He stood on his feet. He was still weak and pale and dizzy.
"Heavens! That liquor!" he panted. "What is it? Where did you get it?"
"At home. Old Adam gave me the flask over a year ago. It's only whisky. I always carry a flask for just such an emergency as this. And I never go a step out of the house in the summer without my snakebite kit. Nobody ought to in the West."
He shook his head. "That's not whisky," he said. "I'm not exactly a stranger to the taste of whisky. That's brimstone!"
"I was told it was whisky," she replied. "I know nothing about whisky. I've never even tasted it."
He held the flask to the sun, but it was leather-covered and no light shone through. He unscrewed the metal cap and poured some of the liquor into it.
It was colourless as water.
"Moonshine!" he cried. "And I know now why the flow from my spring was cut off. A still calls for running water!"
"You may be right," she said without excitement. "You will remember that I told you there is another reason besides Selden's covetousness of your grass land why you are wanted out of the Clinker Creek Country."