"Howdy, Leander," accosted the girl. "How's all your folks?"
Leander White, of Crowfoot Branch, aged fifteen, gulped twice with prodigious and spasmodic play of his adam's apple, before he eventually commanded voice to reply:
"They're all well.... I'm obleeged ... ter ye." Then, however, reassured by the cordial smile on the lips of Blossom Fulkerson, his power of speech and his hunger for gossip returned to him in unison.
"But old Aunt Lucy Hutton, over acrost ther branch, she fell down yistiddy an' broke a bone inside of her, though."
"Did she?" demanded the girl, readily sympathetic, and Leander, thus given sanction as a purveyor of tidings, nodded and gathered confidence. "Huh-huh, an' Revenuers raided Joe Simmons's still-house on ther headwaters of Skinflint an' cyarried off a beautiful piece o' copper—atter they'd punched hit full o' holes."
"Revenuers!" Into the girl's voice now came a note of anxiety.
"Huh-huh, revenuers. Folks says they're gittin' bodaciously pesky these days."
"Ye ain't—ye ain't seen none of 'em yourself, have ye, Leander?" The question came a bit breathlessly and the boy forgot his bashfulness as he expanded with the importance of his traveler's tales.
"Not to know 'em fer sich," he admitted, "but I met up with a furriner a few leagues back along ther highway. He was broguein' along mighty brash on his own two feet. La! But he was an elegant party ter be a-ridin' on shoe-leather, though!"
"What manner of furriner was he, Leander?" demanded Blossom with a clutch of fright at her heart, but the boy shook his head stupidly.