"Of course, there's been a whole lot in the papers since the Thirst of July about people having private stills in their cellars, making drinks with a kick out of grape juice and a piece of yeast, and all that sort of thing. One concern in Pittsburgh, I understand, has also noted a tremendous and absolutely abnormal increase in the demand for its hot-water heating plants--the copper coils of which make an ideal substitute for a still--but I doubt very much if there's going to be a real movement in the direction of the private manufacture of alcoholic beverages. The Internal Revenue Department is too infernally watchful and its agents too efficient for much of that to get by. "When you get right down to it, there's no section in the country where the art of making 'licker' flourishes to such an extent as it does in eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. Moonshine there is not only a recognized article of trade, but its manufacture is looked upon as an inalienable right. It's tough sledding for any revenue officer who isn't mighty quick on the trigger, and even then--as Jimmy Reynolds discovered a few years back--they're likely to get him unless he mixes brains with his shooting ability." * * * * * Reynolds [continued Quinn, easing his injured leg into a more comfortable position] was as valuable a man as any whose name ever appeared in the Government Blue Book. He's left the bureau now and settled down to a life of comparative ease as assistant district attorney of some middle Western city. I've forgotten which one, but there was a good reason for his not caring to remain in the East. The climate west of the Mississippi is far more healthy for Jimmy these days. At the time of the Stiles case Jim was about twenty-nine, straight as an arrow, and with a bulldog tenacity that just wouldn't permit of his letting go of a problem until the solution was filed in the official pigeonholes which answer to the names of archives. It was this trait which led Chambers, then Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to send for him, after receipt of a message that two of his best men--Douglas and Wood, I think their names were--had been brought back to Maymead, Tennessee, with bullet holes neatly drilled through their hearts. "Jim," said the Commissioner, "this case has gone just far enough. It's one thing for the mountaineers of Tennessee to make moonshine whisky and defy the laws of the United States. But when they deliberately murder two of my best men and pin a rudely scribbled note to 'Bewair of this country' on the front of their shirts, that's going entirely too far. I'm going to clean out that nest of illicit stills if it takes the rest of my natural life and every man in the bureau! "More than that, I'll demand help from the War Department, if necessary! By Gad! I'll teach 'em!" and the inkwell on the Commissioner's desk leaped into the air as Chambers's fist registered determination.