dark eyes, his clear-cut face, and tousled hair, gave no sign of anger or even of attention. “Whar hev ye been all this time?” asked Jerry Price. “Waal,” said Mink leisurely, “ye know that thar coon ez Tad gin me,—I won it at ‘five corn:’ arter I hed rid out’n Piomingo Cove an’ hed started up the mounting, I hearn suthin’ yappin’ arter me, an’ thar war Tad a-fetchin’ his coon. That thar idjit hed run mighty nigh three miles ter fetch me his coon! Waal, I hedn’t no ’casion fur a cap, an’ the coon war a powerful peart leetle consarn,—smiled mighty nigh ekal ter a possum,—an’ I ’lowed Elviry Crosby mought set store by sech fur a pet, an’ so I rid over thar an’ gin the coon ter her. She war mos’ pleased ter death ter git the critter.” “Ye ain’t been thar ever sence!” exclaimed Jerry. “Yes,” said Mink demurely. “I bided ter supper along of ’em,—the old folks bein’ powerful perlite an’ gin me an invite.”