"In that case," declared Henderson, assuming the rôle of spokesman, "we'll both go with you to the jail. Bear Cat will give me the gun, since he can't go in unsearched, and you will remain with me, unarmed, as a hostage until he comes out." "Thet satisfies me, all right," readily agreed the town marshal. The jail-house at Marlin Town squats low of roof and uncompromising in its squareness to the left of the Courthouse; hardly more than a brick pen, sturdily solid and sullenly unlovely of façade. When father and son met in the bare room where one rude chair was the only furnishing save for a tin basin on a soap-box, the fire of renewed wrath leaped in Turner's eyes and he spoke with a tremor of voice: "I reckon ye knows full well, pap, thet I don't aim ter let ye lay hyar long. I aims ter tek ye outen hyar afore sun-up--ef I hes ter take ye single-handed!" The sunset was fading and in the bleak cell there was a grayness relieved only by the dim light from a high, barred slit that served as a window. The two men had to peer intently at each other through widened pupils to read the expression of lips and eyes. Old Lone Stacy smiled grimly. "I'm obleeged ter ye, son." His response was quiet. "An' I knows ye means what ye says, but jest now ye've got ter let _me_ decide whether hit's a fit time ter wage war--or submit." "Submit!" echoed the son in blank amazement. "Ye don't aim ter let 'em penitenshery ye ergin, does ye?" Laying a soothing hand on the arm that shook passionately, the senior went on in a modulated voice. "I've done studied this matter out, son, more ca'mly then you've hed time ter do yit--an' I discerns how ye kin holp me best. Sometimes hit profits a man more ter study ther fox then ther eagle." The boy stood there in the half light, finding it bitter to stomach such passive counsel, but he gulped down his rising gorge of fury and forced himself to acquiesce calmly, "I'm hearkenin' ter ye." "Ther revenue 'lowed thet he war plumb obleeged ter jail me," went on the elder moonshiner evenly, "because tidin's hes done reached ther men up above him." "I aims ter compel Mark Tapper ter give me ther names of them damn' tale-bearers," exploded Bear Cat violently, "an' I'm a-goin' ter settle with him an' them, too, in due course." But again Lone Stacy shook his head. "Thet would only bring on more trouble," he declared steadfastly. "Mark Tapper made admission thet he hes a weak case, an' he said thet ef I went with him peaceable he wouldn't press hit no further then what he war compelled ter. He 'lowed he hedn't no evi_dence_ erginst _you_. I don't believe he's seed our still yit an' ef ye heeds my counsel, he won't never see hit." "What does ye counsel then? I'm a-listenin'."