“I wanted ter say a word ter ye,” he continued, still more ill at ease because of her silence. “I seen ye comin’ along o’ all them chill’n,” nodding at Leonidas and Lucinda, who seemed to deserve being accounted more numerous than they were, having engaged in a wordy altercation over the bars; the little fellow dragging them off to some special spot which he had chosen, of occult advantage, while the girl, older and wiser, insisted that they should lie handy where they were. Only Tige listened to the conversation, slowly wagging his tail. “I ’lowed I couldn’t talk ter ye ’thout bein’ hendered, but I reckon I’ll try. I’m kin ter ye,—that be a true word. An’ I’m moonshinin’. Ye ain’t tole nobody ’bout seein’ me an’ the jug thar in Boke’s barn?” He fixed his eyes, eager with the query, upon her face. She slowly shook her head in negation. “An’ ye won’t, eh?” He smiled beguilingly, showing his long, tobacco-stained teeth. “Ef nobody axes me.” His countenance fell suddenly. “Look-a-hyar, Lethe Sayles, don’t ye fool with me, a-doublin’ on yer words like a fox on his tracks,” he said roughly. Then, more temperately, “I’m afeard o’ that very thing,—ef somebody axes ye.” “’Tain’t likely,” said Alethea. “I dunno,” he insisted, wagging his big head in doubtful pantomime. “I want ye ter ’low ye won’t tell.” “I don’t b’lieve in sech ez moonshinin’ an’ drinkin’ liquor.” “What fur?” he demanded, with an air of being ready for argument. “’Tain’t religion.” “Shucks!” exclaimed Sam Marvin contemptuously. “D’ ye reckon ef ’twarn’t religion I’d plant corn an’ raise my own damnation, an’ sit an’ bile wrath, an’ still fury, an’ yearn Torment, by sech? Naw, sir! Ye oughter go hear the rider read the Bible: every one o’ them disciples drunk low wines in them days, an’ hed it at weddin’s an’ sech; the low wines is on every page.” Alethea was for a moment overborne by this argument. Then, “’Tain’t right,” persisted the zealot of Wild-Cat Hollow. “Will ye listen at the gal!” he exclaimed, in angry apostrophe. But controlling himself, he added quietly, “Ye let older heads ’n yourn jedge, Lethe. Yer brains ain’t ripened yit, an’ livin’ off in Wild-Cat Hollow ye ain’t hed much chance ter see an’ l’arn. Yer elders knows bes’. That’s what the Bible says.” Down the shadowy vista of the path on the opposite side of the stream the long horns and slowly nodding heads of the cows appeared. The little calf frisked with nimble joy on legs that seemed hardly bovine in their agility. Lucinda ran to bring the pail of bran, and Leonidas produced a handful of salt in a small gourd. The moonshiner saw that his time was short. “What ails ye, ter think ’tain’t right, Lethe?” he asked. “Look how good-fur-nuthin’ it makes Jacob Jessup, an’—an’ Mink Lorey, an’ all them boys in Piomingo Cove.”