Again Phin Dady asked a series of questions which would indicate that he was at least interested in all Thad told him, though possibly he believed only a small part of the whole.
When Thad repeated to him the twelve cardinal features of a Boy Scout's vow, taken when he joined a troop, Phin shook his head helplessly, as though it were beyond his power of understanding. Indeed, that was where the trouble lay; he possessed so shallow a nature that he was utterly unable to grasp the full significance of the scheme. There must be some sort of recompense, in dollars and cents, to make it worth while for any person to do things that called for labor. And that was why he continued to keep his weapon across his knees as he sat and listened, and asked an occasional question. Phin Dady was not going to be lulled to sleep by any interesting yarn that sounded very "fishy" in his ears.
Of course, the other scouts had discreetly remained silent while all this was going on. They were content to let Thad do the talking, for none of them could equal the patrol leader in explaining what the benefits were, which boys might expect to obtain when they joined a scout patrol.
Several of them just sat there, and stared in open-mouthed wonder at the man, of whom they had heard more or less lately, and whose defiance of the authorities had been a matter of many years' standing.
Phin Dady might boast of no education whatever; and his knowledge of the world, outside the confines of the Big Smokies, was doubtless extremely limited; but he did possess what served him far better in the warfare in which he was continually engaged with revenue agents—a natural shrewdness such as the wily fox of the forest shows, and by means of which he outwits his pursuers.
"An' yuh kim 'way down this away jest tuh climb the mountings, an' see wot yuh cud do acampin' out without ary tents er blankets, did yuh?" the mountaineer went on, surveying the boyish faces that formed a half circle around him. "Wall, I jest reckons ye'll know a heap more by ther time ye gits back ter yer homes'n yuh did w'en yuh started out."
He chuckled as he said that. Thad wondered whether there could be any hidden meaning back of the words. When dealing with such a slippery customer as this hunted moonshiner, it was always necessary to keep on the watch. The man who always suspected others of double dealing might be in the same class himself.
"Oh! we're quite sure of that," said the patrol leader, with a pleasant smile. "Already those among us who had never climbed a mountain slope before, have had their leg muscles stiffened, and can do better work than in the start. We expect to have a pretty good time all around. And we wrote you that message, Phin Dady, because we believed you were ordering us out of these mountains under a mistake that we meant to do you, or some of your friends, harm. We want you to feel that we never dreamed of that when we started in here."
"Then I hopes as how yuh beant changin' o' yer minds sence yuh kim," remarked the moonshiner, just as though he knew what the subject of their recent conversations might have been.
Before Thad could decide just what sort of an answer he ought to make, if any at all, the manner of the other changed as if by magic. His face took on a fierce expression, and he looked along the row of boyish faces by which he was confronted, as though one of them had done something to arouse his hot anger.