“Let’s follow it and see if we can find that hut in the wood,” said Dick. “I’ll never believe you weren’t dreaming, unless we do.”
“All right,” said Anne with an inward tremor, “but we must be very careful.”
“Let me go ahead,” urged Dick.
They climbed the steep path which soon plunged into thick woods, as Anne remembered, broad and easy to follow. “Looks as if it was used pretty often,” observed Dick. Then Anne pulled him by the sleeve. “There’s the hut!” she whispered, pointing. “You don’t see it till you are almost on it. I told you so.”
There was no smoke coming out of the window now, but Dick motioned her to be cautious. They crouched low in the bushes and kept still for several minutes. There was not a sound about the place. The door was closed and the litter outside was cleared away. It looked indeed like the deserted cabin the tall stranger had called it. But was it “haunted”?
“I’m going to peek in at the window,” whispered Dick. Anne followed him, crawling on hands and knees. Cautiously they raised themselves and looked in. The hut was empty of persons, but full of a disarray of things. The one dirty window gave little light, but they gradually made out the strange, untidy details. In the wall were two bunks for sleeping. At one side stood a small stove, the pipe going up through the roof. A rifle hung on a bracket of deer antlers. The skin of a deer hung on a chair back. Dirty plates and knives and tumblers were scattered over the table. The rest of the room was filled with a mess of jugs and bottles, kegs and kettles—the strange outfit of some trade which the girl did not recognize.
“Moonshiners!” whispered Dick excitedly. Beverly would have known what he meant, for there has always been this lawless business in the southern mountains.
“What are Moonshiners, Dick?” asked Anne, shivering at his tone.
“Why, they make liquor in secret and sell it in secret. It’s against the law,” said Dick.
“How awful! And he dared call my father a Scalawag!” thought Anne indignantly. But it did not matter now. You couldn’t take the word of a lawbreaker about anything.