With a leap that sounded crashingly in the dead bushes Turner catapulted himself into the lighted area, and as the moonshiner wheeled, his hand going instinctively out toward his weapon, he found himself covered from a distance of two yards. "Hands overhead!--an' no noise," came the sharp warning, and had he been inclined to disobey the words there was an avid glitter in the eyes of the sudden visitor discouraging to argument. "Lay down betwixt them two saplin's thar," was the next order, and foaming with futile rage, Jake glanced about wildly--and discreetly did as he was told. Ten minutes later Turner rose from his knees, leaving behind him a man gagged and staked out, Indian fashion, with feet harnessed to one tree-trunk and hands to another. Lying mute and harrowed with chagrin, he saw his copper coil battered into shapelessness and his mash vat emptied upon the ground. Then he saw Bear Cat Stacy disappear into the shadows, trophy-laden. Dawn was near once more before Turner reached the Quarterhouse, and from the hitching-rack the last mount had been ridden away. Before him, still muffled against outcry, plodded Black Carmichael, seething with a fury which would ride him like a mania until he had avenged his indignities--but for the moment he was inoffensive. At the place where the gray horse had been tethered, Turner lashed the rider. Above his head to an over-arching sycamore branch, he swung a maltreated coil of copper tubing. Then he turned, somewhat wearied and aching of muscle, into the timber again. "I reckon now," he said to himself, "I kin go over thar an' lay down." CHAPTER XXI Three times along the way, as the new crusader trudged on to Dog Tate's cabin, the late-setting moon glinted on queerly twisted things suspended from road-side trees--things unlike the fruit of either hickory or poplar. A grim satisfaction enlivened his tired eyes, but it lingered only for a moment. Before them rose the picture of a girl sitting stricken by a bedside, and his brows contracted painfully with the memory. From the window of Tate's cabin came a faint gleam of light, and, as he drew cautiously near, a figure rose wearily from the dark doorstep. "I've been settin' up fer ye," announced Dog. "I mistrusted ye'd done met with mishap." Inside the cabin crowded with sleeping and snoring figures, the host pointed to a loft under the shingles. "Ye'll hev ter bed in up thar," he said. "Don't come down ter-morrer twell I gives ye ther word. Right likely thar'll be folks abroad sarchin' fer ye. Me an' Joe aims ter blackguard ye no end fer bustin' up our still." "Thet's what I 'lowed ter caution ye ter do," acquiesced Turner. "All I'm askin' now air a few hours of slumber." He climbed the ladder with heavy limbs, and, falling on the floor among its litter of household effects, was instantly asleep. * * * * *