Lone Stacy nodded his head and spoke with a grim smile. "Seems like I've got ter be eternally blusterin' at him jest ter remind myself thet I'm ther head of this fam'ly. Ef I didn't fo'ce myself ter git mad, I'd be actin' like he was my daddy instid of me bein' his'n."
CHAPTER II
T he afternoon was half spent and the sun, making its way toward the purpled ridges of the west, was already casting long shadows athwart the valleys. Along a trail which wound itself in many tortuous twists across forested heights and dipped down to lose itself at intervals in the creek bed of Little Slippery, a mounted traveler rode at a snail-like pace. The horse was a lean brute through whose rusty coat the ribs showed in under-nourished prominence, but it went sure-footedly up and down broken stairways of slimy ledges where tiny waterfalls licked at its fetlocks and along the brinks of chasms where the sand shelved with treacherous looseness.
The rider, a man weather-rusted to a drab monotone, slouched in his saddle with an apathetic droop which was almost stupor, permitting his reins to flap loosely. His face, under an unclean bristle of beard, wore a sleepy sneer and his eyes were bloodshot from white whiskey.
As he rode, unseeing, through the magnificent beauty of the Cumberlands his glance was sluggish and his face emotionless. But at last the horse halted where a spring came with a crystal gush out of the rhododendron thickets, and then Ratler Webb's stupefaction yielded to a semi-wakefulness of interest. He rubbed a shoddy coat-sleeve across his eyes and straightened his stooped shoulders. The old horse had thrust his nose thirstily into the basin with evident eagerness to drink. Yet, after splashing his muzzle about for a moment he refused refreshment and jerked his head up with a snort of disgust. A leering smile parted the man's lips over his yellow and uneven teeth:
"So ye won't partake of hit, old Bag-o'-bones, won't ye?" he inquired ironically. "Ye hain't nobody's brag critter to look at, but I reckon some revenue fellers mought be willin' to pay a master price fer ye. Ye kin stand at ther mouth of a spring-branch an' smell a still-house cl'ar up on hits headwaters, kain't ye?"
For a while Webb suffered the tired horse to stand panting in the creek bed, while his own eyes, lit now with a crafty livening, traveled up the hillside impenetrably masked with verdure, where all was silence. Somewhere up along the watercourse was the mash-vat and coil which had contaminated this basin for his mount's brute fastidiousness: an illicit distillery. This man clad in rusty store clothes was not inspired with a crusading ardor for supporting the law. He lived among men whose community opinion condones certain offenses—and pillories the tale-bearer. But above the ethical bearing of local standards and Federal Statutes, alike, loomed a matter of personal hatred, which powerfully stimulated his curiosity. He raised one hand and thoughtfully stroked his nose—recently broken with workman-like thoroughness and reset with amateurish imperfection.
"Damn thet Bear Cat Stacy," he muttered, as he kicked his weary mount into jogging motion. "I reckon I'll hev my chance at him yit. I'm jest a-waitin' fer hit."
A half-mile further on, he suddenly drew rein and remained in an attitude of alert listening. Then slipping quietly to the ground, he hitched his horse in the concealment of a deep gulch and melted out of sight into the thicket. Soon he sat crouched on his heels, invisible in the tangled laurel. His place of vantage overlooked a foot-path so little traveled as to be hardly discernible, but shortly a figure came into view around a hulking head of rock, and Ratler Webb's smile broadened to a grin of satisfaction. The figure was tall and spare and it stooped as it plodded up the ascent under the weight of a heavy sack upon its shoulders. The observer did not move or make a sound until the other man had been for several minutes out of sight. He was engaged in reflection.
"So, thet's how ther land lays," he ruminated. "Bear Cat Stacy's totin' thet gryste over to Bud Jason's tub-mill on Little Ivy despite ther fact thet thar's numerous bigger mills nigher to his house. Thet sack's full of sprouted corn, and he dasn't turn it in at no reg'lar mill. Them Stacys air jest about blockadin' up thet spring-branch."