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He 'peared a powerful book-l'arned man, like no revenuer ever I see." "Where did you part company?"
He went obediently, but slowly and unhappily, his rifle snuggling in the crook of his left elbow, his heavy boots finding firm footing in the rough and rocky trail as if by instinct of their own, without assistance from his brain. A "revenuer," coming up, just then, to bother him about his still and its unlawful product of raw whisky, would have met small mercy at his hands.
The reason to Wyatt, familiar with the moonshiners' methods and habits of thought, was only too plain. They intended that the "revenuer" should never go forth to tell the tale. His comrades had evidently failed to follow his trail, either losing it in the wilderness or from ignorance of his intention.
He says some thinks the moonshiners have taken him in mistake for a revenuer; and some believe it was robbery for his watch and money; and Mr. Hardwick is blaming it on the Groner crowd that raised up such a fuss when Lura Dawson died in the hospital here. Gid says they've searched every ridge and valley this side of Big Unaka. He Johnnie, he says he believes Mr. Stoddard suicided."
All the rocks had a thought for the stranger, close to his heart and quick on his tongue, and as Hite, half skeptical, half beguiled, listened, his suspicion of the man as a "revenuer" began to fade. "The revenuers ain't up ter no sech l'arnin' ez this," he said to himself, with a vicarious pride.
"I thought that sort of thing had ceased to exist, even in these wild mountains," and he nodded toward the distillery. "I allows thet yo' hev er habit of thinkin' wrong," was the surly response. "You haint no doctor man. Thet's er blind. Yo' be er revenuer, I reckon, an' es sich I've got ter put er bullet inter ye."
"You oughter hev made sure afore ye teched the trigger, Copenny, that he war the revenuer!" cried the young fellow, Alvin Holvey, with a sudden burst of petulance, despite the tragic realization expressed in his quivering face. "Ye're sech a dead shot that ye could hev spared a minute ter make sure of the revenuer, afore he could hev pulled a shooting-iron."
The shadowy form of the doubter who had introduced the subject, thick-set, stoop-shouldered, showed in its attitude that he was lowering and ill at ease. "Waal, you-uns hev made a powerful botch of the simple little trick of drawing a bead on a revenuer anyhow. Takin' one man fur another I never dreamed o' the beat! Copenny war so sure o' the man an' the mare! I never purtended to know either.
"We couldn't dig a grave before that spy ef he be a revenuer sure enough could overhaul us," Eugene Barker objected. "We could turn the yearth right smart, though," persisted Wyatt, for pickax and shovel had been brought in the wagon for the sake of an aspect of verisimilitude and to mask their true intent. Eugene Barker acceded to this view. "That's the dinctum dig a few jes fer a blind.
Had any human possibility of a break for freedom presented itself he would have embraced it, but the three guns had the look of business and the three faces back of them were flinty with purpose. As the locks snapped into the grooves of the bracelets the telegrapher commented in sardonic afterthought. "Ther revenuer fergot ter leave ther key.
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