This very night we see him slowly climbing up the mountainside towards his home. The eye follows him through the twilight as he slowly ascends. But before the eye can wink again, he quickly turns to the left and is lost in the woods. No human eye sees him as he emerges from between two huge boulders just under the dome of the mighty Snake, and drops down into the little cove by the still. He begins his operations for the night, moving about with apparent ease. Removing the burlap covering from the still and brushing aside the dead leaves which had been spread in heaps over the coverings as a blind, he proceeded to build a fire under the copper boiler with great satisfaction.

“Pale moon tonight,” he drawled out as he walked over to his gun, and again examining the magazine before replacing it against the oak. Taking a small keg from the hollow of a moss-covered log, he pulled out the corncob stopper, placed in the hole a funnel filled with charcoal, and put it in place under the end of the worm. Hours dragged slowly away as the still boiled. Old Jase sat at the base of a giant oak, with his gun across his lap, staring into the furnace of fire, thinking, reflecting. Just now he was reviewing some of the grewsome scenes of the past that he knew so well. Yes, there was the first hold-up that Lucky Joe and he had ever made. It was the stage filled with summer guests for Blowing Rock. How clear tonight is the voice of the lady from Pennsylvania still ringing in his ears, as she begged and pleaded with him—but he struck her down with the others. Then the bullet that went through his leg! Drawing up his leg he put his hand on the scar for the thousandth time as he growled out:

“Not well yit. Never has healed up jist right, noway. Mighty sore and tender yit fur twenty year healin’”—then he went on with his thoughts.

It was old Jase in the first place that had suggested to Lucky Joe that they engage in the hazardous business of moonshining whiskey. It was old Jase who laid the plan for the hold-up of the stage. In fact, his cunning brain had laid the plans for all the heinous crimes that had been attributed to the Blood Camp folks. Yet the fingers of the law had failed to apprehend him and take hold upon him.

“Oh, well,” he said, pulling himself up with the aid of his gun and peering about, “Joe’s gone. The ol’ woman’s gone. Them dang boys is gone, an’ I’m mighty glad they aire. Nobody left to do nothin’ but me. I’m agettin’ too ol’ to steal corn an’ pack up this mountain to this still. I guess thet I’ll have to quit—still’en.” He stood by the little furnace and looked long into the dying fire, then continued, “Ef thet Genie wern’t agettin almost too big to manage in a bizness like still’en, I’d make her keep the fire agoin’ under this still every night while I kept the watch. Ef she wuz jist a leetle younger, ef she wuz jist a leetle younger! Well, she’s mine by law, an’ I’ll make’er do it yit. She’s got to do as I say—I’ll mak’er do it yit!”

He went to the side of the big oak, made a hasty observation and saw that a new day was now at hand. He hurriedly threw a little damp earth into the furnace to make sure that the fire would go out, replaced the coverings on the still, returned the keg to its place in the hollow log, and made for home.

CHAPTER III
The Gathering Clouds

Immediately after the burial of Lucky Joe, Paul Waffington had seized the opportunity, when all Blood Camp was seriously reflecting upon the frailties of human life, and organized a Sunday-school in the little school-house. The superintendent, Miss Emeline Hobbs, had promised to faithfully stand by the little school and keep the spark of life going until the end of the year, when Paul Waffington had promised to return.

Miss Emeline Hobbs was rather large, with stringy red hair and possessed a deep bass voice. She had been born a cripple and walked on a wooden peg. But a kinder or better human heart never beat than her’s. During the long winter and throughout the hot summer she, with a few others, had kept the spark of life going in the little school. Each Sunday morning she went to the little school-house, arranged the three classes, balanced herself on the wooden peg and proceeded in a profound way to explain and “teach the Scriptures as I understand them” to the little band.

Aside from the Sunday-school, there had been but one other new thing that stirred Blood Camp during the year, and that was the coming of the old fiddler. Yes, he came. It was just about the middle of the summer, or “corn-hoeing time,” as Fen Green would say, that the old fiddler came. Nobody seemed to know whence he came nor did anybody care, so long as he would be sociable with the “boys” and play “Old Dan Tucker,” “Shortening in the Bread,” “Cripple Creek,” “Eliza Jane,” “Shady Grove” and a half score of other similar tunes. He had told the people at the store that his name was Bull Jones, and that he was an old worn-out man—an old member of a marine band, and that he had once had a brown stone front in the greatest city of the world. But, ah, temptation had come, and nothing was left but his dear old fiddle. He said that his home was now wherever his hat was on his head. This was too much for the fathers of Blood Camp, and with no further investigation they took him in to their homes. He was the center of attraction at the store. Hours at a time he sat on a coffee bag in the store playing the tunes as called for by the boys.