United States or Antigua and Barbuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He's enough likelier ter hev bed suthin' ter do with the suddint takin' off o' the feller than Con Hite." Her face was suddenly aghast. "Who says Con Hite Why?" She paused, her voice failing. "Waal, ye know Con be a-moonshinin' again, an' some 'lows ez this hyar traveler warn't a traveler at all, but a revenuer, strayed off somehows from the rest o' 'em."
Ef Briscoe war minded ter step into Frank Dean's shoes, he hev jes' hed ter take what war savin' up fur the revenuer, that's all!" Once more he relapsed into silent staring at the brink, balked, dumfounded, and amazed. Suddenly he seemed to respond to some inward monition of danger, of responsibility.
Her heart was in her throat from worry, for an instant. Had she, whose very soul was fiercely loyal to the mountains and their people, been the one to show an enemy the way into their citadel? Was he a revenuer in disguise? The magnitude of her possible indiscretion filled her with alarm.
For a moment, even now, she thrilled unpleasantly with a mean suspicion that he might be a "revenuer," after all, and have done the good things he had done as a part of that infernal craft which revenuers sometimes showed when searching for the hidden stills where "moonshine" whisky is illegally produced among the mountains; but she put this thought out of her heart, indignantly, almost as quickly as it came to her.
That is sure the law in Tennessee." "Waal, now, Phineas Copenny, 't warn't right nor fair ter we-uns ter clumsy it up so," protested the young mountaineer. "Ef it hed been the revenuer, I'd hev nare word ter say. I'd smack my lips, fur the deed would taste good ter me, an' I'd stand ter it. But this hyar Mr. Briscoe why, we-uns hev not even got a gredge agin him."
He had told her that he would, if she would marry him; now that she would not, he told her surlily that he would continue to defy the law even if he knew that every "revenuer" in the state was on his trail.
Hit's as fair for one as 'tis for t'other. When a revenuer comes sneakin' around, why, whut he gits, or whut we-uns gits, that's a 'fortune of war, as the old sayin' is." There is no telegraph, wired or wireless, in the mountains, but there is an efficient substitute.
Bayne demanded precipitately, his own breath short, his pulses beating in his temples till the veins seemed near bursting. "I can't rightly say now," the old man drawled; "but but I kin tell you where we-uns lef' him. 'T war a awful bis'ness, that crackin' off Briscoe that warn't in the plan at all. We-uns war after the revenuer.
"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.
"Why, how easy it would hev been ter throw su'thin' over the bluff " the counsellor began. "Good Lord!" Clenk exclaimed angrily, from his seat in the boat, "ain't ye got no human feelin's, Jack Drann? We-uns never went ter shed the innercent blood nohow. We-uns war loaded fur that tricky revenuer, an' Edward Briscoe war kilt by mistake.
Word Of The Day