"There were threats made, suh, to that effect; and my father moved his family to Asheville to feel that we would be all safe. Then there came a dreadful day for us, when my father never came back, after he had gone into these mountains to arrest another batch of moonshiners, whose Still had been located. One of the men who had accompanied him told us he had seen him shot down. They were surrounded by bushwhackers, and the rifles were popping all about, so they had to leave him there. He was surely dead, they claimed, before they fled from the spot, and of course, suh, they could not burden themselves with his body."
Again Bob White paused to gulp down the obstacle in his throat.
"Now, you are wondering, suh, how it happened that when we came to Cranford there was a gentleman with us who was called Mr. Quail, and supposed to be my father. That was my father's twin brother, living in Philadelphia. He kindly offered to stay with my mother, who never goes out at all, until we became settled. Her mother, my grandmother, had left me a heap of stock in the bank and mills of Cranford; and as it was very unpleasant for my mother down this aways, after father went, she had determined to locate up yondah."
"And does she know about you coming down here?" asked Thad, suspiciously, as if he feared that the other might have deceived the only parent he had left; this bringing a tragedy of the grim mountains so close home to them had given the scout leader considerable of a thrill, for after all, despite his courage and grit, Thad was only a boy.
Bob drew himself up proudly, and his black eyes flashed.
"I would sooner cut off my right hand, suh, than deceive my mother," he said. "And, so you may understand the whole thing, I must tell you what a strange longin' I've been hugging to my heart these two years back. It is this. What if, after all, my father was not dead at the time his men saw him fall; what if these moonshiners have kept him a prisoner somewhere in these mountains all this while, meanin' to punish him because he had given them all so much trouble!"
"That's a stunning shock you've given me, Bob," said Thad, drawing a long breath; "but see here, is it just a wild wish to have it so; or have you any reason to believe such a thing; any foundation for the theory, in fact?"
"I'll tell you, suh," Bob went on, feverishly. "A man came to me one day, and said he had been sent by one of the revenues who had been with my father that sad time, to tell me what he had picked up in the mountains. There were rumors going around that somewhere deep in the mountains, at one of the secret Stills, the moonshiners kept a prisoner at work. Some said it must be one of the revenue men who had disappeared; and that the moonshiners were bent on making him work up the mash, as a sort of punishment for having done them so much damage when he was in the employ of the Government."
"I see; and of course you jumped to the conclusion that it might be your own father, alive and well, though held a prisoner of the moonshiners?"
"Both my mother and myself believed there might be just a little chance that way. She was in bad health, and put it all in my hands. We have never said a word about it to anybody in Cranford. While I have been going to school with the rest of the boys in Cranford, all the time I was in correspondence with one of the Government revenue agents, and paying him to be on the constant watch for any positive signs. He died six months ago, and just when he had begun to think he was getting on a warm scent."