“And you might as well be dead as to be caught here,” Hopwood retorted. “Did Foster see you? I just met him coming out and he was crazy drunk.”
“Not quite,” Scott replied with a nervous laugh, “but I thought so for a minute when I saw you,” and he explained to Hopwood what a narrow escape he had had, and how he was trying to find out whether there really was any one else in the cabin.
“You should have asked me to bring you here,” Hopwood scolded. “Then you would not have run such a risk.”
“I’ll let somebody bring me next time,” Scott answered with a grin. “I have done about all the exploring I want to do around here alone.”
He had completely recovered now, and he got up to have a peek into the cabin. So strong had been his impression that there was somebody in there that he now peeped cautiously around the corner of the doorframe. The little mouse scurried across a rafter and down the opposite wall. There was no other sign of life.
In the center of the opposite wall of the cabin was a crude clay fireplace and in it there was a large copper retort shaped like an immense pear. From the top of it a long goose-neck extended far out into the room. Three barrels were sitting along the wall at the end of the cabin. In another barrel, on which there was a tin lid, there was a sack of corn.
Scott looked the things over curiously. It was the first moonshine outfit he had ever seen. When his curiosity was satisfied he turned suddenly to Hopwood. “Will you swear that Foster Wait runs this thing?” he asked.
Hopwood started at the question. “Why?” he asked in some confusion. “What are you going to do?”
Scott thought that he had asked too much of Hopwood in asking him to give evidence against his relative, much as he knew he hated him. But it was too late to back out now.
“Because I am going to get the United States marshal and have him arrested,” Scott answered doggedly.