CHAPTER VIII.
BOB CONFIDES IN THE PATROL LEADER.
"What I want to tell you about is—my father," said Bob, swallowing something that seemed to be sticking in his throat; as though the mere mention of his dead parent had the power to affect him so.
"Yes?" Thad said, encouragingly, wondering at the same time how one who had passed to the other side several years now, could have any sort of connection with the mission of the scouts to this region.
"You'll perhaps understand, suh," continued Bob, getting a firmer grip on himself; "when I mention the fact that my father, for a year or so before he was taken, had filled the office of United States Marshal for this district."
"Oh!" exclaimed Thad, beginning to see light now.
"He was induced to take the office by the President himself, who was a personal friend of my father," the boy went on, proudly; "and having given his word, nothing could make him back out. Up to then we had lived at peace with everybody in these mountains; but of course that was bound to come to an end after he had sworn to do his duty; which was to send out his agents to destroy all the secret Stills, and bring in the law breakers, if they could be found."
"He must soon have had the enmity of Old Phin, and every other moonshiner about the Big Smokies," Thad remarked, the other having paused, as though to give him a chance to express an opinion.
"That is just what happened, suh," Bob went on, hurriedly, as, having broken the ice, he wanted to get through as speedily as possible. "After he had led several successful raids in person, the mountaineers saw that they had a different man to deal with from the other old marshal. They sent him terrible warnings of what was going to happen to him if he kept up his work; but my father was a Quail; and he didn't know the meanin' of the word fear, suh."
"Were you and your mother living near here all that time, Bob?" asked the scoutmaster. "Because, I should have thought she might have been worried for fear some of those desperate men tried to stop your father's work by burning down his home, or doing something like that?"