Could it be possible, he argued within himself, that to the agency of "revenuers" was due that mysterious glow, more brilliant than any ordinary fire, steady, suffusive, continuous, rising in the dark wilderness, in the deep midnight, to reveal that ominous face overlooking all the countryside, with subtle flickers of laughter running athwart its wonted contortions, more weird and sinister in this ghastly glare than by day? And what significance might attend these strange machinations? Revolving the idea, he presently shook his head in conclusive negation as he rode along. The approach of raiders was silent and noiseless and secret. Whatever the mystery might portend it was not thus that they would advertise their presence, promoting the escape of the objects of their search. Hite's open and candid mind could compass no adequate motive for concealment in all the ways of the world but the desire to evade the revenue law, or to practice the shifts and quirks necessary to the capture of the wary and elusive moonshiner. Nevertheless, it was impossible, on either of these obvious bases, to account for the fact of something withheld in the stranger's manner, some secret exultant knowledge of the phenomenon which baffled the mountaineer's speculation. Hite, all unaware that in his impulsive speech he had disclosed the fact of his hazardous occupation, began to feel that, considering his liability to the Federal law for making brush whiskey, he had somewhat transcended the limit of his wonted hardihood in so long bearing this stranger company along the tangled ways of the herder's trail through the wilderness. "He _mought_ be a revenuer arter all, an' know all about me. The rest o' the raiders mought be a-waitin' an' a-layin' fur me at enny turn," he reflected. "Leastwise he knows a deal more'n he's a-goin' ter tell." He drew up his horse as they neared an open bluff where the beetling rocks jutted out like a promontory above the sea of foliage below. They might judge of the long curvature of the conformation of the range just here, for on the opposite height was visible at intervals the road they had traveled, winding in and out among the trees, ascending the mountain in serpentine coils; they beheld the Cove beneath from a new angle, and further yet the barren cherty slope on which, despite the distance, the witch-face could still be discerned by eyes practiced in marking its lineaments, trained to trace the popular fantasy. The stranger caught sight of it at the same moment that Hite lifted his hand toward it. "Thar it is!" Hite exclaimed, "fur all the Cove's a shadder, an' fur all the wind's a breath." For clouds had thickened over the sky, and much of the world was gray beneath, and the scene had dulled in tint and spirit since last they had had some large outlook upon it. Only on the slopes toward the east did the sunshine rest, and in the midst of a sterile, barren slant it flickered on that semblance of ill omen.