"I know'd in reason ye'd be down when they came any trouble at the still," he commented. "Hit always affects yo' health thataway; but I didn't know Iley had seed reason to dig ye out. What you goin' to do about Bonbright, Unc' Jep--stand in with him?" "Well--you _air_ a fool," observed the old man meditatively. "Who named standin' in with Bonbright, or standin' out agin' him? When I rented you my farm for five year I had no thought of yo' starting up that pesky ol' still on it. But I never was knowed to rue a trade. My daddy taught me when I made a bad bargain to freeze the tighter to it, and I've no mind to do other." "They'd been a still thar," said Blatch defensively. The old man nodded. "Oh, yes," he agreed. "Hit had been,--I put it thar. I've made many a run of whiskey in my young days--and I've seed the folly of it. I reckon you fool boys'll have to see the folly of it too befo' yo've got yo' satisfy. As for Creed Bonbright, he 'pears to think that if we have plenty of law in the Turkey Tracks we'll all go to heaven in a hand-basket. Mebbe he's right, and then agin mebbe he's wrong; but this I know, ain't anybody goin' to jump on him in my house, and he gets a fair show when fightin' time comes." "Well, if he ain't standin' in with the marshal, what does he--" began Andy's high-pitched boyish voice, when somebody called, "Good evening," in pleasant tones, and Bonbright himself got off a light-stepping mule, tethered him to the fence, and came toward the cabin. He had just returned from a meeting of the County Court at Hepzibah, where he did good service in representing the needs of his district, fighting hard for more money for schools--the plan heretofore had been to let them have only their own pro rata of the school tax. "It'll pay you a heap better to educate the mountain people than to hire their keep in jail," he said to his fellow justices of the valley. "The blue-backed speller is the best cure for crime in the mountains that I know of." He failed to get this; but he succeeded in another matter, one less near his heart, but calculated to appeal perhaps more strongly to his constituents; he secured the opening of a highway for which the people in the two Turkey Tracks had struggled and prayed more than twenty years. It was with the pride of this victory strong in him that he had set out for Judith's play-party. The young fellow might have been pardoned a half wistful belief that this first success was the entering wedge and would lead swiftly to that standing with his neighbours lacking which he was helpless. Yet the sons of the house replied but gruffly to his greeting, and, as though his coming had been a signal, the younger group promptly disappeared in the direction of the main cabin. At the old man's hearty invitation, Creed seated himself on the doorstep, while his host went in for a coal from the smouldering hearth to light his pipe, and joined the guest a moment later.